Demystifying John Locke's pitfalls - An open letter for legal system promoting character & a more transparent society

In order to understand Locke's main argument on personal identity, read my overview of the main points of Locke's arguments.

Locke, one of the philosophers that had a main influence of the current foundations of our current society, set the main pillars of the social contract. A contract where our purpose was put in motion by certain laws that were only meant so everybody was able to express themselves, to make their own choices, to have liberty. Our physical life was protected, for how can we express ourselves without some form of vessel? As well the protection of our property, but by what will be the meaning to express ourselves if we do not have a base, a home, a structure where we can hold on and do further progress? But 2 mistakes Locke did on expressing what an individual represents - on representing an individual only by the memories that holds and the belief that mistakes should be punished in absolute terms no matter how the programming of the individual currently is. In both, he ignores the implication of time.

Let us say Nestor changed the body of a prince to a body of a cobbler and the cobbler to the body of Nestor. Only Nestor knows that he was changed to the body of a cobbler. But by how can one acquaintance identify that Nestor is not Nestor, but instead is from someone whose body was before of a cobbler? Only by "the consecutive actions" of Nestor contradicting himself being Nestor then the acquaintance can say he is not Nestor anymore. But by how much correlation we can say that he is not Nestor anymore? On the occurrence of the body swap occurred at time 0, will Nestor know that he lives in the body of the cobbler in the first place? But wouldn't Nestor identify himself immediately after his realization, the feeling he is not Nestor anymore if his body was changed? What would happen all the possessions he contributed or hold to society by his previous body? Let us say that over the course the body of Nestor doing more actions that are visible to society, people more know that he is not more of Nestor anymore. Does it really mean that the body of Nestor is not Nestor anymore? Let us say there was a body called Mary in the 18th century and another body called Cindia in the 19th century. Let us say that through their very detailed historical autobiography of their actions that Mary resembles much in character and behavior as Cindia and Cindia  was influenced by Mary as she has read all her historical autobiography. Does it mean then that Cindia is a re-incarnation of Mary? For what can people tell Nestor is really within a cobbler's body other than through generalizations by what they have seen so far, in the same other extreme case, mistaking Cindia for Mary? Moving on, if a vessel functions differently than it used before, how can we treat Nestor now as a cobbler, for isn't more clear to say that Nestor was Nestor for a specific time and Nestor was a cobbler for a specific time? In this case, if a machine teller function was able to use its slot for customers to deposit money in their bank account and that same machine changed the next day to use that slot instead for customers to withdraw money, then what is that teller machine in overall, a machine that deposits money or a machine that withdraws money?

Memories may be a good guide on how we ended up to be, but memories cannot attribute to what person we are today, for we hold stronger some memories than others over time. Can we believe that a person whose name is Mary has the same identity between the years she was young and the years she was old? For it may be Mary hold a memory less stronger in her teenage years and that same memory more stronger in her old years. For if Cindia has to mimic Mary, which side she has to represent more of Cindia, the one of the young age or the one of the old age? Thus, keeping memories are of no relevance as much as how we use that information. Our recent actions represent also very recent memories that attribute to the highest weight of what our identity represents. However, over the lapse of time, we have the choice how more stronger or less stronger we should represent those memories by being more or less engaging in terms of actions through the lapse of time. Then, we have to conclude, that time, is an important factor of what identity represents. For identity is associated not only by vessel, but by a specific time as well, they are intertwined together and cannot be separated, for they both are the only way to actually represent a specific character of the individual, for if we talk that same vessel over a specific different time, at close proximity they may be almost similar, but by a gap of time, there is high chances that are different. What if Nestor wanted to be the character of a cobbler, dispose all his memories that are associated habitually out of his mind, and interconnect with himself habitually on similar memories of a cobbler, due to some motivation, such as an individual wanting to change working on a different career? Can at that point say that Nestor is not Nestor, for if Nestor is indeed, but instead, it took him time for Nestor to not be Nestor anymore. For it is true that Nestor's character cannot change within the same vessel at time 0, for only that could be possible if his body was possessed by an actual cobbler. However, Nestor at after some time X can be the same as being possessed by an actual cobbler, without requiring to be possessed in the first place.

