Being a twin helpfully cracks open our ideas of individuality | Aeon Essays
aeon.co · 2,605 words · saved by 1 readers
Being a twin (as our author knows) cracks open our ideas of the perfectly bounded self and might liberate us all
In Washington state in 2002, Lydia Fairchild nearly lost custody of her three children, when a test revealed that none of them shared her DNA. It turned out that Fairchild’s body was populated with cells from a non-identical twin she’d unknowingly had before birth, making her, in effect, the biological aunt of her own children. The technical term for Fairchild is a ‘human chimera’: a human being composed of cells that are genetically distinct. The phenomenon can happen artificially, through a transfusion or transplant, or naturally, as in Fairchild’s case, through the early absorption of a…
related reading
- What Makes You You? — Wait But Whywaitbutwhy.com
- Twin Earth thought experiment - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Forms of life, forms of mind | Dr. Michael Levin | Are we too part of a greater collective intelligence? How would we know?thoughtforms.life
- How To Be Good | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
- Unstable Ontology – by Jessica Taylorunstableontology.com
- The Twenty-One Second God - Lightspeed Magazinelightspeedmagazine.com
- ⿻ Symbiogenesis vs. Convergent Consequentialism — LessWronglesswrong.com
- REVIEW: The Children of Men, by P.D. James - by John Psmiththepsmiths.com
- Quantum Mechanics and Personal Identity — LessWronglesswrong.com
- The Yale Review | Jean Garnett: "There I Almost Am"yalereview.org
- Closer — Greg Egangregegan.net
- The Periodic Box Problem | The Excluded Riddlegabrieldwu.com