An interesting to think about is whether I could have been born at a different time and place, perhaps 1200 BC to pick a date. As far as I can tell, a dualist approach to identity has an easy time with this question. A dualist can answer an easy yes. Since dualism holds that the mind and the body are separate substances, and that the mind can exist apart from the body. Dualism also holds that I am identical to my mind, thus I can exist without my body, my body is not essential to who I am. So it is plausible to say that given dualism, I could have had a different body. Thus all that would need to happen for me to be born in 1200 BC would be for my soul to inhabit a newly conceived body in that year, or perhaps created at the exact time the body was conceived and joined to it. How would that happen? Well I guess God would have to put my soul in that body, otherwise I don’t know how souls get put into a certain body rather than another. So I conclude that on dualism I could have been born in 1200 BC.
But what if we think that our bodies are in some sense essential to our identity? We could be identical to our bodies, which is the view of physicalism, or we could be a union of body and soul. Now if we allow my body to play a role in who I am, then I think we have to change our story. Plausibly, my body is determined by my genetic make-up. Thus if my body is essential to my identity, then my genetic structure is part of who I am. But my genetic structure is given by my parents, half by my mother and the other half by my father. So now the question is, could I have gotten the same genetic information from different parents? Well given the finite amount of gene combinations that could possible occur, it seems remotely possible that I could have been born by different parents. These different parents would probably have to have similar genetic codes to my actual parents but not exactly the same because given the multitude of different sperm and eggs that they could produce, there could be enough variation that they would produce a sperm and egg that, if joined, would produce the exact genetic structure I now have. Now this does seem pretty remote but it still seems like a possibility. But now however it seems we would have to restrict where I could have been born in 1200 BC. Probably not in Africa or Asia or the Middle East. Those people groups seem to have different enough genetic codes that no combination produced by them could be my exact genetic structure. But perhaps no one in 1200 BC would be able to produce my exact genetic structure in which case it wouldn’t be possible for me to be born then. So I think we could formulate this principle:
(P) It is only possible for me to be born at a different time and place iff I could have been born with the exact genetic structure that I have now.
So it seems that the only ways I could have been born in 1200 BC are if my parents birthed me then, or if a man and a woman pretty similar to my parents birthed me.
So in conclusion I say that if my body somehow contributes to my identity, then I could have been born in 1200 BC, but the world would have to have been substantially different from the way it actually was, I couldn’t just be born in Jerusalem unless my parents or people very similar to my parent inhabited it.