And here, we have to come to the definition of character. An individual character is a fluctuation, yet a constant representation over a specific fragment of time. Thus, memories or actual past events of an individual are not a big factor of what an individual's future contributions, decisions, and actions to society, as much as what the current character the individual is, especially within how close or contradictory or aligning his choices are over to respect and improving life in overall and whether the environment leaves the reflection of his character to be more or less fruitful on such endeavors. But do we represent an individual by its current character or aggregating all characters an individual has contributed to the same individual, even if some characters contrast at the present time?

The problem of today's society is we still live in the world of Locke's words, attributing an individual to the past mistakes as part of his present character. For if he did those past mistakes, then he is in grave danger to do those past mistakes again, thus discipline should be enforced. For if an individual that did some grave mistakes in the past, even when he was regarded competitive in his role, if he did learn from those mistakes to not do again rightfully over time, should we still punish him something that he already learned when he self-assessed of his own mistakes? But how externally will anybody know as a proof that an individual self-assessed fixing his own mistakes, yet even admit those mistakes, for if he admitted those mistakes, wouldn't he immediately be punished? Furthermore, there is a problem that the individual did not self-assessed as much as or as much properly to his own mistakes. Then again, can we testify that the systems we put do better than that when we punish people in order make them an improved version of themselves? Or do those systems only do when they get released is just putting more fear of those individuals to not make those mistakes again? If the individual has no mental incapacity, why do we want for a character of a beast to sleep on its bed eternally instead to transform him to a human being. For indeed it is all up for an individual's choice whether to still be or not to be a beast. But what crime would it be if the environment that we lock him does not allow him any other choice but to regard himself as a beast from that past mistake and to disregard its current character, not allowing to flourish, in the environment we set him up to be.

Can we stop deny what actually happens that what hypothetical happens for once? Most individuals truthfully want to learn from their own mistakes if they have the possibility to. However, given how society treats mistakes, they have fear to admit their mistakes, for they know the system does not help individuals grow from their mistakes, leaving them the option to either learn their mistakes privately or discard the mistakes they did. Even in the possibility they try to learn from their own mistakes privately, it is kind of impossible to get the full picture without gaining more perspectives through other members of society, and that cannot happen without the individual being transparent. We hate the legal system that we place it as a last resort, we only use it after several attempts that it could not be resolved inter-personally or when we hate the individuals that much, that we set a lawsuit against them. It has become a common practice that if a mistake is sound publicly at hand, then it is out of control and some intervention is need it, to a place to quarantine the mistakes of individuals instead of improving them. If it is not out of the public, then it is considered under control. But is it under the best control or are we just playing hide and seek for the wrong reasons? We have seen that when people put their information into a black box, they are less social responsible because the only way to solve their mistakes is by disclosing it publicly. We do have systems currently that promote anonymous reporting for past mistakes because they add value to society for other individuals not making the same mistakes. But if the individual discloses it with his name on it, he gets punished. Like I said, any information that is not discussed publicly and that is not attached to the individual, it is considered under control. Rather than saying it is a paradox, shall we suggest that the punishment system is flawed in a sense that it does not motivate individuals to go through the course of learning their mistakes because they feel the punishment system currently does not allow them to learn from their mistakes and does not make them look better individuals than they used to before? For what is society after all than the betterment of life in overall? Can the punishment system not be negligent and have a duty on that?

Here we live a world of fear, a world with one word to protect their fear: privacy. For an action currently in society that is shown publicly is treated the same way regardless of their current character and enforced throughout a process that does not make individuals improve better than if living in the regular life of society. If the individual has money to avoid punishment, then we treat mistakes in the same form as prostitution, for mistakes are treated as cheap experiences, as assets that are nothing that we can learn from. The only way mistakes can be addressed is through the transition of the individual to a greater character than it was before and we should not address by money earned or gained not relative to our mistake or by suppressing the individual of all actions. We live in a world where we have limited time to improve our character than the one we had before and the only way we can improve our character is by practice. That is our ultimate goal behind all of our endeavors. If the individual picks as a choice to make itself a greater character, we should allow it, as long as its future actions it promotes show a model that has a bigger interest on improving its character than it used to before. Mistakes, if possible, depending on the degree, can be addressed by their own self-assessment and the whole society, even when it is disclosed publicly. The system that protects our society needs to change where it not only confines and quarantines people, but improve people. Psychologists, neurologists, philosophers, and other human behavior experts should be the mass that will instead work on those systems where they try to understand instead only arrest an individual.

