Do we remain the same self over time, or are we many selves throughout our lives? Philosopher Jonardon Ganeri argues that we not only have a different self for different situations but that every one of our imagined selves exists alongside the 'real' self Western science and philosophy often cling to. By exploring Fernando Pessoa, one of Portugal’s greatest poets, ancient Hindu philosophy and the philosophy of David Chalmers, Ganeri argues that the self is split over multiple physical, imagined and virtual realities.
The early 20th-century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa’s curiosity about the reach of the imagination and the shifting sands of identity began early in life and remained the one constant preoccupation in this most creatively fluid of writers (and for a comprehensive account of his life consult Richard Zenith’s magisterial biography;). Fired up by the human mind’s strange ability to model and inhabit other forms of consciousness, Pessoa had no trouble in imagining himself to be a fly:
Who knows for what supreme forces—gods or demons of Truth in whose shadow we roam—I may be nothing but a shiny fly that alights in front of them for a moment or two? A facile hypothesis? Maybe. But I didn’t think: I felt. It was carnally, directly, with profound and dark horror that I made this ludicrous comparison. I was a fly when I compared myself to one. I really felt like a fly when I imagined I felt like one. And I felt I had a flyish soul, slept flyishly and was flyishly withdrawn. And what’s more horrifying is that I felt, at the same time, like myself. I automatically raised my eyes towards the ceiling, lest a lofty wooden ruler should swoop down to swat me, as I might swat that fly. (Pessoa 2002, #334)
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