tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post114724787678166599..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: The Illusion of EnduranceRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-44026865383494235492009-07-13T21:38:54.843-04:002009-07-13T21:38:54.843-04:00The link to the Pdf is broken.The link to the Pdf is broken.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18298857442282219649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1147280254590433042006-05-10T12:57:00.000-04:002006-05-10T12:57:00.000-04:00Velleman's approach is broadly Humean in approach....Velleman's approach is broadly Humean in approach. One of the problems with such approaches is that it's not actually clear they are diagnosing the situation properly. When I remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, am I really 'conflating' myself as remembering with myself as remembered? It doesn't seem plausible. I am full aware that I as remembering am not the same as myself as remembered -- for one thing, when I'm only remembering what I ate yesterday, I am under no misapprehension whatsoever that I am currently eating yesterday. When I say "I remember that I was the birthday boy" I am, as Velleman says, referring to myself twice -- but there is no conflation between myself remembering and myself remembered, because in both cases the I is just the same I, myself now, remembering, and I am saying that I, now, am what became of the birthday boy I, now, remember. That's all that really seems to be going on in remembering things I did; the memory obviously connects me, now, with the birthday boy I remember now, but it doesn't seem that there's any conflation of remembering and remembered, and even the perdurantist will have to admit a connection between the two. In fact, I am vividly aware of the differences. The same with anticipation. When I say, "I expect that I will be happy tomorrow" I'm not conflating myself now with myself tomorrow; I am clearly aware of the difference between myself today and what I expect myself to become through the course of time. I'm anticipating a change (a change in myself as I am now), not glossing over it to treat the two terms of the change as if they were the same.<BR/><BR/>I also don't think endurantism is quite so easily eliminated as Velleman thinks. Of course one can call myself yesterday and myself today different temporal parts; just as one can call algebra and geometry different subject-parts of mathematics, or distinguish between the number one as a whole number and the number one as a rational number, and call these different 'parts' of the number one. The question is what you really get from doing so, and what these parts really are. The endurantist, for instance, will ask what these are temporal parts <I>of</I>, arguing that they are not temporal parts of myself, because each temporal part is myself. The endurantist will also be inclined to argue that the perdurantist runs into individuation problems: when I die, my corpse will decompose and become dust, and there is nothing about perdurantism as such that can distinguish between myself as living and the scattered dust of my corpse a hundred years from now -- after all, they are connected by a perfectly continuous chain of contiguous temporal parts. So, the endurantist will say, there must be something the perdurantist is secretly smuggling in to individuate me from the scattered dust of my corpse (or, for that matter, from the scattered dust from which our solar system developed billions of years ago), and that is endurance. The endurantist, on the other hand, has no problem with individuation through time. They would also probably say that Velleman's characterization of perdurantism -- that I extend through time -- is confused; when we use the term 'I' it is almost never, except by perdurantists, used to refer to an object extended through time, but only the subject that endures -- 'I' do not extend through time, whatever one's view; I'm here, right now, in this temporal part (whatever we may mean by temporal part). In other words, from the endurantist point of view, the perdurantist account is just a form of counterpart theory, with all the implausibilities of counterpart theory, except for intervals of time rather than possible worlds.<BR/><BR/>I don't think these are all unanswerable by the perdurantist, but the endurantist has more resources at his disposal than Velleman admits.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1147253424203321812006-05-10T05:30:00.000-04:002006-05-10T05:30:00.000-04:00I would note that your continuality across the spa...I would note that your continuality across the spatial dimensions is in question even more than that across the temporal dimension.<BR/>It might be rational to define your existance as across all the dimensions.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.com