We are installed, not born!
Throughout much of our history, we have associated personhood with the ideas of birth and death. This thought process exists across cultures, regions, and ideologies. Even though philosophers and theologists have tried to explain the ideas of birth and death, the association of personhood with those ideas was almost universal and was not a subject of contention at all. Well, we can blame our ego-centricity for that thanks to natural selection. I think it is time for us to question the logic and validity of associating personhood with the ideas of birth and death. Political correctness has removed many words from our daily vocabulary and I think logical correctness should dictate that personhood should not be associated with the ideas of birth and death.
Understanding personhood
So, what is personhood? When does personhood begin? Well, we do not have concrete answers to these questions. There are many variants and what people subscribe to depends on their ideology. In Abrahamic religions, concepts like hell, heaven, sin, and last judgment suggest that the existence of personhood is independent of the physical body. Similarly, in Dharmic religions, concepts like karma, moksha (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth), reincarnation, samsara(cycle of death and rebirth) suggest that the personhood exists irrespective of the physical body. Despite the differences, both Abrahamic religions and Dharmic religions suggest that personhood can exist without a physical body. In other words, the personhood is tied to an eternal soul.
Let’s take a look at another view from the Greek philosopher, Epicurus.
“Accustom yourself to thinking that death is no concern to us. All things good and bad are experienced through sensation, but sensation ceases at death. So death is nothing to us, and to know the truth of this makes a mortal life happy — not by adding infinite time, but by removing the desire for immortality. There is no reason why one who is convinced that there is nothing to fear at death should fear anything about it during life. And whoever says that he dreads death not because it’s painful to experience, but only because it’s painful to contemplate, is foolish. It is pointless to agonize over something that brings no trouble when it arrives. So death, the most dreaded of evils, is nothing to us, because when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist. It neither concerns the living nor the dead, since death does not exist for the living, and the dead no longer exist.”
In this view, the personhood is limited to physical existence alone. However, Epicurus does not necessarily remove personhood from the ideas of birth and death rather his emphasis is on the nature of sensation that one cannot experience death because the sensation ceases at death. In Epicureanism, the soul exists but it is mortal like the body.
So, we have different views on the nature of the soul. It is either immortal or mortal. But what is common in both views is that personhood is invariably tied to the soul. In the case of an eternal soul, personhood can exist both physically and eternally but for the physical manifestation, it has to be subjected to birth and death. In the case of the corporeal soul, personhood exists as a physical entity thereby it is subjected to the physical phenomena of birth and death. The key takeaway is that the tendency to associate personhood with birth and death is universal irrespective of whether personhood is tied to a mortal or immortal soul.
Now, let’s take a look at the following statements.
I was born in London.
She is dead.
What is your date of birth?
I should not have born in this decade.
These are simple statements. We are quite comfortable with these types of statements. But the problem is when we refer to ourselves or anyone we are indeed referring to the intangible personhood rather than our physical existence. Something intangible like personhood should not be subjected to birth and death. Only our bodies should be subjected to birth and death. One might argue that personhood exists because of the body and therefore the two are not distinct. However, this argument overlooks two things: one, the intangible nature of personhood and two, the physical body just serves as host and identity. Also, when we associate birth and death with personhood we overlook the fluidity, malleability, and haphazardness of personhood. We are largely the products of our environment. Our own identity, the language we use to speak and think, the values we hold dear, our likes and dislikes and everything else was acquired from our environment. In other words, we are installed, not born!
Language and personhood
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”
When we talk about the environment, the discussion on language becomes inevitable. It is no secret that the language that we speak plays a vital role in shaping our personalities and therefore personhood. We are limited by our senses and knowledge. And our knowledge comes from language. Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian philosopher, said and I quote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. There are many examples to support this and some of them are as follows: One, the Kuuk Thaayorre language, a language spoken by an Australian aboriginal community, enhances the native speakers’ cognitive skills, particularly their sense of orientation. According to researchers, these people do not use directions like left and right but they perceive everything in cardinal directions of North, South, East, and West. This means their language helped them in developing an extra-ordinary superhuman-like sense of orientation. For example, instead of asking, “What is that on your right hand?”, the Kuuk Thaayorre language equivalent would be like, “what is that on your northeast hand?”
