Who are you? The quantum physics of individuality
While we all like to think of ourselves as unique individuals, quantum physics has long suggested that that notion is an illusion. One of the core tenets of Buddhism that puts it at odds with most other religions, particularly Abrahamic religions, is that there is no Self, no core or essential being that makes a person a person. Rather, people are more an amalgamation of thoughts and sense impressions. Our awareness or consciousness (to use a loaded term) of these is generic and indistinguishable from that of others. Thus, all supposed marks of our individuality are really part of the world and not the self. The sense we have of the Self and a unique and individual existence, therefore, is a psychological trick of our brain, a way of integrating thoughts and beliefs into a whole Self in the same way that our muscles, bones, and sinews integrate an amalgam of cells into a whole body.
Quantum mechanics appears to support this idea in that particles do not have individuality but are in fact indistinguishable except by their properties. While classical statistics regards particles as individuals, quantum statistics does not. Take an electron and replace it with another electron and you can’t tell the difference. This so-called Indistinguishability Postulate lies at the heart of quantum statistics.
