Dasein/dasein

[iambiguous]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The 'Physical' Approach

There are three broad categories of approach to personal identity. The first is what we can call the ‘Physical’ approach: this locates what we are fundamentally in something physical.

On the other hand, this assumes we do have some measure of free will. And, in my view, if not, then both the self and any discussions about it unfold entirely given the only possible reality.

Some theories of this kind say that what we are most fundamentally is our brains, or some part of our brains – be it a specific part, or just enough of our brains.

But then for thousands of years now philosophers have gone back and forth regarding the so-call "mind-body problem". Where does one end and the other begin? Or are they all intertwined autonomically in whatever either is or is not behind Nature itself? God, say?

The underlying thought here is generally that our minds only exist as they do because our brains are a certain way, and whilst losing (say) a finger or even an arm couldn’t possibly turn someone into a wholly different person, removing or altering their brain might.

Of course, speculation of this sort goes back to the Big Bang, to the evolution of human beings here on planet Earth and/or to an understanding of existence itself.

Though, by all means, continue to assume that your own assessment of human identity reflects the most rational account.

Other theories of this kind refer to a range of physical features, which together define us as a biological organism or a species.

More to the point, however, our physical features are, in so many ways -- from the cradle to the grave -- beyond our control. Arms, legs, torsos and all the other biological components [inside and out] that we all share in common. Components that biologists have accumulated considerable knowledge regarding over the years.

On the other hand, who really does come closest to grasping how the brain functions in regard to attaining and then sustaining a sense of self?

[iambiguous]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The ‘Psychological’ Approach

A second approach to personal identity says that what we are, most fundamentally, is not any physical organ or organism, but something psychological. We can call these ‘Psychological’ approaches.

On the other hand, who among us can make a reasonably precise distinction between the psycho and the somatic?

To wit: https://www.google.com/search?q=where+d ... URT-reRWmz

Not unlike the gap between the brain and the mind? As in, "where -- how -- does one segue into the other?"

Or the gap between being and nothingness? between free will and determinism? Between QM and cosmogony?

In other words, the gap between what you think you know about all of this and all that there is to be known going back to the existence of existence itself.

We might be understood, as Hume did, as a succession of perceptions or impressions. We might also be understood as consecutive psychological connections.

Okay, but given free will, is there a way for any of us as individuals to embody this...universally? The most philosophically correct perceptions, impressions and connections?

What differentiates these two is the view that certain kinds of mental states constitute relations which hold over a span of time. Memory is especially significant here.

Of course, I keep waiting for others to demonstrate how, given their interactions with others revolving around conflicting goods, they make their own distinctions here. The meaning, morality and metaphysical objectivists in particular.

Also, the part where our memories are, in turn, but another "manifestation of dasein rooted existentially out in a particular world understood in a particular way."

For instance, there is a relation between my mental state as I recall agreeing to write this article, and the time at which I agreed to write this article.

On the other hand, if one or more of the afflictions above had become a part of his life, who knows what he might or might not have done. And choices like this tend to revolve more around human interactions in the either/or world.

The idea that what we are fundamentally relies on such connections is a highly intuitive one. If someone were to have their memories wiped, or switched out for someone else entirely, we could imagine calling into question whether the resultant person is the same as the one which existed before their memory was altered.

Still, that's basically the point that some will raise. Here are the diseases/affliction/conditions that can alter or even erase memories:

* Brain tumor
* Cancer treatment, such as brain radiation, bone marrow transplant, or chemotherapy
* Concussion or head trauma
* Not enough oxygen getting to the brain when your heart or breathing is stopped for too long
* Severe brain infection or infection around brain
* Major surgery or severe illness, including brain surgery
* Transient global amnesia (sudden, temporary loss of memory) of unclear cause
* Transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke
* Hydrocephalus (fluid collection in the brain)
* Multiple sclerosis
* Dementia

Sometimes, memory loss occurs with mental health problems, such as:

* After a major, traumatic or stressful event
* Bipolar disorder
* Depression or other mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia


Next up: Memento?

[Belinda]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The 'Physical' Approach

There are three broad categories of approach to personal identity. The first is what we can call the ‘Physical’ approach: this locates what we are fundamentally in something physical.

On the other hand, this assumes we do have some measure of free will. And, in my view, if not, then both the self and any discussions about it unfold entirely given the only possible reality.

Some theories of this kind say that what we are most fundamentally is our brains, or some part of our brains – be it a specific part, or just enough of our brains.

