How about this thought experiment Jack that I used to chat to my S6 pupils (16,17) about.
Normally when we had finished the course and were near to the end of session.

Imagine that 'Jack' (yeah, let's take you as my victim when you were around 17, you don't even have to place yourself in that mindset, go with you as you are now.) came into my classroom and I had already 'arranged' for everyone in his life to be in on this 'experiment' and for all records of him to be altered. All authorities have given their permission 'temporarily' for the sake of the experiment. I start by asking who you are and why you have entered my classroom. All the pupils claim to not know you. I call down to the office to ask about this new pupil and send you down there despite all your emotive protestations.
The office staff finally call the police who take you home to the address you live at and all your family deny your identity. The police take you to social services.
How long do you think it would take before you become unsure of your own identity that you have had for X years?
Who you are is quite tenuous in my opinion and so dependent on so many other aspects of your life that I think it's hard to be secure in any aspect of "What Makes Someone Become the Unique Person Who They Are ?" Of course, my experiment is probably a ridiculous one that would never be or could never be attempted but I am sure 'memory loss' patients or 'alzheimer patients,' do experience some similar type crisis of personal identity.
I don't think we are a blank slate at birth, I do think we inherit some personality traits from our ancestry but from that point, it is all about nurture and social and economic environment.
Who you are can also be influenced by a myriad of other factors, of that I think there is little doubt.

Let’s consider some things.
Let’s imagine that you were the only person with blonde hair in the world and in history. Would this make you “the unique person who you are”? I am sure it wouldn’t. All other aspects of you, including your personality, whatever is part of your psychology, work like your being blonde: they are just accessory aspects attached to you. I think the essence of this is that all we are talking about are objective things. Whenever we talk of something, it becomes automatically an object; even when we say “subjectivity”, what we are talking about is subjectivity treated as an object, so, actually we are not really talking about subjectivity.
I think the true, real subjectivity is the experience you make when you realize that you are the only person in the world able to perceive your will, your choices, your decisions, like “Now I decide to move my arm; now I decide to think this number”. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to remotely command your arms and even your thoughts. But, even if this was possible in the future, who was the author of those thoughts? Let’s imagine a technology making me able to force your brain to think number “5”, so that you realized that your brain really thought the number I decided it to think of. Even if I was able to make you wanting to think number “5”, in that case you were forced to want something, but the ultimate source of this will was still me.
So, I would say that the real experience of uniqueness of you is when you feel, you experiment a will coming from you. Even if that will was caused by something different from your will, nonetheless what you perceive is your will, it doesn’t matter if it is the real origin of your thoughts or if it was forced by something else.
This means that you are the only person in the world able to perceive yourself willing something. This cannot be transferred, nor cloned, nor anything, by any technology or disease, or malfunction of the brain. I mean, even if you are wrong in thinking that it is really your will, actually you are right, because it is your will manoeuvered by something else. If you perceive your will, then your will is there. This is different from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”, because the experience I am talking about is entirely subjective, exclusive to you, you cannot express it to other people, so, it isn’t at all a certainty, which instead Descartes thought it was about his thinking.
We can make a computer able to think that it was able to want something, but we have absolutely no idea how this can be evaluated, compared to our DNA making us feeling our ability to want something.
What I am saying is that this way I have not at all proved your uniqueness, nor the existence of your will. You are the only person in the world able to decide if your perception of your will makes you unique.
I said that saying “subjectivity” is still an objectivation of the concept of subjectivity. The same way, all the things I said now are an objectivation as well. I just tried to express my subjective experience, trying to see if you feel something similar. Whatever you answer, I won’t ever be able to have evidence of your experience.
So, our uniqueness is confined inside our subjectivty and we can talk about it only subjectively, that is without any possibility of getting any evidence. This is, I think, the only way to make an idea, but it is better to say “an attempt to share an experience”, of our uniqueness. It is like a message in a bottle, that I try to send from the island of my subjectivity. It is just a hope, an attempt. All the rest is condemned to be objective and, as such, not unique.

With your thought experiment it may be that I, as the subject example would have many of the aspects of identity in tact, but some may change accordingly to the different experiences.

