tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post3891200678954046086..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Personal Identity ReviewRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-53715033920984888552010-07-18T07:22:00.732-04:002010-07-18T07:22:00.732-04:00Richard yes and no, though I think you should look...Richard yes and no, though I think you should look up the Mereological Fallacy and embodied cognition as well. BTW The ‘Thinking animal problem’ is also called the ‘Too many minds’ or ‘Too many thinkers’ problem. Eric Olson talks a lot about it. <br /><br />Again basically the traditional argument goes, because we persist psychological as persons in the brain swap experiment it is inferred we aren’t the animal body or organism that’s left behind. Or put another way by someone like Eric Olson “that no organism could have mental properties” which I also take to mean no organism or non-human animal has psychological continuity. Now if I cannot infer that, it would mean we can say that human organisms /animals don’t think or have psychological continuity, but it is possible for less cognitively sophisticated organisms to have psychological continuity, which would be intuitively strange. <br /><br /><br />(I thought you were previously asking whether non-human animals could be persons in light of their limited cognitive capacities. But I can't imagine what brain-swapping thought experiments could have to do with that question.)<br /><br /><br />We were, and I was just seeing if you see the forest and not just the trees.<br /><br />The tradional psychological vs biogical continuity debate is flawed in its framing; brain swaps don't in fact indicate that animals cannot think or don’t have at least a weak type psychological continuity, because if you swap the brain of dog the memories and cognition also go where the bogs brain goes and yet it also leaves the body/animal/organism behind. So via similar reasoning many animals aren’t animals or organisms via a brain swap. In the articles I characterised these non-person non-human animals as ontologically speaking, ‘personalities’ and not animals/organisms or bodies. <br /><br />So the traditional dichotomy between psychological continuity as persons vs. Biological or Animalism continuity doesn’t even get the basics right. We shouldn't even be arguing about psychological continuity vs biogical continuity that includes any animal that has a brain and basic memories/adaptive behaviours, rather it should be psychological continuity as personalities vs biological continuity of simple oragnisms with either very basic or even no brain at all.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-77378420663612548122010-07-16T20:20:19.101-04:002010-07-16T20:20:19.101-04:00Yeah, individualism comes with its own problems, s...Yeah, individualism comes with its own problems, some of which might resemble those of haecceitism. Though note that the scenario you envisage is physically impossible, so the individualist might diagnose your finding it weird as just being a product of it being physically absurd. <br /><br />Also, while I find (what you call) haecceitism barely intelligible---I really struggle to understand what these haecceities could be---individualism seems to me perfectly intelligible and very natural. Since many people object to haecceitism on the grounds that it's barely unintelligible, it's useful to distinguish it from individualism.Shamikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15658113303441790695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-29609753701598138172010-07-16T16:32:26.283-04:002010-07-16T16:32:26.283-04:00Simon - I'm not sure what you're referring...Simon - I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Is the idea just that it's brains, <i>rather than the whole organism</i>, that does the thinking? I'm on board with that. (I thought you were previously asking whether <i>non-human</i> animals could be persons in light of their limited cognitive capacities. But I can't imagine what brain-swapping thought experiments could have to do with <i>that</i> question.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-12364721446298423132010-07-16T16:27:50.916-04:002010-07-16T16:27:50.916-04:00Shamik - thanks, that's helpful.
I wonder how...Shamik - thanks, that's helpful.<br /><br />I wonder how many of the problems for haecceitism might be inherited by individualism anyhow. For example, doesn't the problem of indiscernibly switching haecceities carry over to the idea that we could have indiscernibly switching <i>individuals</i>? (We start off with A exemplifying some set of qualitative properties at t1, and then at t2 it suddenly [without so much as a puff of smoke] happens to be individual B in that spot exemplifying those very same qualities. I guess individualists might find this less of a bullet to bite, but I must admit I still find it hard to wrap my head around the idea that this is so much as a coherent possibility.<br /><br />Still, you're probably right that I'm biting off more than I really need to here. Sticking to the temporal case -- especially if persons are 'derivative' rather than 'fundamental' entities -- reductionism about identity retains an independently appealing view.