Open individualism is the view in the

philosophy of self The philosophy of self is the study of wisdom as self at a conceptual level. Many different ideas on what constitutes self have been proposed, including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of th ...

, according to which there exists only one numerically identical subject, who is everyone at all times, in the past, present and future. It is a theoretical solution to the question of personal identity, being contrasted with "Empty individualism", the view that personal identities correspond to a fixed pattern that instantaneously disappears with the passage of time, and with "Closed individualism", the common view that personal identities are particular to subjects and yet survive over time.

History

The term was coined by philosopher Daniel Kolak, though this view has been described at least since the time of the

Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...

, in the late

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

; the phrase "

Tat tvam asi Tat or TAT may refer to: Geography *Tát, a Hungarian village *Tat Ali, an Ethiopian volcano People *Tat, a son and disciple of Hermes Trismegistus * Tiffani Amber Thiessen, initials T.A.T. *Tat Wood, a British author Arts, entertainment, and m ...

" meaning "You are that" is an example. Others who have expressed similar views (in various forms) include the philosophers Averroes,

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

, and

Arnold Zuboff Arnold Stuart Zuboff (born January 1946) is an American philosopher who has worked on topics such as personal identity, philosophy of mind, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of probability. He is the original formulator of the ...

, mystic Meher Baba, stand-up comedian

Bill Hicks William Melvin Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material—encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy—wa ...

, writer Alan Watts, as well as renowned physicists Erwin Schrödinger, Freeman Dyson, and

Fred Hoyle Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other sci ...

In fiction

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

in the short story " Esarhaddon, King of Assyria", tells how an old man appears before

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of hi ...

and takes the king through a process where he experiences, from a first-person perspective, the lives of humans and non-human animals he has tormented. This reveals to him that he is everyone and that by harming others, he is actually harming himself. In the science fiction novel '' October the First Is Too Late'', Fred Hoyle puts forward the "pigeon hole theory" which asserts that "each moment of time can be thought of as a pre-existing pigeon hole" and the pigeon hole currently being examined by your consciousness is the

present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

and that the spotlight of consciousness does not have to move in a linear fashion; it could potentially move around in any order. Hoyle considers the possibility that there might be one set of pigeon holes for each person, but only one spotlight, which would mean that the "consciousness could be the same". " The Egg", a short story by Andy Weir, is about a character who finds out that they are every person who has ever existed.

References

External links

* Identity (philosophy) Metaphysical theories Metaphysics of mind Conceptions of self Theory of mind {{Metaphysics-stub

History

In fiction

See also

References

Further reading

Articles

Books

External links