The reason why I say this is that it seems to me that aspects do change accordingly to perceptions of others. For example, I think that when I worked as psychiatric nurse, were different from now, when I don't have a job. I may even behave differently. One tutor I had spoke of how he behaved extremely differently when he was outside of work. He said that in the tutor role he was in his professional persona. I found his example a bit extreme, because when I worked it did not seem that I behaved entirely different on time off, except that I didn't share that much of my private life at work usually.

The way we are perceived by others affects us a lot. For example, I went through a stage of bad acne, which started before puberty and went on a long time. I did feel that I was shunned at times on account of it. This kind of aspect is described by Erving Goffman, in his book, 'Stigma', in which he speaks of how some noticable aspect of appearance can dominate social impressions.

The whole way a person appears can affect others' perceptions and a sense of personal identity. This may be the critical factor in the changes of adolescence. The core identity may remain though and memories. In the processes in older life, the life experiences and psychological, as well as aspects of the physical and social life may alter identity. As well, loss of memories in the various forms and stages may bring many changes in personal identity.

What I am saying is that this way I have not at all proved your uniqueness, nor the existence of your will. You are the only person in the world able to decide if your perception of your will makes you unique. — Angelo Cannata

Quite a good description of free will imo.

With your thought experiment it may be that I, as the subject example would have many of the aspects of identity in tact, but some may change accordingly to the different experiences — Jack Cummins

would these intact aspects of identity hold no matter how long my experiment lasted?
I used to add a bit, such as 'after two years of this. I turn up in a dark suit and black sunglasses to where you are with a large official-looking fancy car. I apologise about what we had to put you through. I now need to tell you who you really are and what your exciting mission is. Will you believe me?

I can only agree with the points you make about societal pressures based on how you look.
Such pressure seems to me to be from the 'natural selection book of rules.' Who should you pick to produce offspring with the best chance of survival? Not quite like that anymore but vile TV programs, such as love island are still ever popular with the masses.

With the example of being the only person with blonde hair, it would affect a person but only as one aspect of many others. Such aspects as being even in a group and being the tallest, smallest or oldest are all significant. As it is, most people in many groups simultaneously, the first one being the family, which is likely to have a large consequence in shaping who one becomes. There are also those who are famous, such as singers, writers and footballers. Their experience could even lead to an inflated ego, or sense of being special.

It is all constructed subjectively, as you say. It is possible for there to be large discrepancies in how a person sees themselves to how they are seen by others. For instance, it is possible to feel ugly while being seen as attractive by others.

And, it is about the inner aspects of the self, going back to the 'I' of Descartes. That is about how one witnesses consciousness and is able to stand back and reflect. It is hard to imagine what it means to be another person, although, of course, people exchange their experiences and find common ground.

The culture of individualism was also important in the development of the sense of self. This may include all kinds of parts of life, including pursuing social markers of success and those through acquisitions. Social roles, like being married or divorced maybe crucial too. There are also the mythic aspects too, in the process of individuation. However, there may be opposite processes in the twentieth first century whereby individuals' identity are being diminished, with people being treated more as numbers.

Most people in the situation you are about to describe would remember their initial identity, although some people seem to remember so much more than others. I know someone who says that he can barely remember his experiences at university. I found that hard to believe but it seemed like he had just gone through the motions without paying attention. It may be that what is important to narrative identity is the thoughts and reflections because these are the fabric on which it is based in the internalisation process. I know that I remember most of my experiences from when I started school and before, but mainly in the form of the thoughts which I had.

There is also the opposite process, of selective amnesia. It is hard to know to what extent one has this because they may be buried in the subconscious. A couple of weeks ago, I met a woman who I had worked with in a couple of jobs. She remembered me straight away, but when I spoke about the second job she could not recall that I had worked there. She went on to say that she thought that she had blocked out all her memories of that job because she was unhappy there. I had not been happy there either but I can remember so much if it clearly. It seems strange to me to be able to block out such unpleasant memories and I was left wondering to what extent are people able to do this?

In the cultural climate of twentieth first century philosophy, one of the key issues is the possibility of artificial intelligence and that seems to beg the question of what is the difference between a robot and a human being.

