Identity Confusion as Definition Confusion, Part II
Friday, November 18, 2011
Direct Continuation of Identity Confusion as Definition Confusion, Part I
Editor’s Note: I was without internet access for awhile, so even though I did write one essay per day as I wanted to for NaNoWriMo, the essays weren’t able to be uploaded until now. I will solve this by changing the publication date of each essay to the date I intended to publish the essay on.
Earlier, I started with the following quote and asked the following questions:
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss
Who am I, that is the “you” in this quote? In what sense am I me, and in what sense are others not me? Can someone really be sort of me, but not me-er than me?
Specifically, what is the “I” that I experience? Who am I, distinct from all other objects? Do I have a self? Am I the same person I was yesterday? Am I the same person I was a decade ago? Who was I a millennia ago? Would I be the same person if I got brain damage and my personality radically changed? Would I be the same person if my legs were amputated and I got a new hairstyle?
The Dilemma We Face
Now that we’re aware of and understand the problems with identity, we can seek to solve questions about ourself and seek to unravel the following dilemma: how do we reconcile these two notions of identity?
Identity is located in the brain: when we swap bodies or get a new body, our identity moves into the new body and nothing is lost. Additionally, we are the same person we were when we were 4-years-old (4YO) despite our body now being made out of completely different cells and having a dramatically different appearance.
Identity is located in the body: when our brain is replaced by a computer simulation, our identity is now manifested by the simulation and nothing is lost. Additionally, we are the same person as when we were 4YO despite our brain having an incredibly different set of beliefs, having dramatically different personstuff (personality, memories, thoughts, character, beliefs, dispositions, habits, mentalities, propensities, desires, preferences, tastes, etc).
I think that the problem with knowing what our identity lies in having multiple senses of what “identity” is as a word. To see this, I first want to use what I call the “Why Do We Care?” test.
Will this guy be the "same" person in twenty years? What does that question even mean?
Caring About Continuity
Identity, as a thing, must refer to something, or it’s useless as a word. Words don’t just float around completely detached from any description of reality or anticipation of experience… at least not in ideal language.
One technique I’ve adopted as a method to see why our words our failing or confusing us is the “Why Do We Care” Test, as seen in my article of the same name: asking “why do we care about whether the definition is this or that?” can shed a great amount of light as to what the definition is doing for us, even if we’d be otherwise unaware.
So why do we care about identity? Or, more specifically, why do we care about whether our identity is in the brain or in the body, or in some strange combination of the two?
I’d wager that notions of identity are really important for continuity — if some entity is the “same” now as it will be in the future, actions done to that entity now will change how that entity is in the future, perhaps to your benefit. Thus identity becomes important for causal reasons — it’s important I not lose my hammer on November 3, because then I won’t be able to find that hammer on November 4.
Likewise, it’s important that I be nice to Bob on November 3, because if I am rude to him, Bob on November 4 might be rude to me back in a way that I won’t like. The fact that Bob underwent minute changes over the day was not enough to destroy this causal link.
However, there are changes to people that can destroy some of these causal links and not others. For instance, if Bob were to be mistreated on November 3 but then undergo Williams’ second identity experiment (full personstuff change followed by torture), then BobNov 4 who now has no memory of the mistreatment and has a completely different temperament and character is no longer affected by his (or rather BobNov 3‘s) mistreatment on November 3.
So if any experiences that happen to BobNov 3 do not also happen to BobNov 4, then perhaps it is not the case that the two entities are the same, at least for this purpose. Perhaps this experiential continuity is what we notice in the two problems mentioned by Williams — what happens to the entity continues on in the memory of that entity, even if the entity switches bodies. And that continuity is broken the moment the memory is lost.
This continuity also appears in Dennett’s trilemma. Here, even after Dennett’s brain is separated from his body, it is still the case that his body will do what Dennett’s brain sends signals for it to do, and anything done to Dennett before his brain-body separation will still affect the actions of Dennett after his brain-body separation.
Furthermore, Dennett could have both his brain and body replaced and still maintain this continuity, which is counter-intuitive but true. Even if Dennett’s body was replaced with another one and his brain was replaced by a computer simulation, Dennettsimulated and new body still is affected by everything that happened to Dennettnormal brain and body, Dennettsimulated brain but old body, and Dennettnormal brain and body.
