Change for the Better
Fourth Dimensional identity and you!
Diachronic identity puzzles are among my favorites to deal with in philosophy. They’re one of those philosophical topics that make you wonder what you ever thought before you had encountered them.
What is the problem of identity over time?
If you rebuild a ship, plank by plank, is it the same ship? If you mold a lump of clay into a statue and then back into a lump, does it retain its identity? When your cells replace themselves every seven or so years, as common mythology would hold, are you the same person? If yes, why so? Questions such as these fuel diachronic identity puzzles. They are of course far more complex and nuanced than I’ve made out here, but the simple fact is that none of us are identical at time one (t1) and time two (t2). Even now, reading this, you are forever physicochemically changed as your brain morphs to accommodate reading something new.
Fourth Dimensionalism and Self Empowerment
Fourth Dimensionalist solutions to these problems work by positing that we are extended in time, similarly to how we are in space. A thing maintains its identity simply by preceding and proceeding itself in time. Your arm is not your leg, but both are a part of you. Yourself at t1 and yourself at t2 are not the same, but both are a part of you. Fourth DImensionalism suggests that you are not one self, but an indefinite collection of temporal parts that all fit together like the countless frames in a movie. Their placement in time, not their identicalness in their spatial parts, is what gives them motion, relation, and identity.
More than being an effective solution, this theory gave me a whole new way of thinking about myself. We tend to think of ourselves with solidity: who we are and what we believe. The truth, however, is comically opposite this way of thinking. We are not stubborn to change, we are created by it. Change is as much a part of us as our arms or our legs. It cannot be avoided and it will not be denied.
Many times in my life I’ve felt stuck, even hopeless. There are times I’ve resisted changing my mind or made a mistake I thought I’d never recover from. I’ve dwelled and mulled, seethed and ruminated. Know that no matter the moment, it will pass. Know this not as an empty offering of consoling words. Know it as the deepest functioning of your identity. A new part of you, a new self, will be birthed into the world, capable of forging a better future. You can only ever be a single one of an indefinite number of selves. You are not your past. You are only the briefest moment. Choose something better for that moment. Love yourself now, for you’re the only person you can ever be.