But then for thousands of years now philosophers have gone back and forth regarding the so-call "mind-body problem". Where does one end and the other begin? Or are they all intertwined autonomically in whatever either is or is not behind Nature itself? God, say?

The underlying thought here is generally that our minds only exist as they do because our brains are a certain way, and whilst losing (say) a finger or even an arm couldn’t possibly turn someone into a wholly different person, removing or altering their brain might.

Of course, speculation of this sort goes back to the Big Bang, to the evolution of human beings here on planet Earth and/or to an understanding of existence itself.

Though, by all means, continue to assume that your own assessment of human identity reflects the most rational account.

Other theories of this kind refer to a range of physical features, which together define us as a biological organism or a species.

More to the point, however, our physical features are, in so many ways -- from the cradle to the grave -- beyond our control. Arms, legs, torsos and all the other biological components [inside and out] that we all share in common. Components that biologists have accumulated considerable knowledge regarding over the years.

On the other hand, who really does come closest to grasping how the brain functions in regard to attaining and then sustaining a sense of self?

The feeling of being a separate self varies to fit degrees of autonomy , according as autonomy applies to actual fact and to affect. Much of what is regarded as pathological e.g. ischaemic strokes, hallucination, jarring movement of the brain within the cranium, and dementia, is unpleasant and life threatening because of the loss of autonomy.

One fears to lose one's life because one knows there will be complete and irrevocable loss of autonomy after death.

[iambiguous]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The ‘Sceptical’ Approach

A third approach to personal identity calls into question the reality of the problems of personal identity, or is sceptical about our ability to answer them correctly. We can call these ‘Sceptical’ approaches.

Of course, I am only skeptical regarding reality -- objective reality -- in the is/ought world. And yet even regarding the either/or world there are any number of things that supposedly can be known objectively because they did in fact happen, but apparently no mere mortal is able to. For instance, I was watching a documentary on the disappearnamce of Amelia Earhart. All these speculative theories about what happened to her. Or how about the murder Jon Benet Ramsey. The disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Or the mysteries that revolve around the Mary Celeste or the 3 escapees from Alcatraz or J.D. Cooper or Jimmy Hoffa or Virginia Dare and the Roanoke Colony.

Again, for many, that's where God comes in. He knows exactly what happened to all of these people. After all, there are no mysteries when you are omniscient. So, people can fall back on religion and assume that God will always be around to sustain Divine Justice.

This approach says that there is no answer to questions concerning personal identity, or that they are the wrong way of asking questions about ourselves and our mental lives, or that whatever answer we give to these questions isn’t really important.

Is this your own approach? As for myself, there are any number of answers I can provide pertaining to my own identity. Things that are in fact true because they are rooted in biology or in demographics or in the actual circumstances of my life. These objective facts are more or less important depending on the context.

There are broadly three kinds of sceptical approaches. First, that which holds we ‘are’ nothing at all, most fundamentally. There is no core to our existence, no final kernel of truth about what we are which trumps all others...

Of course, none of us can actually know unequivocally whether a "core" -- the Real Me -- does exist. The religious folks insist this goes back to God, the pantheists argue it's embedded in the universe itself, and any number of moral objectivists among us claim to be in possession of an Intrinsic Self which allows them intuitively to "just know" particular things about themselves.

Second, that which holds that there is no answer to this question because it is the wrong kind of question, focusing too much on the concepts by which we understand ourselves rather than the source of our mental lives. This approach might say that what we are most fundamentally is a question best left to the natural sciences.

On the other hand, what exactly are the natural sciences telling you about the things you do? Then -- click -- that at times "fuzzy" interaction between the "hard sciences" and the "soft sciences"...anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science.

Third, that which holds that whatever we are fundamentally does not seriously affect how we should see the world, or morality.

You tell me. Given particular experiences from your own life.

[Belinda]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The ‘Sceptical’ Approach

A third approach to personal identity calls into question the reality of the problems of personal identity, or is sceptical about our ability to answer them correctly. We can call these ‘Sceptical’ approaches.

Of course, I am only skeptical regarding reality -- objective reality -- in the is/ought world. And yet even regarding the either/or world there are any number of things that supposedly can be known objectively because they did in fact happen, but apparently no mere mortal is able to. For instance, I was watching a documentary on the disappearnamce of Amelia Earhart. All these speculative theories about what happened to her. Or how about the murder Jon Benet Ramsey. The disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Or the mysteries that revolve around the Mary Celeste or the 3 escapees from Alcatraz or J.D. Cooper or Jimmy Hoffa or Virginia Dare and the Roanoke Colony.

