I enjoyed reading through this thread, as it confirmed to me that the two most difficult and vital questions to self-reflect on are:
1. Who are you?
2. What do you want?

Worst case? Truly horrendous. One guy's delusion is that the Jews conspired to thwart his artistic ambition and his nation's aspiration to greatness, so he drags a nation into a disastrous war and genocide... with the resultant creation of a truly problematic new state where all the great global powers are locked in a fifty-year standoff, which eventually explodes in sporadic violence in a number of far-away countries, and a series of small but destructive local wars - all because a nation went went along with, shared in, the delusion.
Another guy's delusion convinced many generations of otherwise decent people that their beloved deity would sentence them to eternal torment for breaking his nonsensical rules.
Most of the time, it's harmless fantasy, with no ramifications. — Vera Mont

I think any problems associated with personal identity or the identifications exclaimed by others, comes from the fact that we don't know where we came from or why we are here.
Even the true history of the situation that Vera refers to above remains unconfirmed.
After reading books like Caesars Messiah by Joseph Atwill and Creating Christ by James S. Valliant, Warren Fahy and looking at some of the stuff offered by Dr Richard Carrier and mythicist groups such as Derek Lamberts Mythvision podcasts. I find much of their evidence quite compelling, that there was no historical Jesus and the vast majority of all religious characters, are based on satire and parodies of real humans, who lived and fought against such rising empires as the Romans.
The trouble has always been that 'the victors write the history.' They also destroy any evidence they come across, that contradicts their story.
So for now, our quests for truths continue, and we will continue to be forced to be suspicious about each other. This will NEVER change, until we find many more truths that we can PROVE, are as close to an objective truth as we are ever going to get. Praying for such truths is pointless, so we only have Science and the musings of philosophy to progress us.

The cart is pulling the horse. — Vera Mont

Indeed it is, and the horse equally, (or a little bit more, hopefully,) is pulling the cart, and the tension of pulling is the relation that makes something of them. I'm waiting for someone who disagrees to tell me something about something that does not relate it to another thing. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'm waiting for someone who disagrees to tell me something about something that does not relate it to another thing. — unenlightened

Everything relates to everything else in some way. Therefore, nothing and nobody has any identity at all; it's just one big jiggly-wobbly mass of vibrating strings.

Really? Is that your best shot? Parody? Never mind then.

Is that your best shot? — unenlightened

I wasted the first two.

I think if you are something you don't need to identify as it.

For example if you are black you are black and you won't become white by identifying as white and vice versa (Rachel Dolezal). The act of identification seems to be an appraisal of the truth of a claim. Am I a man? Yes AM I pianist? Yes

Personal identity probably consists in facts about yourself in one sense or just Personal facts about you such as height, job description, intelligence, preferences.

Self appraisal and the appraisal of others could consist of numerous things but without necessarily carrying truth.

I don't think you can create a true personal identity by wishful thinking or artifice. People might misidentify you if you are a non police officer dressed as a serving officer etc.

Because we consists of a huge range of things including biology, memories, life decisions, life events etc there probably isn't a word or a few words to encapsulate a personal identity. An autobiography might be more accurate.

Here are some suggestions of what we are listed on: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

We are biological organisms (“animalism”: Snowdon 1990, 2014, van Inwagen 1990, Olson 1997, 2003a).

We are material things “constituted by” organisms: a person made of the same matter as a certain animal, but they are different things because what it takes for them to persist is different (Baker 2000, Johnston 2007, Shoemaker 2011).

We are temporal parts of animals: each of us stands to an organism as your childhood stands to your life as a whole (Lewis 1976).

We are spatial parts of animals: brains perhaps (Campbell and McMahan 2010, Parfit 2012), or temporal parts of brains (Hudson 2001, 2007).

We are partless immaterial substances—souls—as Plato, Descartes, and Leibniz thought (see also Unger 2006: ch. 7), or compound things made up of an immaterial soul and a material body (Swinburne 1984: 21).

We are collections of mental states or events: “bundles of perceptions”, as Hume said (1739 [1978: 252]; see also Quinton 1962, Campbell 2006).

There is nothing that we are: we don’t really exist at all (Russell 1985: 50, Wittgenstein 1922: 5.631, Unger 1979, Sider 2013).

