What is it to be a Self?
\n\u2022 My objective is to explore personal identity by using film and television as thought experiments. I want to further my own understanding of my \u2018self\u2019, as well as that of others around me.
\n\u2022 Body theory: Our personal identity persists because we have the same body from birth until death. Challenged by \u2018Star Trek\u2019 Transporter thought experiment.
\n\u2022 Soul theory: The soul houses our identity, supported by Plato and Ren\u00e9 Descartes. Challenged by films such as \u2018Still Allice\u2019, how does Alzheimer\u2019s damage the soul?
\n\u2022 Memory theory\/ psychological continuity: John Locke\u2019s Memory Theory. We have memory links to different stages in our lives, and they are all connected. Films such as \u2018Total Recall\u2019 and \u2018Blade Runner\u2019 call into question the role false memories can have in shaping our personal identities.
\nSociety and the Self
\n\u2022 Zygmunt Bauman: Timeline of personal identity. We are in Liquid Modern Times, technology dictates personal identity. Explored in films such as \u2018The Social Network\u2019 and \u2018Her\u2019.
\n\u2022 Friedrich Nietzsche: Flux, we are in a constant state of becoming, so there is no fixed self that persists through time. Christian values of the past should be rejected, instead we should practise Amor Fati.
\n\u2022 Fixed identity: Exists in the Pre-modern Era and in Social Frameworks, i.e. institutions such as the Christian Church. Patrick Bateman in \u2018American Psycho\u2019 undergoes an identity crisis in response to the fixities in his life.
\n\u2022 Fluid identity: The transition from Walter White to Heisenberg in Breaking Bad is fluid identity in action. Supported by Bauman and Nietzsche, as it can make for a more tolerant society. However, lacking a solid sense of self can be dangerous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marcus Steward, 2022, Stage 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,22,123],"tags":[46,62,28],"class_list":["post-2395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-23","category-abstracts","category-stage-3-abstracts","tag-bauman","tag-cinema","tag-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}