Again, for many, that's where God comes in. He knows exactly what happened to all of these people. After all, there are no mysteries when you are omniscient. So, people can fall back on religion and assume that God will always be around to sustain Divine Justice.

This approach says that there is no answer to questions concerning personal identity, or that they are the wrong way of asking questions about ourselves and our mental lives, or that whatever answer we give to these questions isn’t really important.

Is this your own approach? As for myself, there are any number of answers I can provide pertaining to my own identity. Things that are in fact true because they are rooted in biology or in demographics or in the actual circumstances of my life. These objective facts are more or less important depending on the context.

There are broadly three kinds of sceptical approaches. First, that which holds we ‘are’ nothing at all, most fundamentally. There is no core to our existence, no final kernel of truth about what we are which trumps all others...

Of course, none of us can actually know unequivocally whether a "core" -- the Real Me -- does exist. The religious folks insist this goes back to God, the pantheists argue it's embedded in the universe itself, and any number of moral objectivists among us claim to be in possession of an Intrinsic Self which allows them intuitively to "just know" particular things about themselves.

Second, that which holds that there is no answer to this question because it is the wrong kind of question, focusing too much on the concepts by which we understand ourselves rather than the source of our mental lives. This approach might say that what we are most fundamentally is a question best left to the natural sciences.

On the other hand, what exactly are the natural sciences telling you about the things you do? Then -- click -- that at times "fuzzy" interaction between the "hard sciences" and the "soft sciences"...anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science.

Third, that which holds that whatever we are fundamentally does not seriously affect how we should see the world, or morality.

You tell me. Given particular experiences from your own life.

Existence precedes essence. There will not be a definitive me until I have stopped experiencing. Dasein is dynamic.

[iambiguous]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

This last view [above] is worth considering in more detail, as we move on to consider specific problems of personal identity in more detail. Before exploring it further, it is important to clarify that personal identity is often considered a species of the yet-more-numerous problems of identity simpliciter.

Simpliciter: Simply, absolutely; without any qualification or condition Wiktionary

Again, I'm not entirely sure what this means. Is it referring to aspects of our identity that follow us all the way from the cradle to the grave? Particular biological imperatives or demographic components or circumstantial facts that, while evolving [and then devolving] over time, remain a part of who we and others accept as who we are.

Perhaps the archetypal problem of identity is explained using an example, commonly called the ‘Ship of Theseus’ problem. The thought experiment is this: imagine a ship which, over time, has every plank, every mast, every patch of sail, indeed every single part of it replaced with a new component.

On the other hand:

Lena: "They say you replace every molecule in your body every seven years. I changed my name eight years ago. No more Thelma Sneeder."

Actually...

"The body replaces cell types every seven to 10 years with the exception of neurons in the cerebral cortex, which stay with us from birth to death. The most recurring cell changes occur in the skin, bones, liver, stomach and intestines."

Even if the shipbuilder or the captain tries very hard to make a like for like replacement, no two planks of wood are exactly alike. The questions this raises are these: is the ship with all of its component parts changed the same ship it was before a single component was removed? And, if it is not, then at what point did it become a different ship?

Of course, for those who board the ship over the years, it's not likely that they will be aware of this. It's the same ship to them. Even for those who man the ship it's unlikely that this will ever occur to them. So, here something might be true but for all practical purposes what difference does it make?

Also, ships don't have memories. And -- click -- as long as we do, the past the present and the future are intertwined such that our identity is seldom questioned. Instead, change here revolves around circumstances. New experiences that can trigger epiphanies that can have a profound impact on how we [and others] see ourselves. Or any number of brain afflictions can have an equally dramatic impact on who we think we are.

[Belinda]

Dasein is experience that's attached to a unitary experiencer. There are brain conditions that stop the experiences being unitary: dementia, split personality, death.

A ship never experienced anything. A ship is nothing but its history e.g was built 1947 by Denny of Dumbarton, was refitted with red funnels on 00/00/0000,licensed to carry N passengers etc etc.

[iambiguous]

Personal Identity
Carsten Korfmacher at IEP

What does being the person that you are, from one day to the next, necessarily consist in?

So much more to the point [mine] "is there any way for philosophers or scientists to [someday] pin down the most rational manner in which to construe your own personal identity?" And, perhaps, even more crucial, is this even possible at all in regard to our value judgments?

I say "no" given a No God universe.

On the other hand, if you say "yes" given your own moral and political convictions, please note how this is pertinent to your interactions with others which involve conflicts.

