Personal identity Flashcards
(27 cards)
The metaphysics of transhumanism - Lego
four parts that come together to compose a single thing
When the parts are separate, do they form together to compose a single thing?
When does it happen does a bunch of parts can become a singular object
Two lego stacks that are the same can be duplicates, those are qualitatively similar
What we are focusing on is numerical sameness, there is one and the same thing
Tower 1 of lego, it moves from one place to the other, it is still the same tower of lego
All of the parts moved continuously, occupying successive regions of space over a period of time
Just because there is a qualitative duplicate of tower 1 existing at a later time, does not mean it is the same tower 1 that existed at the earlier time
It couldn’t possibly be the same tower, as they are made out of different blocks
Ship of Theseus
Theseus has a ship that needs to have parts replaced
He takes out the rotted board and puts in a new board, the sail gets tattered, he takes it down and replaces it with a new sail
After a few years of this, he has realised that he has replaced every part of the ship
It seems like he must have the same ship that he had to begin with
At no part did it change to a new ship, so the ship can survive the total replacement of new parts
We can survive the replacement of our parts as long as it happens gradually
When do parts come together to create a single entity?
And when does the thing continue to exist and when is it replaced by a replica?
The significance of identity
If I was going to stop existing, would I prefer to be replaced by a replica of me?
Significance of identity, Forward looking attitudes, Backward looking attitudes, Moral obligations
Forward looking attitudes
We look forward to tomorrow, if something fun is going to happen
If somebody else is going to do something fun tomorrow, you are happy for it, but you yourself are not looking forward to it
That is the same with a replica of you
Same with fear
Backward looking attitudes
Pride
Regret
May take pride or regret in actions that I have performed in the past
Not going to feel pride or regret in actions that someone else took
Wouldn’t take pride or regret in actions of a perfect duplicate of me, i may feel responsibility, but not in the same way if i were to do something myself
Moral obligations
Promise
Punishment
If i make a promise i am obligated to fulfil it
If someone else makes a promise, i am not obligated to fulfil it
Transhumanism
- the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology.
We can better as transhuman persons
We are going to be better, more perfect beings than the flawed human creatures that we are now
We are going to become non-human, superior beings
Value assumption
Transhuman people are better
Or at least better off than mere human beings
Because, they are not necessarily gonna die within a few decades
They can live indefinitely, not grow old
There are so many limitations that humans have, just because of our biological nature, that transhuman people don’t have
According to this value assumption, there is something than a human being, and that thing that is better is potentially awaiting us if we ourselves could become transhumans
AI Assumption
Transhuman people are possible
Mary anne warren
The ditinciton between a homo sapien and a person
Extraterrestrials
Artificial intelligences
Homo spaien does not have to be a pearson
Persistent vegetative state
Fetuses
What makes someone a person, regardless of homo sapien is their psychological and mental characteristics
Consciousness
Reasoning
Self-motivated
Etc
Warren thought that there could be in principle, persons, who are not human beings
Functionalism
Functionalism:
Mental states are functional states - realisable from different types of physical hardware
Types of materialism
It sounds like a prediction that there will be non human persons, with value, greater than or equal to us
That may be a good thing in the point of view of the universe, but not for me
The personal identity assumption is not only that there could be transhuman people that are better off than we are, but that we could become those kinds of people
We are students right now, it is just a phase, it is not a part of our nature
The personal identity says that something like that goes for our humanity as well
Ya, we always have been a human being, maybe you will not always be a human being
Teleportation through experiment
teletransporter in star trek, scans the body, scatters atoms to the wind, then in another teletransporter, reassembles some new atoms in the exact same configuration
But on star trek they do not think as destroying yourself, just a way to get around
Branching problem - transhumanism
- Branching is not survivable - identity is transmitted, me as a person, then get transferred into two computers, how can they both be me - no computer has a claim that they are me that they seem to have
- If uploading is survivable, then branching is survivable - if i can survive uploading, it is not going to prevent that surviving to have that copy made somewhere else
