Consider the two statements: "I love you just the way you are" and "Without each other there ain't nothin', (not even you or me)'". They may sound cliché, but they are true in the metaphysical and ethical sense. Not only as isolated statements; they clearly give meaning to the word "you". If those two sentences were non-sensical "you" would mean the same as the word "that". A tame cat can not fully come to terms with whether a human is a "you" or a "that". Although it struggles with this question several times every day. :-)

Lets look at it this way. Lets pretend that even if "you" were something different, that core perspective of living and thinking within that perspective would still exist. It doesn't matter if you would be oblivious of who "you" are today, in your head that "you" would be much happier and have a better life.

It is saying, "I wish my perspective were with a better being in a better situation then I am right now."

I agree with what you have said.

I disagree with @Philosophim, there are in fact profound differences in one's psychology based on how they answer whether they could have been someone else or not. It is not about "wishing" for something, it's about recognising that there's a lot of life, you exist but since seemingly no difference between two consciousnesses at their inception, hence interchangeability.

I don't really wish to talk about what it implies because the question is too large and there's a lot of "maybe" to it, since people don't usually cite it in their reasoning.

Yes, I agree that people don't exist before they exist. However, sometimes it is metaphorically useful to speak as if humans somehow exist outside of their current humanity. Doing so can summarize some complex ethical ideas into an easily understandable notion, even if the notion itself shouldn't be taken literally.

For example, let's say a natural disaster strikes another country. Many people are injured/homeless and the country is requesting financial help. You could respond by saying: "Who cares? I don't live there. Not my problem. No thanks, I'll keep my money." Your offended friend might respond by saying: "That's wrong! You could have been born there!"

Technically, no, it was not possible for you have to been born there. The only "you" that exists is the one that (fortunately) avoided the natural disaster. But your friend's point is still valid and logical, even if they used a metaphor. Maybe they didn't even realize that they were speaking metaphorically. Nonetheless, your friend is correct in pointing out that you didn't choose which physical body your consciousness is associated with. And that means you can't take credit for being born into the more fortunate location. Which also means you can't fault the victims for being born into the less-fortunate location. This realization should influence your ethical beliefs. It would make sense to donate to the disaster-struck country, because you would be helping a consciousness that is in the same circumstances as your consciousness; you both had to live where you ended up being born. And you aren't sure exactly why you are you and they are them. So maybe that is you. And if they are you, it would certainly make sense to help yourself out of a tough situation.

Not quite getting "you".

It doesn't matter if you would be oblivious of who "you" are today, in your head that "you" would be much happier and have a better life.

It is saying, "I wish my perspective were with a better being in a better situation then I am right now." — Philosophim

That's fine, but it's still not true that you could be anything else but you. It is just a turn of phrase in the way you describe it, but not an actual point of fact.

I don't really wish to talk about what it implies because the question is too large and there's a lot of "maybe" to it, since people don't usually cite it in their reasoning. — Judaka

Not sure what "you" mean here. Can you be anything else but you? If someone else was born from different parents, that is not you.

You = consciousness and it is an imaginative or theoretical exercise. I think you = consciousness is untrue but that I agreed with you and paraphrased the position I am disagreeing with so idk why ur giving me grief.

Just wasn't sure what you were saying. You agree. Got it. Thanks.

There is no you prior to your birth that could have been something else. — schopenhauer1

Why privilege birth rather than inception?

Humans have a tendency for counterfactual thinking. It says more about psychology than metaphysics or ethics.

Is that like development of an identity?

The fact is, you are you, and not someone else. That identity is attached to someone born that could not be anyone else. You can choose certain things that develop identity, but what is the thing creating the identity? It's still you, and no other person. Wittgenstein would have a field day with the metaphors people use... becoming a different person, etc. "He's a different person" is a turn of phrase, but not literally a different person.

Yes true.

The fact is, you are you, and not someone else. — schopenhauer1

That was the sweeping statement i was challenging. When exactly does this happen? Why birth and not inception? And what does it say there was the one ovum yet 100m other unlucky sperm? Is the sperm or the ovum the more special one in this story of irreversible biological fate?

In some sense, the person you are is whoever that is after having lived life to that point and suffered some particular mix of life experience. History can’t be changed.

And yet a process of development has been taking place ever since the moment of fertilisation. That leaves vast room for making choices and reacting to accidents. At every moment in life, we could be doing otherwise. We could have been different as a result.

"He's a different person" is a turn of phrase, but not literally a different person. — schopenhauer1

Every person is literally a different set of atoms than they were a few years ago. At a molecular level, the body is continually falling apart and being repaired. So I wouldn’t bank too much on physical continuity.

And in terms of informational continuity, that too is a constant story of dynamical change for our brain circuits.

So to take a strong stance on continuity over malleability doesn’t fit the facts of human development. It is an odd start to an argument.

So to take a strong stance on continuity over malleability doesn’t fit the facts of human development. It is an odd start to an argument. — apokrisis

Once you are conceived, you could not have been conceived as something else, whatever dynamical changes take place or don't from there. You could not have been him or her or that, otherwise you would no longer be you. You can imagine the counterfactual, but you can never actually have been the counterfactual, otherwise, there is no you anymore. There is never a different circumstance in which you were not you.