This is the question of personal identity, and it is literally a question of life and death, as the correct answer to it determines which types of changes a person can undergo without ceasing to exist.

Here, of course, there are any number of changes in the lives we live that can result in our ceasing to exist...illness, accident, old age, suicide, murder, mass extinction events, etc.,

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-shee ... s-of-death

Personal identity theory is the philosophical confrontation with the most ultimate questions of our own existence: who are we, and is there a life after death?

As always, from my own frame of mind, there are any number of theoretical constructs [here, for example] that revolve basically around particular definitions given to words out of which come particular deductions "establishing" one or another One True Path. And then, of course, connecting the dots between who we think we are and how who we think we are can have a profound effect on any number of things pertaining to either life or death.

In distinguishing those changes in a person that constitute survival from those changes in a person that constitute death, a criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the survival of persons.

My criterion? Your criterion? Their criterion? Pragmatism? Idealism?

Also, we'd better run this by Donald Musk to see if our own criteria actually matter at all.

[iambiguous]

Personal Identity
Carsten Korfmacher at IEP

One popular criterion, associated with Plato, Descartes and a number of world religions, is that persons are immaterial souls or pure egos.

And yet to the best of my knowledge not a single solitary soul has ever actually been shown to exist. In fact, just out of curiosity, how do you go about demonstrating [even to yourself] that you possess a soul.

As for pure egos, that seems to revolve far more around those here who insist that they and they alone have access to the optimal or [sometimes] the only rational assessment of the One True Path. Don't believe it? Just ask them.

On this view, persons have bodies only contingently, not necessarily; so they can live after bodily death. Even though this so-called Simple View satisfies certain religious or spiritual predilections, it faces metaphysical and epistemological obstacles, as we shall see.

The Simple View:

"The simple view of personal identity, which on some variants is called the soul view, identifies persons with souls or some other immaterial mental thing. The simple view is distinct from materialist constructions and the memory/character views of human persons."

Unless, of course, it's called the Simple View because it reduces everything down to that which most comforts and consoles us. It's simply one or another God. Or it's simply one or another ideological dogma. Or it's simply one or another deontological assessment. Or it's simply one or another rendition of biological imperatives.

Not the least of which is my own existential assessment here. It's what "I" believe "here and now" "in my head". Though I flat out acknowledge that beyond this I'm simply unable to go much further.

Another intuitively appealing view, championed by John Locke, holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity.

Unless, of course, psychological continuity is just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. And though many will insist their own continuity necessarily trumps everyone else's, they will almost never actually take this down out of the theoretical clouds.

According to this view, in order for a person X to survive a particular adventure, it is necessary and sufficient that there exists, at a time after the adventure, a person Y who psychologically evolved out of X.

Agree with this? Okay, please note how it is applicable to your own social, political and economic value judgments. And, in turn, how your own value judgments are not derived from dasein but from deontology. Or, from God.

[Belinda]

Personal Identity
Carsten Korfmacher at IEP

One popular criterion, associated with Plato, Descartes and a number of world religions, is that persons are immaterial souls or pure egos.

And yet to the best of my knowledge not a single solitary soul has ever actually been shown to exist. In fact, just out of curiosity, how do you go about demonstrating [even to yourself] that you possess a soul.

As for pure egos, that seems to revolve far more around those here who insist that they and they alone have access to the optimal or [sometimes] the only rational assessment of the One True Path. Don't believe it? Just ask them.

On this view, persons have bodies only contingently, not necessarily; so they can live after bodily death. Even though this so-called Simple View satisfies certain religious or spiritual predilections, it faces metaphysical and epistemological obstacles, as we shall see.

The Simple View:

"The simple view of personal identity, which on some variants is called the soul view, identifies persons with souls or some other immaterial mental thing. The simple view is distinct from materialist constructions and the memory/character views of human persons."

Unless, of course, it's called the Simple View because it reduces everything down to that which most comforts and consoles us. It's simply one or another God. Or it's simply one or another ideological dogma. Or it's simply one or another deontological assessment. Or it's simply one or another rendition of biological imperatives.

Not the least of which is my own existential assessment here. It's what "I" believe "here and now" "in my head". Though I flat out acknowledge that beyond this I'm simply unable to go much further.

Another intuitively appealing view, championed by John Locke, holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity.

Unless, of course, psychological continuity is just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. And though many will insist their own continuity necessarily trumps everyone else's, they will almost never actually take this down out of the theoretical clouds.