- Uploading is not survivable
Olson says that these are objections to the view that you can survive uploading, but they don’t explain why uploading is impossible
It is impossible, because that psychological continuity view is false - what you are is not some abstract pattern, what you are is a particular material object and your persistence conditions are the kinds that material objects have
Duplication problem
- Psychological replication is possible - eg. two packages. First, We will just make a psychological replica of you, it won’t be you, but it will be like you. You may not survive, but there is somebody qualitatively like you that will live forever. Second. We can actually upload you, so you get to survive. - what is different, there is no differences
- If (survivable) uploading and replication are both possible, then there is a difference between uploading and replication
- There is no difference between uploading and replication
- Uploading is not survivable
Olson says that these are objections to the view that you can survive uploading, but they don’t explain why uploading is impossible
It is impossible, because that psychological continuity view is false - what you are is not some abstract pattern, what you are is a particular material object and your persistence conditions are the kinds that material objects have
simple material objects
Simple material objects - atoms
One kind of material object is an organism - plants, mushrooms, animals, etc
Personhood is a phase we are going through, there was a time before you were a person, when you were a fetus, there is a time after you are a person, in your past few days alive, you may be unconscious.
Persistence conditions for material objects have something to do with the persistence of the parts - eg. lego blocks
The ship of Theseus - Olson does not want to say this about a ship, but wants to say it about organisms - the ship can survive the gradual change in parts - it is possible to survive uploading, which is instantaneously being made up of different atoms
Gretchen Weirob
Bodily identity - she thinks that what she is is like a human being or body, material object, and once that body stops existing, she stops existing - olson says even if the transhuman technology is available, it is not you yourself surviving, it is just a replica
even if there is a heaven, there will immediately be a new person in heaven that talks like me and acts like me
- but i will never make it to heaven, because i am a human being, the process of going to heaven is a process that no human would survive
Sam Miller
Traditional afterlife - in the first night, he accepts a cartesian, immaterial soul of what we are, then tries out a psychological continuity view
Dave Cohen
Unimportance of identity - identity does not have the importance we thought
John Locke (1632-1704)
The changing states, of a single enduring immaterial thing, or a soul, it’s like a piece of wax that is a material thing that has a particular solidity and colour, but when it melts, it changes its properties, but it is still the same object
All my thinking takes place in an immaterial substance
The materialist objects to dualism
Locke objects to the second part, the person identity part
Even if we assume that descartes is right about immaterial souls and they are responsible for every thought we are having, that doesn’t mean we are the soul
Thought experiment:
One soul, two persons
- Suppose the mayor of quinnborough claimed to be the reincarnation of Socrates
- Locke: even if so, you aren’t socrates
- Suppose by a coincident, all the atoms of socrates dispersed and by coincidence, all those atoms ended up in the same place about 2,000 years later, and that place is the mayor of quinborough, can the mayor take pride in socrates’ actions - No
- It is possible for a singular person to have two souls - suppose every night when i’m asleep, god takes a brand new soul and puts it in my body and instills all the characteristics of the previous into the new one, and this happens every night
- Locks argues that i continue to exist with old parts being replaced
Same rock vs same tree
- A rock - a hunk of matter, and it’s persistence conditions are hunk of matter persistence conditions - there is no process that could start with that rock, end up with a new set of atoms and end up being the same rock - the rock is just a hunk of material parts and the material conditions go along with the material of those parts
- A tree - isn;t like that. If you return to a place you haven’t been in a while, and you see a large tree where there used to be a small tree - you wonder if that is the same tree - you are not wondering if it is made out of the same atoms - a lot of the atoms are new atoms - what makes one in the same tree is an organisational property, how it goes together to promote a single life
- Olson might agree about the tree, we are an organism like a tree, and my identity conditions are those we would expect of an organism