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-53527852523583975192010-07-16T15:07:47.761-04:002010-07-16T15:07:47.761-04:00PS I'll go over your harm post but IMO we have...PS I'll go over your harm post but IMO we have interests grounded in ways other than just having desires.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-31487954305329430092010-07-16T14:59:58.044-04:002010-07-16T14:59:58.044-04:00Richard so like me you think that the traditional ...Richard so like me you think that the traditional justification that animals don't think via the brain swap thought experiment is flawed? Or that the Thinking Animal problem isn't in fact a problem?Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-50763502551002052692010-07-15T23:01:22.573-04:002010-07-15T23:01:22.573-04:00Hi Richard --- a couple of quick thoughts about yo...Hi Richard --- a couple of quick thoughts about your stuff at the beginning on the metaphysics of identity. (I'm not sure if any of this is ultimately of relevance to the issue of personal identity.)<br /><br />First, soccer balls. I think your discussion leaves a very natural view out of the picture. The view might be called "individualism", namely that at the fundamental level of description the world consists of a domain of objects propertied and related in various ways. On this view, objects---those things that bear properties---are fundamental entities. Now, suppose there are two such things, A and B, and suppose they each have the same qualitative properties (e.g. they are both soccer balls). Then it seems perfectly easy and coherent to describe *two* distinct possibilities in which only one of them ever existed. You object that it's difficult to comprehend what the difference could consist in, but what's wrong with saying this: in one possibility it is just *A* that exists; while in the other it is just *B* that exists!<br /><br />Note that in saying this, the individualist is not supposing that each ball has a mysterious "haecceity". You (and most people in the literature too) are thinking of haecceities as mysterious, non-qualitative properties that objects instantiate in addition to their qualitative properties. I agree that properties such as those are bizarre for the reasons you point out and should be banished. But the individualist I'm imagining posits no such thing. Of course, since the individual A is part of her fundamental ontology, she might naturally think that there is such a thing as the property of being identical to A. But this is nothing mysterious: it is simply a complex property consisting of the identity relation and the individual A. In particular, it is not the sort of property that objects could swap from one moment to the next (i.e. A could never have the property of being identical to B!)<br /><br />Now, I think that individualism should be rejected, but it's not the wacky "haecceities" view that you attack. Indeed, I think it's probably the view that we all start out with implicitly, and certainly a view that's implicitly presupposed in most contemporary metaphysics.<br /><br />Things might be different when it comes to non-fundamental entities. For in that case, since the entity is derivative, the question "in virtue of what is it A rather than B" needs answering, and not just by stipulating that it's A! So when thinking about the sorts of possibilities you mention with the soccer balls, I think a lot depends on whether the entities in question are fundamental or derivative. <br /><br />Second: identity across possible worlds is different from identity across times, and lessons in the one case might not carry over straightforwardly to the other. Since your ultimate concern is identity over time, perhaps you don't need to rest anything on the soccer balls case anyway? If you were using it just to break us in slowly, fine; but if you intended it to imply something about identity over time, I'd like to hear more about what you think the connection is between identity across worlds and identity over time. <br /><br />Hope you're having a good summer,<br />ShamikShamikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15658113303441790695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-47575745531755478422010-07-15T19:48:52.258-04:002010-07-15T19:48:52.258-04:00Soluman - I agree that the kind of 'psychologi...Soluman - I agree that the kind of 'psychological continuity' we care about concerns phenomenal mental states, not just the functional kinds. (There's an important sense in which zombies don't really have beliefs and desires at all. See '<a href="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/04/zombie-rationality.html" rel="nofollow">zombie rationality</a>'.) That's compatible with reductionism about identity.<br /><br />Simon - some animals might have at least a rudimentary sort of personhood, insofar as they think of themselves as temporally-extended beings with projects and concerns for the future. I don't have any firm views on the empirical question. But I expect that most animals merely 'live in the moment' (however well their moment-to-moment instincts might prepare them for the future). See also: '<a href="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2009/11/can-death-harm-non-persons.html" rel="nofollow">Can Death Harm Non-Persons?