According to this view, in order for a person X to survive a particular adventure, it is necessary and sufficient that there exists, at a time after the adventure, a person Y who psychologically evolved out of X.

Agree with this? Okay, please note how it is applicable to your own social, political and economic value judgments. And, in turn, how your own value judgments are not derived from dasein but from deontology. Or, from God.

Dasein simply is the case. Deontological ethics may or may not be part of any individual Dasein. I'm only saying that Dasein always overarches all taught ethical beliefs.
As for God; God is interpreted for many of us by Jesus. Jesus has made it clear that where a person is at, psychologically, is where that person is at, and God knows that person better than that person knows herself, and He forgives.

[iambiguous]

Personal Identity
Carsten Korfmacher at IEP

A third criterion of personal identity is that we are our bodies, that is to say, that personal identity is constituted by some brute physical relation between, for example, different bodies or different life-sustaining systems at different times.

This is the part, in my view, where moral, political and religious objectivists among us become particularly discomfited. They need to believe they are wholly in sync with the Real Me in sync further with The Right Thing To Do. Then that is often anchored to one or another God or spiritual path.

In other words, they encompass the best of both worlds. At least from their own frame of mind. They get to insist their own value judgments reflect the One True Path to Enlightenment, but they are never really obligated to demonstrate this because intuitively they "just know" that certain things are Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, True or False.

I merely suggest this may well be a manifestation of what I construe [in the OP] to be the "psychology of objectivism": https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/the-p ... tive/37994

I can then only ask others to note why their own convictions are nothing like that at all.

Understanding the Problem of Personal Identity

The persistence question, the question of what personal identity over time consists in, is literally a question of life and death: answers to it determine, insofar as that is possible, the conditions under which we survive, or cease to exist in the course of, certain adventures.

Then of course the manner in which any number of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...are quick to insist that they and they alone have succeeded in sustaining the optimal conditions for human survival.

Or else?

As for how they managed to accomplish this, well, cue one or another God, political ideology, philosophy of life, etc., along with the assumption that it's ever and always their way or else it's ever and always the highway.

Again, this tells some of us it's less what one believes the One True Path is and more that believing there is one -- one's own -- is what allows one to acquire the comfort and the consolation that an Intrinsic Self is able to sustain all the way to the grave.

[bilal_._haiderrr]

The classic question is: if you replace every single plank, nail, and part of a ship, is it still the same ship?

My answer is simple and bold: The real ship of Theseus is the one named “Theseus.” The parts don’t matter.

Let me explain. I’m Bilal, and I have a hand. That hand belongs to me. But I don’t belong to that hand. The hand is part of me, but my identity is not tied to just that hand alone. People say “This is Bilal’s hand,” not “This is the hand’s Bilal.” The hand is property; I am the person.

Similarly, if I buy a laptop and call it “Champ” — my favorite name — and then replace every piece inside that laptop over time, it remains my “Champ.” The parts are like belongings or inheritances; they’re not the “parents” of the thing’s identity.

Now take a country like name it "AsiaTop". "AsiaTop" is not "AsiaTop" because of its current people or buildings. Even if someone conquers it, replaces every person with new inhabitants, and rebuilds everything, it is still called "AsiaTop". People say "AsiaTop has been conquered,” not "AsiaTop is now homeless.” The name and the concept of AsiaTop persist regardless of the physical changes.

So, the paradox dissolves if you understand that identity comes from the name and continuity, not the physical components. The ship is the ship because we call it that, not because of its parts.

If another ship is created with its parts, then it could be named as that maker of that ship wants, doesnot mean that it will also named as Ship of Theseus

[iambiguous]

Heidegger’s Being and Time: Understanding Dasein and Temporality
Heidegger’s “Being and Time” explores Dasein and temporality, revealing how human existence is deeply intertwined with time and authenticity.

Viktoriya Sus at The Collector

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time transformed philosophy in the 20th century by attempting something huge: trying to understand what it means to exist. Or, as Heidegger puts it, to be Dasein.

Of course, any number of folks will link him to Hitler and the Nazis. So, in contemplating his philosophical assessment of what it means to exist, how exactly are we to go about dismissing that? Fascism and...authenticity?

On the other hand, others will insist that fascism actually is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds. Sieg Heil and all that.

And then this part:

My point here revolves around connecting the dots between Heidegger's theoretical Dasein in Being and Time and the manner in which I construe the existential dasein out in the world of actual human interactions.