Once you are conceived, you could not have been conceived as something else, — schopenhauer1

So in what sense is this fertilised ovum “you” rather than an undeveloped scrap of protoplasm?

Why not instead accept “you” are the process of becoming - the process of development itself - rather than something that wasn’t one moment, and suddenly was the next.

Sperm meets egg and, sure, that is a discrete counterfactual event. But is that what we could mean by “you” as an assignment of an identity. Isn’t it more convincing to consider you as an unfinished project, a story still being written?

Once you are conceived, you could not have been conceived as something else — schopenhauer1

This doesn't even make sense. If you can't define 'you' by a consistent collection of matter, nor by a consistent collection of ideas, then how can you go on to make any assertions at all about what is and is not possible of this entity? You've just failed in any attempt to define what the entity is and yet you're proceeding to tells us what physical or logical parameters it must constrain itself to.

The fact is, you are you, and not someone else. — schopenhauer1

Hang on! I’m ‘me’. You are someone else.

Oh damn. I suppose anyone can say that.

Sperm meets egg — apokrisis

You missed the ‘stellar explosion’ bit.

So in what sense is this fertilised ovum “you” rather than an undeveloped scrap of protoplasm? — apokrisis

In a way, Kripke's Naming and Necessity might be informative here.

First off, this isnt an anti-abortion argument or anything like that. Inevitably, ideas of conception are contrued as that, so just want that clarified.

It is about counterfactuals in terms of being something. There is something about being born that has limited any counterfactual of being born as something else. I am not denying the role of experience on development and its construction of identity. There was a you, that is not a tiger or another conceived entity. If it that circumstance of entity was not the case (you being born), there might be others then constructing an identity through the course of a life, but never you who are

But this alternate life scenario is a false narrative. Rather, there is no "you" that could have become anything else. — schopenhauer1

What is the particularity of personhood you are pointing too? Any counterfactual is a false narrative in one sense. I am wearing a blue shirt, so it is a false narrative that I am wearing a red shirt. But yesterday I wore a red shirt.

I dyed my shirt blue, but if I had dyed it red, I would be wearing a red shirt. Same shirt, different dye -seems to work. So you are presumably saying there is no substance to identity that can be 'the same' in a counter-factual world? But again I see a difficulty. If the alternate is false, then the original is also false, surely? So when I say 'I could have been born female', there is no substance to the I that is in fact male, and none to the I that is counterfactually female either. Why not the same insubstantiality, just as it is the same insubstantial I that is not wearing a red shirt but might have?

I don't necessarily think that argument is inconsistent, it just doesn't say anything compelling. You're contriving thus entity 'you' as something that comes into being at the moment of conception, then you're saying that this thing could not have been any other because it did not exist (even in some proto-identifiable state) prior to that moment.

That's all very internally consistent, but you,ve not tied this entity 'you' to anything which we already agree exists, so there's no compulsion to see what you see.

That's all very internally consistent, but you,ve not tied this entity 'you' to anything which we already agree exists, so there's no compulsion to see what you see. — Isaac

The point is, that there is no "could have been born a..". That would not be you then. It invalidates that kind of counterfactual line of thinking.

Why not the same insubstantiality, just as it is the same insubstantial I that is not wearing a red shirt but might have? — unenlightened

Why is it insubstantial. One case is you born, the counterfactual, would not be you.

That's just a restatement of your position, not an answer to my critique.

If 'you' is a sort of personhood waiting in limbo for a body to become available then your argument is wrong. Your position relies entirely on us not conceiving of 'you' in this way, but you've given no reason at all why we shouldn't, only that you personally don't.

I don't know if there are any implications to it. It's still a useful thought experiment to try to put yourself in someone else's shoes and consider that you're only one consciousness out of many which has been born into a certain set of circumstances and faced with a certain set of experiences which mold the individual. If there are any philosophical implications that you can come up with from your thought than let me know.

One case is you born, the counterfactual, would not be you. — schopenhauer1

Yes it would. If the counterfactual were the factual I would be a woman, and the woman would be me, just as the blue shirt would be red if it had been dyed red, even though as it happens it was dyed blue. Is it an argument you are making or just an intuition being declared? Or a universal aversion to counterfactual conditionals?

If 'you' is a sort of personhood waiting in limbo for a body to become available then your argument is wrong. Your position relies entirely on us not conceiving of 'you' in this way, but you've given no reason at all why we shouldn't, only that you personally don't. — Isaac

Oh, the soul thing. Well, yes it is assuming there is no such prior entity waiting to enter a body. This is an argument based on the assumption that there is no person prior to being physically substantiated. If this is the case, then we cannot entertain notions of possibly being someone else, unless just in imaginative exercises.

Yes it would. If the counterfactual were the factual I would be a woman, and the woman would be me, just as the blue shirt would be red if it had been dyed red, even though as it happens it was dyed blue. Is it an argument you are making or just an intuition being declared? Or a universal aversion to counterfactual conditionals? — unenlightened

There is no counterfactual where you were born something else. That other thing would not be "you". It's not an aversion, just an understanding of what it means to be a being born. You cannot have been born anything other than what you are.

There is no counterfactual where you were born something else. — schopenhauer1

And what I say three times is true. — The Bellman

(The Hunting of the Snark)

You don't have an argument. Not a shred of a reason for your claim. You just repeat it.