</a>'.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-35869805141521122132010-07-15T19:01:48.694-04:002010-07-15T19:01:48.694-04:00Richard, so you don't think there are any iden...Richard, so you don't think there are any identity problems with people becoming zombies? Suppose I'm uploaded into a functional silicon duplicate as part of a singularity scenario, and it turns out that functional silicon duplicates don't have qualia. Would you say that this duplicate is still me? <br /><br />Would you say that me at t1 has a property (qualia) that me at t2 lacks? Is that different than saying that me at t1 has a property (having a moustache) that me at t2 lacks? I just have a hard time identifying something as myself that is not phenomenally continuous with myself, even if it is psychologically continuous.Solumanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03370705772313893753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-82468963873673756742010-07-15T13:22:05.363-04:002010-07-15T13:22:05.363-04:00I'll have to go a read over some of your relat...I'll have to go a read over some of your related posts but its 3.07 in the morning now and my brain is starting to slow. <br /><br />But on the face of it I'd agree there is no enduring 'self', but I don't equate the 'self' as our numerical identity as an indivudual. Rather my account has much in common with the biological continuity as a bounded constituted entity -replacing parts and matter notwithstanding- but I found a way to get around the common intuitions of fission and the brain swap. Apart from other things I don't make the claim that I'm an animal, body or organism ontologically but another class of things entirely. :)<br /><br />BTW I always like to know frrom people who think about this stuff, do you think animals have psychological continuity or that animals can think or be persons?Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-25274692766712886702010-07-15T13:00:20.820-04:002010-07-15T13:00:20.820-04:00Yeah, it's interesting. One way to characteri...Yeah, it's interesting. One way to characterize reductionism about identity is as the thesis that <a href="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2006/06/synthetic-survival.html" rel="nofollow">ordinary survival is relevantly similar to being replaced by a new copy every passing moment</a> (there happens to be more physical continuity in the ordinary case, but no enduring 'self' of the sort we typically imagine).<br /><br />But now there are two ways to respond to this equivalence: we might 'upgrade' our opinion of replication, or we might 'downgrade' our opinion of ordinary survival. I'm inclined towards the former, but I could see how you might go the latter route instead. (Parfit sometimes suggests things along these lines, e.g. about how the reductionist view helps to break down the mental barriers we erect between 'ourselves' and 'others', instead leading one to adopt a more impartial perspective.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-53524601800297608332010-07-15T11:42:56.221-04:002010-07-15T11:42:56.221-04:00While I acknowledge that one prefers to persist wi...While I acknowledge that one prefers to persist with one's own psychological continuity I've always thought that it necessarily went with some sort of additional persistence relationship. Even so I would also be quite happy to lose my memories and personality, when given a choice between that and dying. <br /><br />Would you be happy to use destructive teleportation when it appears to me just to make a copy of you? To me it is no more ‘numerical’ you than a teleportation that leaves you on Earth but with copy on Mars. <br /><br />I do see Parfit’s point but I just don’t take it where he does. After all for me if it isn’t me, I don’t give a damn who has my thoughts and desires, but on the flip side if I were to have immortality through being cryogenically frozen but never being able to ‘wake up’ there is no point to that either. <br /><br />So his argument is enlightening but I think it still a dead end as far as helping finding a coherent and consistent personal identity/ontological identity account. <br /><br />I flatter myself to think my work will do that.:)Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-88689836412840984722010-07-15T11:34:10.718-04:002010-07-15T11:34:10.718-04:00I guess I'm assuming that qualia are all ancho...I guess I'm assuming that qualia are all anchored to particular moments of time: not really 'streams' at all, in an important sense. So there's something it's like to be Fred at t1, and something it's like to be Fred-Lefty at t2, and a very similar something that it's like to be Fred-Righty at t2. And that's it. There's not any further fact about what it's like for Fred-of-t1 at t2. <br /><br />In particular: It's not as though Fred-of-t1 is going to end up being 'centered' on one or other of Lefty or Righty. He can imagine things from either perspective, but both perspectives will end up being realized, and neither is literally 'him' in any deep, further sense.