If one parent was different - would you still exist?

[blade5x]

Let's say 20-40 years ago, or whenever you were board, take one parent out of the picture and replace them with someone else. Do you still exist today? And I don't mean as you, but I mean as a conscious being - any conscious being at all? If you think that you would be born as a slightly different person, then surely you should believe in souls because in no way would be it possible because that alternate reality being is not YOU. And than this made me think... there are 6 billion people on this earth, yet I view reality from this 1 point. I think it's truly unbelievable that I'm somehow a conscious being, because a few changes in my DNA or genes... would that alternate me be any different from say... a brother - who is a separate conscious being? Hell... any slight change and I may have never been able to experience the universe period. Maybe I would have been another person... but again, how else could this possible unless something like souls existed?

[Merlock]

This goes into the question of whether this is our first life or not. (Which is something we don't know.) Also, a few changes in DNA won't change you because, as a phrase I like to quote says, "You are the mind, you have a body". In that sense, yes, we are connected to our body and yes, it's a two-way bond in this life and world but that doesn't mean we don't exist without our body.

[Amethyst Star]

Also, a few changes in DNA won't change you because, as a phrase I like to quote says, "You are the mind, you have a body". Not to split hairs, but it was C.S. Lewis who said, "You are a soul, you have a body." If I had a different parent, I know I wouldn't be the same person that I am today. I've been noticing more how much both of my parents' personalities have rubbed off on me: my mother's sensitivity and patience, and my dad's skepticism and attention to detail. Now, there's always the possibility that if my mom hadn't married my dad (or vice-versa) that they wouldn't have married someone very, very similar... Who knows? I just know that there are a lot of things that have taken place in my life that, if they hadn't happened, I would not be who/where I am today.

[Penter]

I think I know what you're saying, and I've mulled over the same question before. Well, maybe not framed exactly the way you have it with a substitute parent, but I have entertained the idea on a few restless nights. From a spiritual standpoint, you could say you would still be the same person, since it's the spirit and not the body which contains your true self. The physical body you occupy can take any shape, but your spiritual body remains untouched since it has already been cosmically preordained apart from the material world. Looking at it materialistically, those small alterations in DNA would result in a different person, if only slightly. Think about it. Your personality is an outgrowth of your collective genetic material, so modifying the composition of your DNA is equivalent to modifying who you are as a person. You are mostly the same person, and you would still be conscious because consciousness is in your genes too. Materialistically speaking. Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but I think these two viewpoints capture the basic dichotomy of approaches to this idea.

[Merlock]

Aye, thanks for the correction. I guess I shouldn't "quote" that, per se, more like just paraphrase since I don't tend to use the word "soul" and instead use "mind". But, all in all, of course you'd be a different "person", with a different personality than you have now if you had a different life. But as for whether your place would have been taken by someone else (another mind, a different spirit, different being) as the result of the things stated in the original post...who knows. We don't know how we came to be in this life and world.

[blade5x]

You are mostly the same person, and you would still be conscious because consciousness is in your genes too. Materialistically speaking. Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but I think these two viewpoints capture the basic dichotomy of approaches to this idea. Well... I guess alterations to the DNA now wouldn't do anything at all, because coming to think - alternations in DNA shouldn't remove you of your memories, so you will still know exactly who you are, who you have been, and etc. But if the alteration was to come before birth - do I still end up here? Am I 're-assigned' to another physical body, starting with the slightly altered one - or so I never experience reality period. Over the course of human existence there will only be a finite number of experiences. May be a bit confusing to some, but a few already seem to know where I'm going.

[skysaw]

This is an interesting question. I don't think it can ever really be answered. It reminds me of the question of the car, all of whose parts have been exchanged over many years of maintenance. If no original part is still in use, is it the same car? And if not, where is the original car?

[blade5x]

This is an interesting question. I don't think it can ever really be answered. I'm really just asking for opinions, because I know something like this cannot, and will not ever be answered with fact.

[Moonbeam]

I'm really just asking for opinions, because I know something like this cannot, and will not ever be answered with fact. I think it's pretty obvious that you would not exist. You are a product of your genes, which carried the information that formed your body and mind, influenced by the environment during your development. You wouldn't exist if a different sperm from your own dad fertilized the same egg. "You" would be like your brother or sister then, but the same "you" wouldn't be here. You can look at it as a lucky chance that you exist. Of course, if things had been differerent, you wouldn't have known anyway.