Dissolving the Problems
So how do we solve the dilemma between our notion of identity being located in the brain and our identity being located in the body? In what sense are we the same person now as we were at 4YO, despite then having both a different body and a different brain? The answer is continuity.
Specifically, what happens to us when we are four affects who we are now — our current identity is built upon our 4YO self, and there is a causal link that connects us to that identity in a way that doesn’t connect us to other 4YO people that aren’t us.
However, just because we have this causal link / continuity between our past and our present or between our bodies and brains in whatever form they currently take to establish identity does not mean that we are identical with our past or alternate selves. Instead, there are obviously key differences.
It’s obvious that we are, other than the causal link, not the same person we are now than when we were 4YO — our personstuff are all dramatically different; making for a mostly different person. Thus it does make sense to give different names to these different people — say Peter1995 (me when I was 4YO) versus Peter2011 (me right now). I (Peter2011) am not the same as Peter1995 in the sense of having the same personstuff, but I am the same in the sense of having that continuity.
Thus even if our body is swapped with another body and our brain is destroyed and replaced with a computer simulation, we can still lay claims to being the same person because the causal link is still there. This means that confusions over identity are confusions over what the word “identity” is referring to — and thus identity confusions are definition confusions.
From birth to death we always have the same causal link, but do not always have the same personstuff or physical characteristics. We are only the same person as we were in some senses, not all senses.
Solving Williams’s Scenarios
We can also use these distinctions to dissolve the problems in Williams’s two problems and Dennet’s problem — look for which entity has which personstuff and look for which entity has which continuity/causal link.
For the identity swap, where Alice’s mind is in Bob’s body, and Bob’s mind is in Alice’s body, there probably isn’t much reason to discuss of who is “Alice” and who is “Bob”. Instead, we can just describe the new entities as they are: Alice-mind-Bob-body and Bob-mind-Alice-body. The fact that Alice-mind-Bob-body has the causal link to Alice and has Alice’s personstuff is what accounts for the apparent Alice-ness of the Alice-mind-Bob-body entity.
For the second problem involving torture, the fact that we will have dramatically different personstuff should not be enough to reassure us about the prospect of being tortured, do to the causal link between us and the person to be tortured. Given that we will still experience the pain of torture, it is rational to worry about it in anticipation, even if we have different personstuff beforehand. Likewise, it is rational to worry about being tortured thirty years from now, even if we will have different personstuff then.
It is only if this causal link were to be completely cut that we should be reassured at least as it comes to torture, such as in the later steps where we are offered a completely thorough destruction of all our personstuffs (whether or not the personstuffs are then replaced with that of someone else). However, if our causal link were not continued elsewhere (such as a new body or in a computer program), we should still be worried about our impending death.
Thus Williams is right that these two scenarios are actually not different scenarios at all — just cases in which our identity is moved elsewhere and what used to have our identity is now no longer rightfully considered to be us.
There seems to be no consistency here with either the problem or my proposed solution, and the proposed solution doesn’t even seem to be counter-intuitive when actually thought out.
From SMBC by Zach Weiner - www.smbc-comics.com/
Solving Dennett’s Scenarios
Now we can try to take this solution to the trials of Yorick and Hamlet in Dennet’s scenario where his brain is split from his body. Where is Dennett?
Here, I think any talk of Dennett being one or the other of Yorick / Hamlet is confusing, and makes the most sense referring to the entire Yorick-Hamlet system. Thus questions about Dennett’s location are nonsensical, and should be resolved as “Dennett refers to the entire Yorick-Hamlet system, and Yorick is located in a vat in Houstin and Hamlet is located in… say… California”.
Who should be jailed if Dennett were to use Hamlet to rob a bank? I think it should be Hamlet who is imprisoned, because the goals of imprisonment are primarily to prevent the entity from being able to repeat any further crimes by restricting movement, and this can only be accomplished by restricting the movement of Hamlet.
However, the restriction shouldn’t apply to Hamlet alone, but to any body that Yorick connects with — if Dennett were to get a new body, that body should be imprisoned too. Thus what is truly being imprisoned is the relevant and imprisonable parts of the Yorick-Hamlet system, and thus Dennett himself. The jurisdiction issue should be solved the same way they would solve any other crime that involves operating a remote-controlled device across state lines.