<br /><br />It might still be appropriate from him to 'anticipate' both futures, insofar as each future is psychologically continuous with his present self in the way that (I think) matters morally. But if reductionism is right, we shouldn't think that the appropriateness of this imaginative projection reflects any further metaphysical fact that may or may not obtain, over and above the settled qualitative facts.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-19154607585075501942010-07-15T11:05:33.383-04:002010-07-15T11:05:33.383-04:00Well, I'm not sure that counterpart relations ...Well, I'm not sure that counterpart relations are helpful. In a counterfactual scenario where I am one of two twins, one of which is deformed, I don't say it is a world where am both deformed and not deformed. I can stipulate which twin I am at that world via a counterpart relation. When I talk about different counterfactual possibilities, I feel like I'm talking about pairs of worlds and counterpart relations.<br /><br />But if its an indicative possibility that we're talking about, then I feel like there's a problem. What if I'm fissioned in the actual world? The indicative possibility is already centered, so doesn't that make two different scenarios? One centered on the normal and one centered on the deformed output of the telepod? So that's two different epistemic possibilities, at least.<br /><br />Also, I'm a little confused as to what you think it would be like, phenomenally, to be fissioned. Isn't personal identity linked to qualia? If some cosmic shift at the actual world causes my qualia to be put out like a light, that will be the day that "I" cease to exist (although I could have been a zombie under some counterpart relation, I can't actually be a zombie). If I am fissioned, it seems like I will either cease to have experiences, have one, or maybe have two simultaneous streams of qualia. You're saying that those are all the same possibility?Solumanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03370705772313893753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-82115910423937804062010-07-15T09:56:26.699-04:002010-07-15T09:56:26.699-04:00Simon - sure, questions are always welcome!
Solum...Simon - sure, questions are always welcome!<br /><br />Soluman - I had in mind the strong claim that it's an illusion to think that there are two possibilities here. Once we're given the qualitative facts (incl. the various relations of physical and psychological continuity between your present stage and the two future stages) we know all that there is to know about the situation. The remaining question is semantic: how to apply our 'identity' talk to the case.<br /><br />I'm a bit puzzled by the proposal that counterpart relations might help the anti-haecceitist preserve our "further fact" intuitions. Isn't the selection of one counterpart relation over another largely conventional (and depending on conversational context, salient dimensions of similarity, etc.)? So long as there's <a href="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2006/07/essence-and-identity.html" rel="nofollow">no "one true" counterpart relation</a>, the resulting view looks pretty deflationary to me. We can appeal to these various relations to serve as truthmakers for ordinary claims like "I could have been deformed"; but it's important to note that the truth of this modal claim doesn't really <i>consist in anything more</i> than the qualitative possibility of a deformed guy who is similar to me in various ways. There's no further sense in which he "really is" (or isn't) me.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-30935556793213703612010-07-15T07:41:32.799-04:002010-07-15T07:41:32.799-04:00Richard would you mind if I ask some general quest...Richard would you mind if I ask some general questions to flesh out your stance? The perspective I use is somewhat different so I haven't had the opporunity to go into this in such fine detail.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00540668068672572303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-80654929400634465442010-07-15T01:52:20.930-04:002010-07-15T01:52:20.930-04:00Richard, I'm not sure I understand what you me...Richard, I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say that fission cases do not involve two distinct possibilities. If I step into a teleporter alone but two copies of me appear on the other end, one of which is hideously deformed, I think there is a real question as to whether I have become hideously deformed or I have just acquired a hideously deformed twin.<br /><br />In terms of a counterfactual scenario in which I have a twin, it seems like we can be Anti-Haecceitists and say that there is only one world representing two possibilities, maybe according to different counterpart relations, in which I am either twin A or twin B. <br /><br />But if it's an indicative possibility that we're talking about, would we say that there is one scenario that represents two possibilities, or do you mean to say that that there is only an illusion of two possibilities?Solumanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03370705772313893753noreply@blogger.com