What are your thoughts on the process of becoming and the philosophy of human identity? — Jack Cummins

My approach to this topic is not anthropocentric (or humanist) but agency-oriented:

By person I understand 'a self-modeling metacognitive agent capable of recognizing others as self-modeling metacognitive agents (i.e. persons) in contrast to others which are 'not self-modeling agents'. Persons are both products and processors of sociality.^^ What makes them 'unique individuals' is that each one is always moving along a singular path in spacetime constitutive of an (ecological- historical-biographical-existential) embodied perspective entangled with other embodied perspectives. (NB: "Subjectivity" is the phenomenal illusion of not being entangled with others / embodiment-environment.) Thus, every person is an agent capable of anticipating and minimizing whatever harms herself and (therefore) other persons.^^

Other thoughts on 'being a person':

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543161 (re: quiddity of)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/511805 (re: 2nd personhood, entangled with ...)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/572299 (re: individual & collective goals)

The idea of not being entangled with others subjectively seems very useful because it would be possible to not be able to step outside as an agent of perception. The sense of separation is part of this, especially the idea of the child being separate from the mother is meant to be a distinct development in children. The opposite to this development may be the difficulty finding connections with others, as seen in the various possibilities of those on the autistic spectrum. When I was doing some research on autism one main aspect identified was how theory of mind comes in. The people who are on the autistic spectrum can have great difficulty with empathy and imagining others' mental states. It may be that both seeing oneself alone and conceptualizing others' possible subjectivities are important for understanding.

My children were the people they came to be the minute they were born - temperament and personality. I've talked to a lot of other parents and most agree. You can fuck children up, but you can't change who they are.

I have so little experience of knowing young children to know to what extent they appear as so unique. But, I can remember that when I was a child that the various children seemed unique at about age 4 or 5, although the years before that were likely to be great significance.

Another way of looking at it is that basic disposition and temperament, including whether one is sporty or artistic, and personality types may be draw certain experiences, which become the formative ones. All of this may happen in various stages and be cumulative in the shaping of a person. Of course, there are external events which may make a big impact, such as when a parent dies or leaves the family.

Of course, there are external events which may make a big impact, such as when a parent dies or leaves the family. — Jack Cummins

Or developing a mental illness or an addiction. They can radically alter a person's character, personality and choices.

I think the hard part in all this is determining exactly what is meant by a qualitative notion such as 'the unique person they are'. I have friends I have known for almost 45 years. In some ways I can say they are the same unique people they were when kids. In other ways they are totally different. I actually don't think I can tell for certain, as my assessment is complicated by my seeing continual change over time, projecting my preconceptions on their actions and retro-fitting memories. We often see what we want to see.

I am aware of strong links between childhood traumas and mental illness, not just from reading but talking to people, especially a couple of close friends. It may even go to the development of the brain itself and cognitive pathways. Also, the traumas or stress may have a negative effect psychologically in learning, including education and in the expression and understanding of emotions.

When people meet after say a 5 or 10 year time span of seeing one another it seems that some aspects will have changed and others not. It may be that some people change more than others, depending on critical life experiences, including fortune and misfortune. It probably does depend on what one wishes to see too.

Some people seem to change more in appearance than others and some of the changes to personality and outlook are subtle. Thinking of how one has changed personally is interesting too. I know that I was an anxious child but I am more rebellious than prior to adolescence. I would say that many of my own interests don't seem to change very much, such as art, reading and books. I have revised my ideas a fair amount.

Some people don't seem to alter their basic ideas in adulthood. It may depend whether people have reason to question and modify them. Attitudes can change a lot according to whether life has treated a person well or not, although it is likely that there is a biological or genetic component to mood, and factors relating to good or poor health probably come into this, as well as the socio-economic conditions which contribute to wellbeing or lack of it.

Maths to the rescue.

It is quite obvious that the number of possible permutations/combinations of relevant factors/qualities (how to think, psychology and what to think, ideas/emotions/etc.) is finite. Ergo, expect repetitions [look alikes, twins (body & mind), soul mates, so on and so forth].

Nevertheless, in a given location, at a particular time, a person is unique enough for government work if you catch my drift.

A very important corollary: Conviction in certain criminal cases are based on the "uniqueness" of our DNA (DNA fingerprinting), but do bear in mind how it works. The probability of someone else having commited the crime isn't zero!