My identity is very important -- to me. Important enough that I spend quite a bit of time dithering about it -- privately. No, I have no doubts whatsoever about my past, present, or future sex, gender, or sexual orientation. I know where I come from, though my background is not necessarily consistent with where I find myself today (retired old gay man). I presented myself frankly: what you saw was what you got. — Bitter Crank

This seems true for me.

But could it be illusory?

Are we same person through time or have we changed in many ways without realising it?

I believe I am the same sex and sexual orientation and the same person that went to a particular school decades ago. But I know some of my beliefs and values have changed.

I still have a love of classical music and playing musical instruments and I have always been philosophical. I discovered a love of music of black origin and lost an interest in cookery.

Something persists in me that allows me to know I am the same person over time. It may be a soul or spirit or just a persistence of core memories.

Are we same person through time or have we changed in many ways without realising it? — Andrew4Handel

Something persists in me that allows me to know I am the same person over time. It may be a soul or spirit or just a persistence of core memories. — Andrew4Handel

To start from the position that our personal identity is largely consistent over our life time makes practical sense because we cannot monitor ourselves as objective external observers. We do have some capacity to compare who we seem to be now with who we now think we were 30, 30, 40 years ago. I don't feel disassociated with the past 76 years, so... I suppose I am a lot like the 'me' that I was in 1965 or 1975.

I gain confidence in life-long continuity because we can observe others more objectively as external observers. Other people seem to remain "who they are" -- until they don't. Dementia means a diminution of mind -- a terrible thing to witness first or second hand. People with dementia are NOT the same people they used to be.

Could our sense of continuity be 'illusory'? Just for discussion purposes... it could be. In fact, to some limited extent "personal continuity over time" probably IS an illusion--to some extent. But of our personal continuity is an illusion, how is it that we can see continuity and discontinuity in other people?

I prefer to keep spirits out of this.

This seems true for me.

But could it be illusory? — Andrew4Handel

None of your business! He tells you who he is; you have no reason to doubt his veracity, respect him and accept it.

Are we same person through time or have we changed in many ways without realising it? — Andrew4Handel

You are the same person, undergoing constant change, like everything else in the universe. Your memories run through your life like the string in a bead necklace - if you lose a memory you lose part of your identity. People with Alzheimer's rely increasingly on other to hold their identity for them, to keep sticking detached pieces back on.

In both examples, external norms seem to render identifications as determinative. This, secretly, is also part of the Behaviour Only account, as what counts as a characteristic property for an identity is also - at least partially - determined by an agent's relationship with binding norms. Eg, the general understanding of what it means to be a Star Wars fan, and what institutional rites need to apply to the agent to make them a police officer over and above the constituents of the property cluster.

Just as unenlightened said, when you look at personal identity closely, not even the bits which are "in you", or that "you feel" come even close to establishing your identity. In that regard, personal identity is deeply impersonal. Thus something like an institutional account of personal identity needs to be explored. — fdrake

Neither what is only ‘in you’ nor what is externally institutional get at how we understand language. The two need to be intimately interwoven such that the meaning of an identity is always only partially shared.

As Joseph Rouse argues,

“We find ourselves already thrown into some “abilities-to-be” and not others, in a meaningful situation whose salient significance is responsive to how we press ahead into those possibilities. Both whether to continue in those roles, and what those roles would demand of us, is not already determined, however, but is at issue in whether and how we take them up. If I am a parent or a teacher, what it is to be a parent or teacher is not already determined but is continually worked out in how I take up those roles and respond to what they make salient in my situation. What I and others have been doing all along is at issue in those ongoing responses, along with what the practice and its roles and disclosures would thereby become. The disclosedness of my role or vocation is the space of intelligible possibility opened by our mutual involvement with one another in ongoing patterns of practice whose continuation and significance are not already determined but are instead determinative of who and how we are.”

:up: It's consistent to believe I'm not a man while it's in fact the case that I am a man or in more general terms it is consistent to believe x while it's not x and vice versa. Doesn't bode well for the LGBTQ community I'm afraid. It boils down to the difference betwixt facts and beliefs - not the same thing and the problem is more widespread, it's almost everywhere, this. — Agent Smith

Can you pass the hooch please? The inference that this is how statements of trans identity work is yours. It could be that someone asserts they're not a man when they are a man, that doesn't mean this characterises trans women. It characterises people who say they're not a man when they're a man. Your view on gender alone characterises what would be false or true in it...