Two, we have a South American language, Aymara which instills a very unique perception of time among its native speakers. For them, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind.
Three, a language from South America, the Piraha language does not have words to describe various colors, numbers or even tenses. For colors, they just have two words: light and dark. In contrast, languages like Russian, Greek, Turkish and many others have separate names for lighter and darker shades of blue, which means that they are more sensitive to colors in that region of the spectrum. The Piraha language also lacks words for numbers. They have words for approximately meaning one, two and many. This means they cannot count. Also, they do not have words to describe the past, present, and future.
Languages shape our reality. If we don’t have words for numbers we cannot count. Our language can limit our ability to track time. Our languages can even limit what we can see. According to researches, until modern times people could not see blue or could not distinguish it. This means the language that we acquire from the environment plays a huge role in shaping our personhood.
Testing personhood with thought experiments
So, what do these mean? Well, to know let’s try out some thought experiments. Assume that a mother gives birth to twins. One of which is adopted and raised by an American couple in the United States and the other was raised by an Indian couple in India. By the time the twins reach their adulthood, they would have developed distinct personhoods with very different personalities. Contrast this with twins that are raised together. The twins that are raised together will have a lot more similarities than the twins that are raised separately. Make no mistake, I’m not suggesting that twins raised together would have the same personalities or values. They are indeed unique. I’m only insisting that they are far more likely to have similarities than those who are raised separately in different environments. This seems like a no-brainer, but apparently, this is something that we often overlook. Alternatively, imagine if one of the twins was raised in the Piraha environment and other in the Kuuk Thaayorre environment. The former would not be able to count and the latter would have a very enhanced cognitive ability of orientation.
Existentialism and moving forward
“Existence precedes essence”
Our attitude towards life, world view, language and everything else is heavily influenced by the environment in which we are raised. When we associate the ideas of birth and death with our personhood we are essentially subscribing to an age-old philosophy which can be put as, “essence precedes existence”- the opposite of what the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre said. Much of our philosophies and institutions like religion are based on this idea. This idea existed across the world whether it was western philosophy or Abrahamic religions or eastern philosophy or Dharmic religions. The concepts of heaven, hell, karma, soul, sin, reincarnation, gods, ghosts, etc., all are influenced by this idea. It was only in the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre uttered the famous words, “existence precedes essence,” and it has become the catchphrase for existentialism.
From Sartre’s own words, the philosophy of existentialism is that “…man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards.” But even Sartre used words like birth and death in the traditional sense. He said, “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” I would like to take it a step further with my argument that, “we are never born, but installed.” Birth and death should be limited to physical existence (the human body) only. We (personhoods) are just the installations to support our bodies in-between birth and death. A perfect analogy would be, the intimate pairs of computer hardware and software. The body is akin to the hardware and personhood is akin to the software. The relationship between the body and the personhood is essentially the same as the relationship between the hardware and the software of a computer system. Of course, the personhood does not have a formal uninstallation process, but the personhood ceases to exist when the body dies- just like how software becomes inaccessible or unusable when the hardware fails.
Personhood is not predetermined. Everything like values, world view, attitude, etc., are associated with one’s personhood rather than one’s physical existence. One is one’s personhood. So, we are indeed installed not born. Perhaps it is sad to know that we cannot celebrate a day of installation given the fluidic nature of personhood. But let’s rejoice that when the body dies, the personhood may cease to exist but it cannot be considered as death. I repeat, the personhood is just a support mechanism to help a physical body in-between birth and death. The personhood is installed into the body by means of a complex mechanism including the sensory organs and constantly modified by acquiring language, interacting with the environment and making choices. And most importantly, the personhood is fluidic, haphazard and malleable to the environment just like sand dunes of deserts. This idea may lead to an existential crisis in many people, but this realization gave me a sense of profound relief that as an installation, I’m not subjected to either birth or death. It is better than being either mortal or eternal. Birth and death are absurd ideas for personhood. Let’s dissociate ourselves from these absurd ideas.
