Personal identity

Question 1

The metaphysics of transhumanism - Lego

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Ship of Theseus

Answer 2

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?

Question 3

Significance of identity, Forward looking attitudes, Backward looking attitudes, Moral obligations

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Transhumanism

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

Value assumption

Answer 5

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

Question 6

AI Assumption

Answer 6

Transhuman people are possible

Question 7

Mary anne warren

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Functionalism

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Teleportation through experiment

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Branching problem - transhumanism

Answer 10

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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

Question 11

Duplication problem

Answer 11

1. 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
2. If (survivable) uploading and replication are both possible, then there is a difference between uploading and replication
3. There is no difference between uploading and replication
4. 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

Question 12

simple material objects

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Gretchen Weirob

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Sam Miller

Answer 14

Traditional afterlife - in the first night, he accepts a cartesian, immaterial soul of what we are, then tries out a psychological continuity view

Question 15

Dave Cohen

Answer 15

Unimportance of identity - identity does not have the importance we thought

Question 16

John Locke (1632-1704)

Answer 16

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

Question 17

The materialist objects to dualism

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Thought experiment:
One soul, two persons

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

Same rock vs same tree

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

Weirob’s knowledge objection to soul view of identity

Answer 20

• 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

1. You know that you existed last week - common sense
2. You don’t know that the immaterial soul paired with you body existed last week - souls can’t be observed
3. 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
4. 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

Question 21

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

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Two bodies, one person

Answer 22

1. I can understand a scenario in which I have a new body
2. Any understandable scenario is possible
3. If it is possible for me to have a new body, then I am not my body
4. 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

Question 23

Problem of circularity - to Locke’s consciousness theory

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

Problem of transitivity - to Locke’s consciousness theory

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

Improved memory account

Answer 25

Improved memory account: stage X is a later stage of same person as Stage Y = Stage X remembers the experiences of a stage (that remembers the experiences of a stage…) that remembers Stage Y’s experiences

Question 26

Teleportation thought experiment

Answer 26

• Scans your body, then destroys it, and recreates it in a new location
• Teletransportation malfunction - two of one person is made, rather than one
• Parfit - branching case - rather than one person coming out of a teletransporter, 2 people come out
• The potential for branching, shows that teletransportation has to kill you, same with uploading

1. Branching is not survivable
2. If uploading is survivable, then branching is survivable
3. Uploading is not survivable

Question 27

Branching and identity

Answer 27

A goes into the teletransporter, and now somewhere else is B, they are identical, B is A
That’s what ordinary teletransportation

If branching occurs: A goes in, B and C comes out

1. In a branching case, B does not equal C - There are two people, so B and C are not the same, numerical person
2. If (1), then in a branching case, not - (A=B and A=C)
3. In a branching case, not-(A=B and A does not equal C)
4. If A does not equal B in a branching case, then A does not equal B in non-branching teleportation
5. If non-branching teleportation, A does not equal to B

Option 1: accept conclusion
- In non-branching teleportation, A does not equal B

Option 3: Reject (4)
- A does not equal B in a branching case, but A equals B in non branching teleportation
- Branching is not survivable, but teletransportation is still survivable
- An issue is that something as important as identity is contingent on some weird thing of not having a second copy made

Parfit argues that a mistake is that our non contingent survival matters
- Identity is not a deep fact, it is not what matters in survival