Conclusion
Identity is a confusing topic primarily because it equivocates between three different concepts of sameness — the idea of sameness in terms of a continuity and causal link, the idea of sameness in terms of having identical personstuffs, and the idea of sameness in terms of having identical physical characteristics. Once these three concepts are separated and tracked independently, identity no longer is a confusing issue.
Thus it makes the most sense to talk not about Alice getting a new body in a identity-swap scenario, but rather talk about Alice being replaced by Alice-brain-Bob-mind. It makes the most sense to wonder not about where Dennett is or what Dennett does, but about the actions, characteristics, and locations of Yorick and Hamlet individually.
Solving, or rather dissolving, such a philosophically contentious issue as identity (as I claim to have done, though don’t know if I will emerge successful upon scrutiny) really shows the benefits to be gained by recognizing problems in definitions and employing definitions in a practical and deliberate manner.
When a word creates confusion, it often should be replaced or modified, not debated. Identity is one of these words, so it should be reduced to casual links, continuities, differences in personstuff, and differences in physical characteristics whenever possible.
Appendix: Answering the Introduction Questions
In the introduction of Part I, I posed a lot of questions about identity. In this appendix, I will attempt to answer all of them tersely.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss
Who am I, that is the “you” in this quote?
You are the conscious individual that is currently reading and processing this sentence. You are the sum total of your personstuff and physical characteristics, continuous with your past selves via casual links.
In what sense am I me?
By the law of identity (see also “The Origin of Truth” for a longer discussion).
In what sense are others not me?
They do not have the same personstuffs or physical characteristics, and are not connected to you via a casual link. In both the first and second sense you are independent from other people, and in only the second sense you are independent from clones.
Can someone really be sort of me, but not me-er than me?
Yes, in a few senses — they can have similar personstuffs or physical characteristics; looking like you or acting like you, but not quite like you. Additionally, a clone of you is the same person as you in some senses (identical personstuffs and physical characteristics) but not the same person as you in other senses (you and your clone do not share a casual link).
Specifically, what is the “I” that I experience?
You experience your consciousness, which I do not understand nearly enough to elaborate on in detail …and even if I could, it would require a long series of essays. Maybe I will be able to answer this question in the future.
Who am I, distinct from all other objects?
Again, the sum total of your personstuffs and physical characteristics. The physical stuff that makes up you — the individual volume in space and mass that you have that others don’t — are all the parts of matter that are under your conscious power to move.
Do I have a self?
Yes, though it may depend on the meaning of self. I take it to mean as to whether we have an identity independent of other identities that is worth talking about, and define identity to be the sum total of our personstuff, physical characteristics, and casual links to past selves. All of this exists.
Am I the same person I was yesterday?
Yes and no, since there are multiple ways in which “same person” can be asked. You have a causal link to who you were yesterday, as in who you were yesterday affects who you are now. Additionally, you very likely have similar (though not identical) personstuffs and physical characteristics as you did yesterday, thus making you very likely to be similar to who you were yesterday, though not exactly the same.
Am I the same person I was a decade ago?
Yes and no, for all the reasons just enumerated, though the physical characteristics and personstuff similarities will be less so.
Who was I a millennia ago?
You very likely did not exist a millennia ago, so this question seems incoherent. You might ask about all the matter that currently makes up you and ask where they were a millennia ago (since they did exist a millennia ago in virtue of the Law of Conservation of Matter), but this seems to be an entirely different question since our identity is not contained within any individual bit of matter, just as a house is not contained within any individual brick. (See “Reductionism Made Simple” if you don’t immediately get this concept)
Would I be the same person if I got brain damage and my personality radically changed?
Either “yes and no” or straight-up no depending on how radical the brain damage / personality change is. A better way to answer this is to look at all ways one can be the “same person”: (1) do you have the same personstuff? (2) do you have the same physical characteristics? (3) is there are a causal link between you and your pre-damaged self? I’d wager that this hypothetical is asking about someone with different personstuff, but the same physical characteristics and an intact causal link (and this would be a good wager because I made the hypothetical and know what I meant), and thus you would be the same person in most senses, but not in all.
Would I be the same person if my legs were amputated and I got a new hairstyle?
