Alter Ego Analysis

2. Why does the narrator talk about himself in the Because he considers the body he’s in

The concept of personal identity or personhood is a very complex area of philosophy that challenges our most basic understandings of mind and matter. Philosophers have generally settled into either the school of mind, or consciousness, and the school of body. As our ability to study the mind grows, through developments in psychology and neurology, consciousness-based theories have come to dominate the discussion of personal identity and body-based theories appear simplistic and even primitive. Thesis: Catriona Mackenzie, however, compels the field to make a renewed examination of the body by pointing out that the body is the very apparatus by which the self interacts with world, thereby shaping all of the experiences which constitute memory and consciousness.

Thus, one may further conclude that the only difference between a "normal" individual and Dennett's hypothetical case is the great temporal gap that exists between the brain and the body in Dennett's case. A difference that one may believe does not have clear philosophical implications. Therefore, it can be suggested that Dennett, in setting up his scenario in this way, does not contribute much more insight into the ‘self'-phenomenon than many

behavior and thus I enter into a different self-state (para 11). He explains himself being

The Ego Centric Problem states that the knowledge we have gained over the period of our lives in entrenched so deep that it prevents us from learning new things. Descartes states that “if we can only be certain of the contents of our consciousness, then how are we ever to gain knowledge of the world that lies beyond our minds. This brings up a good point, if we already have knowledge, does that knowledge have any influence on us that would hinder us to learn new things.

     The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!

This paper, divided into two parts, is intended to understand April’s case in a “thoughtfully eclectic” way from a social work perspective by applying human behavior theories. The first part shows the use of Ego Psychology to illustrate how loss from April’s father’s death interrupted her development by disrupting her ego function. The second part shows the assessment of April’s biological, psychological, and social-emotional development, the ecological factors which affected her development, and the cultural stereotype expectation on normal development.

The character that I chose to write about is Kevin Wendell Crumb from the movie “Split”. Kevin suffers from dissociative identity disorder which causes him to experience 23 different personalities within his mind. Dissociative identity disorder used to be called multiple personality disorder and is defined as a person’s identity that is fragmented into two or more distinct personalities. The most common cause for dissociative identity disorder is severe abuse whether it be physical, emotional and sexual or a mix of all three. The personalities are said to live their own life, have their own characteristics and memories, when the personalities switch there is no recollection of the memories that the other personalities had. Gaps of time

I will argue that Locke believed that if you remain the same person, there are various entities contained in my body and soul composite that do not remain the same over time, or that we can conceive them changing. These entities are matter, organism (human), person (rational consciousness and memory), and the soul (immaterial thinking substance). This is a intuitive interpretation that creates many questions and problems. I will evaluate Locke's view by explaining what is and what forms personal identity, and then explaining how these changes do conceivably occur while a human remains the same person.

The theory of psychological egoism is indeed plausible. The meaning of plausible in the context of this paper refers to the validity or the conceivability of the theory in question, to explain the nature and motivation of human behavior (Hinman, 2007). Human actions are motivated by the satisfaction obtained after completing a task that they are involved in. For example, Mother Teresa was satisfied by her benevolent actions and activities that she spent her life doing. As Hinman (2007) points out, she was likely to reduce in activity if she experienced any dissatisfaction in her endeavors.

Stakeholders-investors, customers, interest groups, employees, the legal system, and the community often determine whether a specific behavior is right or wrong, ethical or unethical. Judgments of these groups influence society’s acceptance or rejection of a business and it’s activities.

The expressions of the characters, caused by their surrounding, is also a factor that can alter the psychological traits in a character. The Man states “He does not trust his dreams, believing that they are "the call of languor and of death” (McCarthy 15).The man has a vivid

Psychological egoism is the interpretation that humans are always inspired by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. Psychological egoism, which was widely recognized by psychologists and philosophers states that all human actions are motivated by selfish needs to benefit themselves. According to psychological egoists true altruism does not exist because the consequence of such an act leads to an increase in personal happiness. However, Joel Feinberg does not agree with that theory and in his essay he disagreed with the thesis that altruism

371). This responds to the objections raised by Thomas Reid in the 18th century (Shoemaker, 2008, p. 340), however, the Memory Theory did require a modification to include the possibility of temporarily forgetting the experiences of an earlier person-stage, “as long as one has the potentiality of remembering it” (Shoemaker, 2008, p. 340). In the conversations held by Gretchen Weirob, Sam Miller and Dave Cohen in Perry’s ‘Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality’ (Perry, 1977), this concept is addressed in depth. Miller relays a chapter written by Locke – “the relation between two person-stages or stretches of consciousness that makes them stages of a single person is just that the later one contains memories of an earlier one...I can remember only my past thoughts and feelings, and you only yours...take this relation as the source of identity” (Perry, 1977, p. 343). These concepts are logical possibilities in my opinion, and are far less unstable than those presented within the Body/Soul Theory, as these concepts do not require the senses of others, but the individual’s first person perception of their personal identity.

Some would choose to declare that every human being is both a body and a mind. Both being gelled together until death, than having the mind go on to exist and the body being lifeless. A person lives throughout two collateral histories, one having to do with what happens to the body and in it, and the other being what happens in and to the mind. What happens to the body is public and what happens to the mind is private. The events which reply to the body consist of the physical world, and the events of the mind consist of the mental world.