Finding Ourselves Making

We often speak of identity as if it were atomic, in the strict sense of the word: a fixed kernel you either have or don’t. We imagine a self that persists whole or perishes entire, with nothing between. But identity isn’t atomic.

Identity is organized. It admits of more and less. It can be distinguished or obscured, aggregated or dispersed, robust or fragile, complex or simple, and empowered or impotent. And it changes.

Identity and existence are different concepts, even while overlapping. Something might exist in the most basic sense without having identity, to itself or others. From a materialist perspective, existence entails matter, or at least energy or information. Although, if something like a weak panpsychism holds, existence would also entail that which Mormon theology might associate with “spirit matter” or unorganized intelligence, something like matter experiencing itself from the inside in some dim alien way that “experience” risks overstating, even while preserving a practical moral stance for outside observers.

Mind, too, is distinct from identity, though they overlap. Again from a materialist perspective, mind is (or emerges from or within) matter organized in such a way that it experiences itself as a self, implying at least some basic internal identity, or as that which Mormon theology might associate with “spirit body” or organized intelligence. Mindless matter also exists, even if retaining a weak panpsychist aspect. And of course mindless matter can still have identity projected onto it, and intentionally attributed to it, by minds.

A mind can be disorganized to some extent without ceasing to exist. More generally, identity can be disorganized to some extent without ceasing to exist. And even at greater degrees of disorganization, even as identity ceases to be recognizable as such to any associated minds, at least the components of identity persist as matter or energy or information.

In an 1859 sermon, Brigham Young may have given these ideas their strongest theological expression. Eternal life, he taught, gives “mankind power to preserve their identity” (Journal of Discourses 6:333). Elsewhere in the same discourse, he characterized “the law of Christ” as “the power to keep matter in its organization.”

A year earlier, Brigham stated the opposite just as plainly, saying some “will be decomposed, both soul and body, and return to their native element” (Journal of Discourses 7:57). He continued, “I do not say that they will be annihilated; but they will be disorganized.”

Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say matter stops existing. Rather, as Joseph Smith put it in his last general conference sermon, “the pure principles of element … may be organized and re-organized; but not destroyed.” Minds, spirit bodies, or organizations of intelligence can disorganize, perhaps indefinitely, while that of which they’re composed remains at least potentially intelligible, observable even if not observed by others, perhaps even experiencing itself (even if not as a self) faintly from the inside.

The change associated with disorganization isn’t absolute termination of existence in the broadest sense. The change is in a quality of existence. Identity is a quality of existence.

None of us owns our identity alone. As Brigham put it, “we have no character, only such as our friends and enemies give us” (Journal of Discourses 7:57). And although that’s “only a shadow,” he insisted, “I want to preserve my identity, so that you can see Brigham in the eternal worlds just as you see him now.” Attribution detached from organization is the shadow, but attribution connected to persisting organization becomes recognition.

Identities are personal psychological constructs and shared social constructs, interacting and ideally reconciling, in context of the world in which we and our community find ourselves. That isn’t a limitation on identity. Rather, that’s the mechanism of identity.

Identity is reputation aggregated across observers through time, associated with a consistent identifier, without which there’s nothing to aggregate to. More observation, more consistently gathered, makes a more robust reputation. And a more robust reputation is a more robust identity.

We might always aspire to a more robust identity, across more observation through time and space. And some would call that a more “true” identity or the “true self.” I can consent to the aspiration.

But I distrust superlatives, including “most robust,” or “true self” understood as a negation of the self that we actually experience. The identities we have now are at least as true, because they exist at least as much, as any supposed “most robust” identity. And the identities we have now are generally more “true,” because our suppositions about actualities beyond direct experience are so often wrong. The self you’re experiencing now is the one doing the real work, continually changing, partly by your own intentional self-creative acts, and partly by your discoveries beyond past experience.

We don’t actually choose between finding ourselves and making ourselves. As existentialists might describe it, we find ourselves making.

Returning to Joseph’s sermon, we read the same existentialist move in theological terms: “God himself finds himself in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was greater, and because he saw proper to institute laws, whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself … in order to save the world of spirits” (as published in Times and Seasons). And Joseph had already encouraged emulation of the divine origin: “you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves … the same as all Gods have done.” As the Gods find themselves amidst mind and matter and institute laws to help others, so must we. Mormonism is an existentialist theology.

We know the making is real because we observe it happening. What we don’t know is whether the construction goes all the way down. Maybe there’s a finite origin, an infinite regress, or even an indefinite origin. Perhaps the search to discover origins indefinitely creates those origins to some extent, as a kind of observer effect.

Perhaps we can’t know. Perhaps the Gods can’t know. Either way, our true selves with robust identity don’t rely on knowledge of any meta-experiential origins.

In this light, reconsider the Mormon concept of the veil as individuation. Because identity admits of degree, some degree of individuation, such as that Mormon theology might associate with “spirit birth,” could have begun long before mortality. And the veil that we associate with mortal birth need not be imagined as a birth from nothing, nor an original individuating event. But mortal birth could still be a particularly robust individuation: a self made sharper, more autonomous, more costly to cooperate with, and correspondingly more consequential when it does cooperate.

That, of course, leaves us with the work of preserving identity. That which can be organized into robust individuation can also be disorganized. And preservation isn’t simply ensuring an atomic existence. Rather, preservation is persistent organization: “cleav[ing] to light and intelligence” (Journal of Discourses 6:333), as Brigham put it, and doing so as a community that secures each other, covenants with each other, becoming a genuine “we” that will “live and retain our identity, and contend against those principles which tend to death or dissolution” (Journal of Discourses 7:57).

There may be some few grim exceptions with moral weight. Joseph recognized that “a man is his own tormenter, and is his own condemner.” Perhaps some minds could take that so far as to become persistently incongruous with possible configurations of time and space. Perhaps they could become tragically inseparable from horrible suffering, “as exquisite as the lake of fire and brimstone,” in Joseph’s words.

If such were to attain despite our concerted efforts to the contrary, we might feel pressed to facilitate a permanent dissolution of these minds, and covenant to make even their identities inaccessible to our memory. Mormon theology might associate this with “spiritual death” that disorganizes minds “as though they never had been,” to quote Brigham, returning them to indestructible primal intelligence. And it might be mercy.

Beyond that sobering acknowledgment, and in practically all cases, we should continue the work of preserving identity now, both for the living and for the dead – “the greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us,” according to Joseph. And we can do so in good faith, recognizing that foundations need not be superlative to be powerful. Atomic identities don’t exist and haven’t ever been required for true identities. We need only continue, finding ourselves making identity, preserving ourselves as many in one.