# Is there a philosophy where I am everyone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 11, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622 "2013-11-11T05:11:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/1 "2013-11-11T05:11:45Z")
I started by thinking about beta testers. What are beta testers? Instead of testing something 100 times, you could hire 100 people to each test it once. Of those 100 people, some may be in a hurry, some may be distracted, some may misread the instructions, just as you might if you did it 100 times. It’s like rolling a die 100 times, or rolling 100 dice once. Other people might just be you in different situations. If you were late for work. If you were on holiday. If you were born in a different family. In a different time. So I thought, what if everyone were me, running through this world at different times, but at the same time? Then I discovered this short story, The Egg by Andy Weir: [The Egg](http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html) which is similar to what I was thinking, but without the maturing and god parts. It really does seem like no matter what you think of, someone else has already thought of it. So, is there a name for this philosophy? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/2 "2013-11-11T05:49:40Z")
Well, in Neoplatonism every human soul - well everything at all, really - is an “emanation” or aspect of the One, which is the only thing that really exists, but is beyond description or comprehension. You also have something similar in Germanic idealist philosophy, such as that of Hegel (and neo-Hegelians such as Bradley and Collingwood), which is, to a large extent, a sort of historicized version of neoplatonism. I don’t know if that is quite the same as what you are getting at, however. What you say is also reminiscent of Richard Feynman’s (or rather, IIRC, his teacher’s) idea that all electrons might really be the same electron traveling in space and time, like Dr Who, and constantly crossing through the present moment in different places and different directions. Feynman rejects the idea, however. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/3 "2013-11-11T07:29:13Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > It really does seem like no matter what you think of, someone else has already thought of it. I should have known this would happen. I’ve been working on a novel, on and off, for the past few years, and each chapter is about a person in wildly different times and places and personalities. Until someone remembers . . . and is labeled psychotic. I’m even writing it in second person. ---
**Author:** ![Domesticated\_Primate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Domesticated\_Primate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Domesticated_Primate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/4 "2013-11-11T07:30:14Z")
Solipsism? ---
**Author:** ![yawuntz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a5b964/32.png) [@yawuntz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yawuntz)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/5 "2013-11-11T08:28:30Z")
_I am he as you are he as you are me And we are all together_ It’s all covered in The Egg, man. ---
**Author:** ![Longshanks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/6 "2013-11-11T11:56:52Z")
> [@Domesticated\_Primate](#): > > Solipsism? Isn’t that where everything and everyone only exists inside your own mind? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/7 "2013-11-11T12:38:22Z")
Having now read the story linked by the OP, there is a lot of pure Plato in there too: not the idea that every person is the same person traveling back and forth through time, but the idea that when a person is born, it is from a pre-existing soul from ‘heaven’ being incarnated, and that soul in heaven knows the true reality, but forgets that knowledge when it descends’ into a physical body. Plato also probably held that the soul returns to heaven and regains its knowledge when the body dies, but I do not think he anywhere suggests that the same soul might be incarnated more than once. (From his perspective, being incarnated was a bad thing.) See also Wordsworth’s _[Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15926)_. Very Platonic. P.S. It is a nice story, but translating it (or getting it translated) into 31 different languages seems a bit conceited. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/8 "2013-11-11T15:13:02Z")
> [@Longshanks](#): > > Isn’t that where everything and everyone only exists inside your own mind? Multiperson pantheistic solipsism, then. ---
**Author:** ![Domesticated\_Primate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Domesticated\_Primate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Domesticated_Primate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/9 "2013-11-11T20:46:05Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Multiperson pantheistic solipsism, then. The best kind! ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/10 "2013-11-11T21:22:10Z")
Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes” came to mind. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/11 "2013-11-11T21:32:43Z")
Sounds a bit like Edwin A. Abbott’s [King of Pointland](http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Abbott/Abbott20.html). ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/12 "2013-11-12T00:35:37Z")
There’s ChakaKhanism, but it only applies to about half of everyone. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/13 "2013-11-12T01:16:48Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > P.S. It is a nice story, but translating it (or getting it translated) into 31 different languages seems a bit conceited. I was under the impression the translations were done by volunteers. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-philosophy-where-i-am-everyone/673622/14 "2013-11-12T08:31:18Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > I was under the impression the translations were done by volunteers. OK, if you say so. The question then becomes why are so many people volunteering to translate this sweet, but ultimately not very profound story?