- Locke thinks we should make a new category of a person, not defined by biological organisation, but my psychological, mental states, traits, memories - it is still an organisational characteristic that defines the persistence of a person, it is just defined in psychological terms, rather than biological terms
- The particular substances or particular material parts or immaterial parts can be exchanged for new parts, and as long as the organisational/functional properties are preserved, we can still have one in the same person
Weirob’s knowledge objection to soul view of identity
- Objecting to sam miller
- Weirob has a view like olson, no heaven and even if there were, and the second i die, and a duplicate of me is created in heaven, then there’s no way that’s me
- You know that you existed last week - common sense
- You don’t know that the immaterial soul paired with you body existed last week - souls can’t be observed
- If you know that X existed without knowing Y existed, then X does not equal Y - if X=Y then X cannot exist without Y existing
- Therefore, you are not the immaterial soul pared with your body
Miller rejects to the second premise
Argues that you know the principle same body, same soul
Chocolate example, has different swirls on the outside which represents what flavour is on the outside
You can know what’s on the inside by seeing what’s on the outside and seeing how the inside and outside are correlated with each other
You see the same body, it’s a general rule that you see the same soul
Weirob:
How are we supposed to know this general rule if every week souls got rotated out, and a new soul with the same general characteristics
It shows that whether we continue to exist does not depend on whether the same soul continues to exist
John Locke
If the same substance which thinks be changed, it can be the same person, or remaining the same, it can be a different person
If the same substance which thinks be changed, it can be the same person, or remaining the same, it can be a different person
If the same substance, the same atom/collection of atoms/hunk of matter or immaterial thing, you can have the same substance doing the thinking, which gets changed, but the same person remains, or you could have the matter remaining the same, but with a new person
The continued existence of a person over time does not depend on the continuation of the existence of the material or immaterial substance
One body, two person, De. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one body alternates between two distinctly different personalities
Jekyll has no memory of the stuff that Hyde did, Hyde has no memory of Jekyll
Two bodies, one person
- I can understand a scenario in which I have a new body
- Any understandable scenario is possible
- If it is possible for me to have a new body, then I am not my body
- Therefore, I am not my body
If i were identical with my body, then for example, if my body were destroyed in the process of going to a new body, that means I am destroyed
The fact that i can move into a new body shows that my body is not my identity
Personal identity consists in consciousness alone, as, as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person. So that whatever hath the consciousness of present and past actions, is the same person to whom they belong - Locke
Personal identity is consciousness - Locke
Simple memory account: Stage X is a later stage of same person as Stage Y = Stage X can remember Stage Y’s experiences
The lockean view is that psychological continuity over time is what matters when it comes to our continued survival
Our episodic memory has episodes in our life, we can remember our own life from yesterday, nobody else can remember what else you did yesterday the same way you can
The lockean view says that that personal episodic memory is the kind of psychological connection is what unifies the stages of a person’s life
Problem of circularity - to Locke’s consciousness theory
- You can have false memories planted by hypnosis for example
- The memories can feel genuine, but that doesn’t mean they are real
- Eg. you are not napoleon just because you remember being napoleon at the battle of waterloo
- We really remember what happened yesterday, because that was you, and you don’t remember being at the battle of waterloo, because that was somebody else - but this explanation is circular
- What’s the difference between remembering actions and seeming to remember actions
Problem of transitivity - to Locke’s consciousness theory
- Identity is a transitive relation
- An older woman might remember being a middle age woman, and the middle age woman may remember being a young woman, and the young woman may remember being a teenager, etc. but does the old woman remember when she was a teenager, maybe not
- There is a strange implication that thinking back to your earliest memory, it seems like you didn’t exist before then.
- The memory view seems to predict that just because you can’t remember when you were 3, but there was a time where you could, when the 4 year old could remember when they were 3, so they are identical, and the 5 can remember the 4, so they’re identical - it is transitive