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

My imaginary scenario was more about our reliance on others to confirm who you are and we also rely on records to confirm so much about our status and position in life. I find such as your 'credit rating,' particularly controversial. I wonder how easy it would be to disrupt that system and force you to doubt your own identity. I think you are suggesting that it would be very difficult to get a person to really believe that their past was 'implanted.' Films like Total Recall have played with this idea.
Films like '1984' depict an example through torture where they represent a malleable or broken identity when the thought police expect their victims to see 4 lights when there are only three. It's not just about saying you can see 4 lights, you have to actually see them, when commanded to.
I think personal historical identity is insecure, partly because we don't have total recall and the recall we do have can be manipulated, records changed, lies told etc.
An authority can smash an individual's life very easily imo, as suggested/dramatised for Will Smith's character in the film 'The Pelican Brief.'

Would any artificial system such as an android emulation of a human have to have 'childhood experiences,' either programmed into it or actually have lived through for any attempt at emulating a HUMAN consciousness, to have any chance of success?
How much of the 'child' experience is essential to becoming an adult human conscious.
Would the android have to first emulate being born as a baby and be 'programmed' as such.
Would it need components that could 'grow'? etc.
To me, producing an artificial HUMAN consciousness/unique person is completely different from enhancing the lifespan/robustness of an existing one.
Might be of interest also to @punos

I am not sure to what extent Maths is the best help. There may be parts of us but I am not sure that 1+1= 2 in terms of human identity. Psychological truth is far more complex because it involves personal and social meanings. In that respect, I am arguing that the nature of identity may not be quantitative but about quality.

You are right about convictions being based on unique fingerprints. That is all about patterns. In the past, fortune tellers used to try to gather information on the basis of lines and patterns in the hand. I have extremely strange lines on my hands, especially the right one, with many branches, so I hope that they don't have any meaning...

Your question about human identity and artificial intelligence is the problematic area I see with the idea of creating a humanoid. A being without a childhood with all its experiences like going to school, and family life, playing would all be missing and these contribute so much to human identity and the autobiographical self.

In answer to your post about identity security and even credit rating, identity may be changing in the digital age. One's self online may be becoming an important part of identity construction, including the interaction on sites as this. It may be like a stage of performance because what we write may be read by many not known to us in daily life. It is a kind of disembodied voice and identity.

A being without a childhood with all its experiences like going to school, and family life, playing would all be missing and these contribute so much to human identity and the autobiographical self. — Jack Cummins

:up: Perhaps only the Neuroscientists working with Computer scientists will offer us some future answers. I don't think it will be in my lifetime.

In answer to your post about identity security and even credit rating, identity may be changing in the digital age. One's self online may be becoming an important part of identity construction, including the interaction on sites as this. It may be like a stage of performance because what we write may be read by many not known to us in daily life. It is a kind of disembodied voice and identity — Jack Cummins

An interesting new aspect of personal identity indeed.
I worry about who will control it.

I would go with an entirely different approach.

To actualize the self (to become one's unique person) one must free themselves from all the psychological chains keeping one from doing so.

One of the greatest chains to break free from is notions of identity.

Identity is a means by which one defines themselves through the lenses of others. It's an external source of "self", thus not truly self. It doesn't introduce a person to their true self, but in fact veils it further in creating a persona instead.

Identity can consist of many things. Nationalities, genders, occupations, ideologies, past accomplishments or future aspirations, etcetera.

These are all arbitrary things which have little to do with the self of the person in the here and now, and thus have little to do with reality. It is no wonder then that when a person creates a persona out of these things, and thus has a large personal stake in things that have no basis in reality, it becomes troublesome sooner or later.

"Identity" is too protean and (socially) situational to constitute personhood; rather self-continuity (i.e. perspectival embodiment) ...

It does seem that consciousness and identity are so complex. Part of it is related to the social aspects of identity, but it is also connected to the nature of being. A person may think of themselves socially, in terms of meanings which are constructed intersubjectively, but this also relates to how people understand who they are, metaphysically, as beings who exist and have evolved in the context of ideas of what it means to be a human being.

How do you see identity? I know that you have read widely, so I am interested to know how you see the relationship between the individual, social contexts and how each person understands and develops an understanding of unique identity in relation to aspects which may be far beyond their own sphere. To what extent is human identity a matter of social meanings, metaphysics, or the constructs which may lie in the understanding of the evolution of consciousness and the various ways of understanding the evolution of culture self and how this is based on human constructs and meanings?

