Blog Prompt 15

Hume’s argument is that humans have a perception of objects and other people. It is what they believe to be true about that object or person but it does not wholeheartedly exist. He also states that humans have no one simple impression in which they can declare that that is their “self”. We are all ever evolving, learning new things, changing the way we look at things, and consuming new ideas and changing the way we think. In his article, Hume states, ” ‘The mind is a kind of theatre,’ writes Hume, ‘where several perceptions successively made their appearance.’ ‘There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different,’ states Hume, ‘whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.’ He reminds us to not take the ‘theatre’ comparison too literally: the mind is a succession of perceptions only. ‘Nor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these scenes are represented, ‘ states Hume, ” or of the materials, of which it is compos’d.’ ” So to try to have someone choose one impression that would represent their “self identity” is foolish because we are made up of many different ideas and thoughts. I actually find his argument convincing because the more I think about it, the more I realize other people will have many different impressions of you and to them, that is “you”. But to another person you may have a completely different identity associated with your relations with them or your past history with them. We are all made up from a melting pot of opinions, ideas, and beliefs so I believe Hume is right in the fact that we cannot differentiate and separate one impression that represents our “self identity”.