Who are you — not regarding name, profession, appearance, or family. Who are YOU?
There is a knock on the door. Someone inside asks "Who is it?". Someone outside the door responds "It's me." By recognizing their voice, the question has been answered. This suggests that who someone is should be understood first and foremost to be a question of unique identity. We are irreducible personal selves. If we zoom in on this personal self, however, we find that it can be dissolved into a lot of impersonal information about a human body, or a human life, a society, a time in history, etc. We are what we do, where we're from, who we love, what we eat and wear, etc. The idea that the whole is indivisible or 'more than the sum of its parts' has been expressed in many ways, including gestalts and monads, synergy, and emergence. Whether we define ourselves by our parts or we simply identify ourselves directly is a choice with deep philosophical implications. When we think of ourselves only as a collection of circumstantially related details, then we are voting for what I call nilipsism - an ideological denial of the self. When we think only of ourselves as a unique snowflake, we blind ourselves in the opposite, solipsistic way and lose the opportunity to understand the influences which have shaped our lives.The continuum of the self from unique, proprietary subject to collections of generic objects applies not only to the self, but to all of the profound philosophical topics. If we ask "When is now?", we can mean anything from "this very instant" to hours, years, or eternity. We can say "Now that I am an adult...", or "Now that the atmosphere on Earth supports life...".
If someone remains silent throughout the whole process from being arrested, interrogation, to facing the court, how does the police or judge convict the person?
Here's how it would happen in Canada.The person gets arrested, and refuses to identify himself. Police take his fingerprints, and get his identity through FPS (assuming he's in the system).Given that he's not answering any questions, the first step is to have him assessed to ensure that he's fit to stand trial. "Unfit" means that, because of a mental disorder, he is unable to understand who the parties (judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer), understand the nature of the proceedings, or unable to instruct counsel. Every person is presumed to be fit. Given that he remains dead silent throughout the fitness assessment, he's going to be found fit.Next comes the bail stage. "Sir, if I release you from custody, do you promise to attend court as required and to abide by the conditions I'm going to order for your release? You have nothing to say to that? You're not promising to come to court? Very well, I order that you be held in jail without bail until your matter is concluded."At some point the court will intervene and appoint a lawyer to act as a "friend of the court", since the guy himself isn't talking and isn't agreeing to representation. A trial will be scheduled. When he refuses to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, a not guilty plea will be entered on his behalf. If the matter is serious, an election of Superior Court judge and jury will be entered on his behalf.Witnesses will be called by the prosecution. The lawyer appointed to act for him will do his best on cross-examination. The accused obviously won't be taking the stand. Then the lawyer makes his best argument, and the judge or jury retires to consider the case, and then verdict is rendered.Remaining silent is not an effective strategy for defeating or delaying the ends of justice.