Anyway, the assumption that trans identities work by "the felt account" is wrong anyway IMO. As @Vera Mont pointed out, people almost never makes the assertions in "the felt account" without having the behavioural commitment. Whether the behavioural commitment being real + the felt account suffices for an identity to be appropriately ascribed isn't something we've discussed yet.

I'd tend to "no" because institutions also decide identities. People definitely can be murderers without feeling like one (behaviour and accurate identity ascription without felt or stated identity), people can consistently behave like a thing without being it or identifying as it- the police officer example, a reluctant owner and attendee of Star Wars objects vs a fan - and people can definitely be socially identified as Jews (as far as the Nazis are concerned) just by being branded as such. Feelings or behaviour be damned.

So it seems to me what you've done is
1) Assume the "felt account" accurately describes assertions of gender identity.
2) Assume a specific theory of how gender identity works ("facts vs beliefs")
3) Read 2 into 1.

C'mon man.

On the face of it, you're flip-flopping between two definitions of man/woman. It's an interesting fallacy you commit, there should be a name for it (it's that awesome).

When I grow up I'm going to have a face.

“We find ourselves already thrown into some “abilities-to-be” and not others, in a meaningful situation whose salient significance is responsive to how we press ahead into those possibilities. Both whether to continue in those roles, and what those roles would demand of us, is not already determined, however, but is at issue in whether and how we take them up. If I am a parent or a teacher, what it is to be a parent or teacher is not already determined but is continually worked out in how I take up those roles and respond to what they make salient in my situation. What I and others have been doing all along is at issue in those ongoing responses, along with what the practice and its roles and disclosures would thereby become. The disclosedness of my role or vocation is the space of intelligible possibility opened by our mutual involvement with one another in ongoing patterns of practice whose continuation and significance are not already determined but are instead determinative of who and how we are.” — Joshs

If you can translate this out of Heideggerese for the purposes of this thread, I'd really appreciate it. I do think there's good things to pursue in that approach, but I don't think it's right to turn the discussion into more Heidegger quibbles.

1. Who are you?
2. What do you want? — universeness

Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica?

Ok. It's just that after the worldwide trans phenomenon, the ability of straight peeps to tell man from women has been brought into question. The onus then naturally falls on trans folk to edify and enlighten us (if it isn't just a "felt account"). I've watched a few video interviews of trans people and they seem as confused as everybody else.

Ok. It's just that after the worldwide trans phenomenon, the ability of straight peeps to tell man from women has been brought into question. The onus then naturally falls on trans folk to edify and enlighten us (if it isn't just a "felt account"). I've watched a few video interviews of trans people and they seem as confused as everybody else. — Agent Smith

Aye. This is one of the hurdles. The widespread acceptance of the identity potentially perturbs a lot of norms and ways of thinking. One might be, as you're saying, that people don't understand who they are to the degree that they can give necessary or sufficient conditions for constituents of their identity. The hard part of wrestling with this for me is that whenever something seems remarkable about how widespread acceptance of trans identities impact discourse, it's largely in recognising something which was true already but either neglected or uncomfortable to admit.

Like people not being able to understand who they are or why they are the way they are. Being able to do that means telling a story more complicated than the one in this thread. Fortunately that also applies to any identity. Why are you you? Why are you a man or a woman? Do you know? On what basis? Is that basis adequate?

All of it permits many a devastating tu quoque. As soon as something seems remarkable, it turns out to be a mirror of unarticulated aspects of our own lives. Meaning what we took for granted we can't any more. Genie will not go back in bottle, even if rubbed the right way.

1. Who are you?
2. What do you want?
— universeness

Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica? — fdrake

No, Babylon 5, since it first came out!
The Vorlon main question 'Who are you?'
The Shadows main question 'What do you want?'

No, Babylon 5, since it first came out!
The Vorlon main question 'Who are you?'
The Shadows main question 'What do you want?' — universeness

I get those two series confused all the time.

I get those two series confused all the time. — fdrake

:scream: You have no idea how painful that was for me to read!
You are a little bit sadistic sir!

:scream: You have no idea how painful that was for me to read! — universeness

You know that arc where the cylons entrap the Centauri and make a base on their home world?

Ouch again! You continue your onslaught like a mad shadow all wacked out on scooby snacks!
I will task the technomages to come out of their hiding places and deal with you if you don't stop!
I did like some of them replicant cylons in nylons that appeared in the remake of BSG however.