Once the system cares about the progress and the image of an individual, so does society will also not reflect other individuals only through their past mistakes and failures, so does the individual will be more open to disclose its mistakes in the hopes of improving itself. The choice of society reflects on the choice of the system, as society lives in a contract, a paradigm through their external environment that they cannot avoid and have to follow. It will still be a choice up to the individual to be more open or not open to society. However, with the change of paradigm of the system, the choice of being open to society will be more compatible to our environment than what it currently is. Those who are more open will be more rewarded as they open doors to improve themselves and allow others to be improved either passively or actively. Thanks to Lorin Friesen, there is a good starting model, called mental symmetry, that improves and compliments both society as well the individual, a model that is founded based on neurological and biographical studies.

My plan is to create a social network, but currently due to the limitations of the existing system, the social network will be limited to what people can disclose publicly, but they can still learn to improve themselves, by disclosing whatever society and themselves feel comfortable to. It is a long way for the system to improve on its own accord, there will be a need for a large context of how each use case should be addressed. But one thing for sure is this: The current paradigm of the discipline system could be better in a sense more people could be allowed to learn their mistakes and improve their character through society, to be more transparent and not hide information in a black box. You do not have to believe at first the benefits of this social network. As a proof of concept, we will show how many benefits this social network can grow out of its limited form. After that, it is up to the voice of people, when they realize that the whole reason they keep their privacy is because we created a punishment system that does not care the present and future character of the individual. But that privacy comes at a big cost of not able to extend our learning on matters that attribute to our personal self. What really matters for each individual I think is their own death. When death comes to an individual, the mind does not work through the lapse of time anymore. His character is his last character we will see him on this earth. It is our duty that all individuals attain the best character they can because our mind programmatically is ingrained always on improving things, a thing that we cannot be in denial from all the technological and scientific achievements we have done so far. But of all things, let us not force the individual to work in alignment to what he is programmed for, for only by our own will we can get close but not exactly to what we are programmed for, as our programming was an effort of the correct direction and not of an effort of getting the correct answer or achievement.

This letter is addressed through the realization that the current paradigm of the system is not effective on making people the most transparent. Due to my motivation of creating a transparent social network, it is not possible to have its full potential with this current paradigm set in our society
under place. The social network will be created and be limited due to the reasons addressed above. Regardless of the limitations, we will continue working on the creation of the social network on its limited form, always with ambitions to make our social network be more transparent if society and the system is aligned with. We know that there are a lot of benefits that we can bring to society even with a limited social network. For that reason, even at its limited form, it will still be a potent model to society, regardless if the paradigm of society will change or not change, though we envision more lasting benefits when we have the doors open to a more open society where we learn through our mistakes more effectively.

The legal system has a long way to go when it looks currently at the individual from the sense of only their mistakes and also the government careers that only recruit people with white sheets with zero mistakes done on their public profile. Instead of looking individual's mistakes to how far they approached to a dead end, they should look that individual optimistically, to the point of having the capacity of being a president of a whole country, all depending on the progress of the character of the individual, which should give them as a choice to that progress if the individual is up to. On the contrast, to those individuals that they think the best person that can solve their own problems is by their own self, how can you be so sure we don't bias ourselves, as much of the mistakes in the aviation industry where found by the private investigators and new scientists taking over older scientists in the revolution of new theories. In order for those mistakes to publicly be disclosed to the public so others would not avoid those pitfalls, they had to circumvent the system by letting people to post their writings anonymously. That information was so important that we don't follow the rule of reporting the person of their wrongdoing, but instead share the content of the mistake, so other people do not do the mistake. This letter is just a draft of what the legal system should do and kick start itself to be a better model of itself. To instead have metrics on how many people who have done wrongdoing to instead have metrics how many people who have done wrongdoing lifted them up to become the next presidents of the world. Right now we live in a world that is not transparent, not having the ability to understand the motivations of the individual, giving by default the same punishment regardless of the individual's character. If we had the option to give another form of punishment that was more lenient if the individual is more transparent to his life and had the attitude of improving his own character, then shouldn't we give that as a chance, to make each individual a better model to our society?