In other words, we are "thrown" adventitiously [at birth] out into a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. And then we are indoctrinated as children to construe an "authentic" life to be just what Mom and Dad and the ruling class tell us it is. And, perhaps, the ecclesiastics?

He asks: how do our experiences in the past and present, our hopes and fears for the future, shape our understanding of what it is to “be” at all? The result is a text that asks us many difficult questions, including whether we have understood anything he has said.

Which is why I point out that given how different and conflicting and contradictory our personal experiences can be, is it any wonder that communication breakdowns are so common? Just follow the news for a while if you want to see how common they are. I merely make that distinction between "I" in the either/or and in the is/ought world.

[Belinda]

Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
Luke Dunn at The Collector

The 'Physical' Approach

There are three broad categories of approach to personal identity. The first is what we can call the ‘Physical’ approach: this locates what we are fundamentally in something physical.

On the other hand, this assumes we do have some measure of free will. And, in my view, if not, then both the self and any discussions about it unfold entirely given the only possible reality.

Some theories of this kind say that what we are most fundamentally is our brains, or some part of our brains – be it a specific part, or just enough of our brains.

But then for thousands of years now philosophers have gone back and forth regarding the so-call "mind-body problem". Where does one end and the other begin? Or are they all intertwined autonomically in whatever either is or is not behind Nature itself? God, say?

The underlying thought here is generally that our minds only exist as they do because our brains are a certain way, and whilst losing (say) a finger or even an arm couldn’t possibly turn someone into a wholly different person, removing or altering their brain might.

Of course, speculation of this sort goes back to the Big Bang, to the evolution of human beings here on planet Earth and/or to an understanding of existence itself.

Though, by all means, continue to assume that your own assessment of human identity reflects the most rational account.

Other theories of this kind refer to a range of physical features, which together define us as a biological organism or a species.

More to the point, however, our physical features are, in so many ways -- from the cradle to the grave -- beyond our control. Arms, legs, torsos and all the other biological components [inside and out] that we all share in common. Components that biologists have accumulated considerable knowledge regarding over the years.

On the other hand, who really does come closest to grasping how the brain functions in regard to attaining and then sustaining a sense of self?

"Speculation of this sort" normally does not "go back the the Big Bang" but goes back to to the Renaissance. I recommend begin speculating with Descartes and end , not chronologically but rationally, with Spinoza and Existentialists especially Sartre and Heidegger.

Personal identity in the context of Iambiguous's post refers to how we identify a self as an enduring self. Dasein as heuristic frees us from all sorts of nasties that follow on the the notion of enduring self: racism, libertarian free will, blame, resentment, punitiveness, ageism, sexism, even speciesism.

In the context of Christianity, Dasein can explain, without recourse to miracles,how sins can be forgiven and the sinner can start afresh.

[iambiguous]

Heidegger’s “Being and Time” explores Dasein and temporality, revealing how human existence is deeply intertwined with time and authenticity.Viktoriya Sus at The Collector

Martin Heidegger, a philosopher with difficult but important ideas, was influential in his field during the 20th century. He was born in Germany in 1889 and spent his life trying to understand what it means for something to exist. This made him one of the most important thinkers of his time.

On the other hand, what he shares with all of us as a "mere mortal in a No God universe" is The Gap between what he thinks he understands regarding human existence, and all there is to know about the existence of existence itself. Which then acknowledges Rumsfeld's conjecture that in regard to the human condition [and not just pertaining to the war in Iraq] there are any number of things we don't even know that we don't even know yet. 

In 1927, Martin Heidegger published Being and Time, which changed philosophy forever. It broke completely with how things had always been done. In this book, Heidegger introduces concepts like Dasein (often translated as “being-there”), saying we should think about humans’ place within the world they live in.

Being here historically, culturally and experientially and not there. Being here now and not then.  

What, that's not applicable to Heidegger? 

Though, sure, if philosophers are able to finally establish the best of all possible worlds...?  Still, what are the odds it accurately reflects the world we live in today? Then those hundreds and hundreds of men and women who insist they embody not just the best of all possible worlds, but the only One True Path to enlightenment that there is. And, for millions more, a belief that the best of all possible worlds includes immortality and salvation. 

Instead of focusing only outward at objects around them, he suggests people also consider themselves—what does being here mean anyway? What is my experience right now? Am I living authentically or not so much?

Just out of curiosity, are there philosophers here who embrace the idea of living authentically as Heidegger and other existentialists encompass it?  If so, let's take these ideas out of the "hallowed halls of learning" and explore all of this [ironically enough] existentially.  

Why your own set of assumptions here and not mine?