This is were you will be able to find information about projects that are in varying states of development from raw ideas. to formulated plans and projects that are near completion.

Much of my current and developing work examines my position on identity and mortality, what is the essence of my humanity. Identity, in this situation, is a often seen in binaries.

Some people argue these harsh parallels, the position of history and present details that which we are and have been, but many feel the essence of a man is what he will become.

Some questions that must being asked in conjunction with this are:

• At what point does personality become identity?
• The way in which we are judged on the position of our personality can only ever be partial from people who don't know us?
• How do we create a position for ourselves within society that defines us after our physical presence has left?
• How much do we have control in how people see us?

How do we deal with our physicality. It is our reliable impression on the world. Though our mind as an essence it can only ascertained through physicality.

The other position in which I have been approaching Identity is through mortality.

Is it possibly to quantify existence in relation to mortality?

For this question to be answered we must follow some troubling lines of deduction. Identity is often shown in forms of physicality. But it is a well known fact that cells in the body are replaced once every 5 years or so. Does this mean that our identity has irrevocably altered with the completion of each of these cycles? It also follows that once a person dies these replacement cells are no longer produced. Does this mean that in death we gain a permanency not available to us in life.

This can be seen as an erroneous thought process. So how is identity formed?

The brain is, naturally, the next area we must submit to analysis of identity.

We can start by asking if one's identity will change if we were to substitute one's brain with another person's brain? "He is not the same" - we say of someone with a brain injury. If partial damage to the brain causes such a sea change in the determinants of individuality - it seems safe to assume that replacing one's entire brain will result in a total change of one's identity, akin to the emergence of another, distinct, self.

Following this argument it should be safe to assume that if all the other cells and organs of the body are replaced. the identity, residing in the brain, would be preserved.

To follow this argument we must ask what happens if we eliminate all the memories and learned experiences of a person from their brain, would they remain the same person? The physicality of the brain hasn't altered, so neither should the identity.

In fat, this is completely erroneous. Erasing all the knowledge and experience cannot leave the brain in the same state, the learning and experience are the brain.

Paleo-anthropologists attempt to determine the identity of our forefathers by studying their skulls and, by inference, their brains and their mental potentials. True, they investigate other types of bones. Ultimately, they hope to be able to draw an accurate visual description of our ancestors. But perusing other bones leads merely to an image of their former owners - while the scrutiny of skulls presumably reveals our ancestors' very identities.

This brings us back to the ugly point of the physicality of identity. The identity is only reached when the ckull can be used to create or reconstruct a face. This is the necessity of Identity.

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Copyright © 2004 Liam Wilson