If you can translate this out of Heideggerese for the purposes of this thread, I'd really appreciate it. I do think there's good things to pursue in that approach, but I don't think it's right to turn the discussion into more Heidegger quibbles — fdrake

This quote from Joseph Rouse belongs to a paper in which he critiques Steven Crowell’s Heideggerian account of identifying with a vocation. Even though he is channeling Heidegger to an extent here , his overall project owes more to recent ideas in ecological biology (niche construction) and the later Wittgenstein than to Heidegger, and his main interlocutors come from the Analytic tradition( Sellars, Davidson, Putnam, Brandom, Haugeland, McDowell).

His central interest concerns how conceptual understanding, as a form of biological niche construction, forms and is reciprocally shaped by both discursive and material interactions with an environment. The point he is trying to make is that as individuals we are not simply locked into particular conceptual norms , even if only temporarily. Every moment of interchange allows for the contestation and re-defining of those norms in partially shared contexts of discourse. Identities are placed over us from the culture, they are redetermined in each context, for each participant of a language game.

1. Who are you?

The symbol that has served us the greatest as an identity is the personal name. It has a referent that is found in nature, and is the object upon which all other identities are pinned. Any other identity is without a referent, and therefor only serves to describe rather than identify.

The symbol that has served us the greatest as an identity is the personal name. — NOS4A2

I think it's the personal pronoun. Names only identify from the outside. Pronouns identify from inside as well as in relationships.

I think it's the personal pronoun. Names only identify from the outside. Pronouns identify from inside as well as in relationships.

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of another noun. They serve grammatical functions, mainly, something like pointing to an object in the environment or conversation, or to avoid repetition. So I don’t think they can serve well as identities whenever we want to identify the antecedent.

'What's in a name?' Is always an interesting question. I would suggest a 'name' is just a label but it's a label based on human intellect. You make clothes so I name you Tailor. You work with steel (or your ancestor did) so you family label is 'steel' or maybe even stalin(Russian 'steel' also associated with 'man of steel'/superman). A native tribesman might label you 'dances with wolves,' or 'make much wind,' etc.
So, I don't think

The symbol that has served us the greatest as an identity is the personal name. — NOS4A2

is valid.
I think we need to consider any aspect of a human being that is present from the moment we come into cognitive existence, that could be applied to questions such as 'who am I?' and 'what do I want.'
How a person reacts to any given sensory input, instinctively/intuitively/logically/emotionally is part of their 'identity.'
The next aspect which directly affects personal identity in my opinion is 'experiential.'
Every experience you have has some impact on the pliable aspects of personal identity.
A person might identify as a 'pessimist', but their 'experiences,' can totally change this.
A child can be moulded into an adult emotionless killing machine, but it's still possible to counter such 'intense lifelong training.'

Ask yourself, 'what would/could change 'who I am or what I want?' If you can come up with a scenario that could change who you are or what you want, at a fundamental level. Then your 'personal identity' is mainly pliable.
But there may be 'aspects' of personal identity that may be immutable from birth but I don't know of an irrefutable example of such. I don't think sex qualifies as an immutable aspect of personal identity and gender certainly, does not qualify.

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of another noun. — NOS4A2

In grammar. In identity, however, "I" is known by the infant before it is named, before it knows its species. The only 'other' it knows is "thou", the mother or caregiver - and possible "them" if it has litter-mates.

Some of you might find this interesting. There is a online call in show which is youtube based, called the trans-atlantic call in show. You can call in and talk to trans-folks. I have watched a few of their recorded shows on youtube, such as the sample below:
I think (but I have not confirmed for sure) that Arden Hart (on the left) is a trans-man and Doctor student Ben (on the right) is a trans-woman. I don't know, to what extent they have made surgical or 'pill based' hormonal physical changes to themselves but I find the conversations they have with each other, and with online callers, to be very informative indeed, for a person such as me, who they would label a 'cis' male. If you want to watch the example below, note that it is 2.5 hours long and it takes about 3 or 4 minutes to get (load up/stream) to the actual presenters but I think its worth the time spent.


Edit: I just watched a new year podcast of 'The Line' with Jimmy Snow, and Matt Dillahunty was on along with Doctor student Ben and Arden Hart (as described and shown above).
It turns out, Arden Hart is Matt Dillahunty's current partner. So a 'cis male' (Matt) whose partner is a trans-male (Arden).