Identity

Unchanging (0) — Changing (100) · one of the 20 worldview axes

The six statements

Each axis is measured by six statements answered on a five-point scale. Statements 1, 2 and 5 pull toward Unchanging; 3, 4 and 6 toward Changing.

  1. Underneath your changing thoughts and memories there is a real, continuous self that persists through all change.
  2. Even if every memory and personality trait of yours changed completely, the real you underneath would still be there.
  3. The self is nothing more than a stream of changing experiences and traits; there is no enduring core beneath them.
  4. When you look inward, you find thoughts and feelings, but you never find a separate experiencer behind them.
  5. A friend you have not seen in thirty years is still the same person; something real and continuous remained beneath all the changes.
  6. A person who loses all their memories and personality to severe amnesia has, in any meaningful sense, become someone new.

Toward Unchanging (81)

Between the poles (4)

Toward Changing (56)

259 thinkers have no sourced position on this axis and are omitted rather than guessed.

Find your own positionAll 20 axes