A person may think of themselves socially, in terms of meanings which are constructed intersubjectively, but this also relates to how people understand who they are, metaphysically, as beings who exist and have evolved in the context of ideas of what it means to be a human being. — Jack Cummins

The question remains whether these external ideas introduced to us through social interaction help us understand who we truly are or instead encourage us to take up a persona, in an attempt to fit in or perhaps simply out of habituation since many of these pillars of identity are introduced to us at an early age.

It is probably extremely complicated because on one hand, each person is developing a persona, based on the attempts to fit into the social order and understand oneself in a deeper way. R D Laing, spoke of the difference between the false and true self, in 'The Divided Self', where mixed social messages may occur. His work may have pointed to the problematic nature of the persona in relation to authenticity, but the external and internal aspects of self and personal identity may be extremely complex.

In some ways, ideas may be constructed socially and, im other ways subjectively. So, it may beg the question of subjectivity in relation to objectivity which may be one of the biggest problems in philosophy. Can the self be understood merely in relation to other selves, or in a cosmic, or metaphysical way? This may be bound up with the idea of subjectivity, especially how inner reality is connected to the outer aspects, as understood in the objective understanding of the self and subjectivity.

... each person is developing a persona, based on the attempts to fit into the social order and understand oneself in a deeper way. — Jack Cummins

Is this true, though?

Can't one imagine individuals who become disinterested in attempting to fit in, and come to perceive the development of a persona as an unsuitable means of understanding the self?

Is a person who is in meditation developing a persona?

One may argue the identification of oneself with external concepts is a prerequisite for normal social interactions, however the development of a persona or identity implies we integrate these external concepts. Why do we do this? Is it not also an option to use these external concepts merely as tools without intergrating them?

One may use generalizations in their daily business as a tool, while at the same time understanding that generalizations should not be mistaken for truth.

Much in the same way one may use social concepts as a tool for social interaction, while at the same time understanding it does not represent the true self.

Can the self be understood merely in relation to other selves, ... — Jack Cummins

I don't see why that should be the case. Being alone doesn't prevent one from feeling and thinking.

Many would argue is that one discovers the true self precisely by being alone!

How do you see identity? — Jack Cummins

Some excerpts from old threads ...

I am asking what does thought tell us about the nature of personal identity and about the underlying source of consciousness?
— Jack Cummins

Perhaps only that "personal identity" consists in the continuity of affective memory-bodily states rather than inheres in a discrete, or concrete, "substance" independent of transient body-states (re: Buddha's anatta, Epicurus' atoms & void, Hume's bundle theory, ... Metzinger's phenomenal self modeling).

I wonder to what extent the "I' is able to reflect upon it itself?— Jack Cummins

It's a 'strange loop', or self-referential tangled hierarchical system (vide Douglas Hofstadter ... or Thomas Metzinger); the extent of self-reflection, I suspect, corresponds to the limits of the semiotic or symbolic systems available to cognition. — 180 Proof

How do we differentiate ourselves as individuals?
— Jack Cummins

Long before we superficially attempt various ways to do so, simply being embodied at an unique point in spacetime relative to all other bodies deeply individuates each of us. — 180 Proof

I don't "see identity" in either an anthropocentric, psychologistic or spiritualist manner; I think those are outmoded paradigms.

To what extent is human identity a matter of social meanings, metaphysics, or the constructs which may lie in the understanding of the evolution of consciousness and the various ways of understanding the evolution of culture self and how this is based on human constructs and meanings?

Links to more old threads ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/626006 (re: grammar / semiotics of "self-identity")

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/631989 (re: "subjective experiences" of "zombies")

The idea of personas may be open to question. It does depend on an idea of the artificiality of social construction. Perhaps, there is too much generalisation and too much emphasis on construction of self. What would it mean to go back to the idea of self, especially in the idea of authenticity? Would it mean burdening others with all the useless clutter of identity and its management, or is there a way beyond this of finding oneself authentically?

Thanks for the links and I will look at them because it is likely that identity has been approached in varying ways because it is bound up with subjective experience.