Need to check with outside world to be fully aware of identity. Not necessarily asking people what they think of you, but observe how your actions affect stuff.
edit - your actions (and attitude and approach) dictate who you are. Not what you think, not what your principles are. if we are talking about identity of the person.
Are we what we do, or are we what we think? Do we have an identity apart from how others observe and witness us?
What if someone just conforms to external expectations but inside is different? Contrastingly, what if they have an internal view of self that they fail to implement in terms of behavior?
Which definition is more valid?
discussssssssss
identity is a fragile and dynamic function of the mind. identity can be(come) everything. not sure if it can become everything.
oh, i am abusing language again.
the nature of a persona is a more complex topic of course.
(while we are identified with out persona, our identity has become our persona)
I hold the view that internal perceptions of self are an element of our behavior and not something separate from it.
I speak only for myself, but I have had many moments where inner thoughts clashed with my outer behavior. I have always been keen to notice it, however. I find myself taking on a stance of "I do, therefore I think" rather than "I think, therefore I am". I arrive at conclusions about what I think, based on reflecting on prior behavior, as opposed to the other way around. As such, I tend to give more weight to my outer behavior and trust inner notions less; especially as I see my "inner self" as being largely a product of transactions with the outside world.
Another point: Supposing that there is an internal view of self that runs in constrast to outer behavior, I think it is important to consider the question of how to "prove" it, or how to verify it. If all we have to go on is a person saying "Inside, I am person XY", it would seem to me to be unfalsifiable. Of course, I am assuming verifiability and falsifiability as being "important."
Before this question can be answered, I think it is important to consider whether or not there is commonly agreed upon way of measuring validity. Using myself as an example to illustrate, my inclination towards externally derived notions of "self" are in large part of a general inclination I have towards empirical methods of verification (and also perhaps due to my almost absence of "Fi"). Not everybody gives as much weight to this method, however.
Need to check with outside world to be fully aware of identity. Not necessarily asking people what they think of you, but observe how your actions affect stuff.
edit - your actions (and attitude and approach) dictate who you are. Not what you think, not what your principles are. if we are talking about identity of the person.
Interesting.... That was an extremely informative answer, you explained it very well -- thank you.
I'm not really sure where I stand, since I see validity in either angle depending on the context that is relevant at the time.
I think naturally I'm more like Descartes (to borrow your ref), but I also firmly believe that it's easy to picture oneself any way one would like internally, while not behaving in ways that conform to that inner identity... so in a sense the internal identity then is naught but a fantasy and self-delusion if it is never made manifest (if we consider both internal and external landscapes to be part of the world that an individual inhabits)... at least in terms of character.
And reality of who we are to ourselves might not be the reality of who we are to someone else, realistically.
True, the latter is an assumption. Does it matter if no one else perceives the person we perceive ourselves as? And who does it matter to? And does that vary from person to person?
Since we cannot get access to someone's mind directly (at least at this time), it seems the only indication we have of someone being who they say they are is their observable actions (and the motivations they express for said actions).
That's true as well. My own concept of validity would suggest whichever view happens to give the more "consistent" description of the person. I'm more of a pattern mapper that notices imbalances within the pattern, rather than checking each point empirically (although I think that is important in order to cross-confirm conclusions).
My Fi sense has gotten stronger but for many years I didn't have much of an internal ego. I knew what I felt and what I wanted to believe about me but felt the need to validate my internal experience through external means.... which left things in a lot of turmoil for years. it also makes one extremely susceptible to the opinions and observations of others, right or wrong. It seems that to some degree one must develop Fi sense merely to have a holistic sense of self, instead of constantly having to 'step outside' to acquire one...
Great comments, fill... and i think it sort of leads to what I hinted at earlier -- that maybe we don't have an "identity" but maybe just a scattering of identity facets based on who is viewing us... since no one person really has the inside track 100% of who we are...
Is identity dependent on the identifier as much as the subject being identified?
This thread speaks to me as for the past few days I've had some trouble pinpointing who I really am and what I want. The view that our actions define us is also what Jean-Paul Sartre argues in his existentialist writings. And I've been reading those a lot lately- I'm not sure I agree with it 100%, but it's really had me thinking.
So in science there is data, its interpretation, and its test. And after reading some response, I had this thought: what if we define ourselves by our scientific method? We have all of our actions, which acts as the data we collect, then we have our interpretation of that data, and its test. So if we think of our past actions, the interpretation of those actions is a "theory" of who we are; but as this theory is disproved as we are bound to act inconsistently (or at least I am), we have to rework a new theory. The only snag I have is this: who interprets the data? Us? Others? Is anyone qualified to do so? Hence lies my identity problem. Maybe the data is interpreted two ways: by ourselves, creating our theory of who we are and by others creating a theory of who we are socially. But which one is more liable?
I think this is why I have a hard time trusting myself, then something happens and I think the opposite: no one is to be trusted.
Anyone else experience this?