Yes, with a few qualifications. You would definitely be the same person by virtue of still having a casual link with your pre-amputation self and by still having sufficiently similar personstuffs. The only possibility for problems is by not having sufficiently similar physical characteristics, but it doesn’t seem that you are altered enough to be unrecognizable.
Followed up in: P-Zombies are Fallacious
Liked this Essay?
- You can get more Greatplay.net by looking at these categories: All, Naturalism.
- Or perhaps you'd be interested in a complete table of contents of all essays?
- You could also subscribing to the RSS feed, or use the sidebar to subscribe for email updates!
- Or you could follow me on Twitter or like me on Facebook
- If you feel particularly participatory, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment.
I would like to redo your “Why do We Care Test” for the subject of the self. In your essay you use the words “self” and “identity” interchangeably, but in my mind, as well as in the fields I study (namely sociology, anthropology, and social psychology) the two are very different.
I define identity as the role a person takes on. Because the role is dependent on the context of the story and scene that it is in, I am also a proponent of multiple identity theory; where the individual contains a wardrobe of various identities that they don depending on the specific context. For example, surrounded by other firefighters, a firefighter would probably choose to wear a more masculine identity. One outfitted with aggressive body language, sharp profanity, and whatever else fits into his specific perception of an ideal-type firefighter. That same firefighter when home for thanksgiving may don the identity of a loving son, when with his book club a timid intellectual. There is no limit to the number of identities a person can create, nor is there a complete segregation of roles (meaning it is possible to don both son and firefighter identities proportionally or disproportionally). That is identity.
I define self as the driving force behind the production, destruction, and choosing of identities; or in other words, the continuity you speak of. Your essays seem to be fixed on the question of whether or not that continuity is in itself a linear function.
Is the self a linear function?
It is clear that people have some underlying force that drives their actions, thoughts, and emotions, what I call a self, because there is no person without actions thoughts or emotion. What is not clear is whether the function that produced 4YO Tom’s identities and identity presentation is the same equation that charts out present Tom’s identity production, destruction, and presentation. Now this is where I will apply the “Why do I Care Test.” Why do I care if the equation is the same? Instead of whether or not it is the same equation (the same self) is not the important question whether or not the equation that I am using provides me with accurate calculations to achieve my goals. From this perspective, the question of proving the equation is a linear function no longer matters, unless it can be proven that a linear function is what best represents reality, and thus is most beneficial to my calculations. I have limited knowledge of mathematics, so correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that linear equations are not very useful in applied mathematics, because most facets of life are not linear. I do not think linear equations are too useful in calculating trajectory or resistance because linear equations do not take wind and other non-linear factors into account. If I am correct in this assumption, than I would continue to suggest that trying to prove human self to be a linear function is intuitively illogical. However perhaps you do not see eye to eye with me on this point because of a much deeper understanding of mathematics. Regardless, I would still argue that your effort in trying to define self as linear (meaning that there is a continuous function for the production, destruction, and presentation of identity across a lifetime) is misdirected.
Whether a function is linear or non-linear speaks of broad-scale categorization for functions, and in my opinion, one that comes after defining the basic variables of an equation. I think this is something your essay lacks. You assume the “self” to be sequestered from the external world, reducing the variables of the self equation to mind and body. If we are defining self as the driving force of emotions, thoughts, habits, and actions in a person, then I do not think that such an entity can be contained within just the mind and the body. I would argue that many bodies influence individual action, thought, habit and emotion, as well as many places, things, and minds. Some of these minds, bodies, and places can even be purely symbolic (such as historical figures, past versions of oneself, or literature). I could be wrong in this assertion, but it is the question of whether I am or not, what are the variables of self that should first be addressed, not whether or not the self is a linear function.
Wouldn’t this include any future entities affected (in a limited sense) by actions done to a current entity? So, e.g. a full copy of a body (brain included) would result in two beings who are identical to the original?
So it’s important that you are nice to Bob on Nov 3 because that night you are going to be copied and the new copy will encounter Bob on Nov 4. Bob might be rude to the copy in a way you (the copy) won’t like. Right?
You’re being consistent here. But I wonder, doesn’t this stray from what most of us care about in personal identity? Sure, there may be a case where a person must sacrifice their life but also want their family to be cared for in precisely the same way they would care for their family…so a full-replacement would be desirable.
But even then, I think most of us would prefer to have the new replacement do the life sacrificing. (And would expect the replacement to take the opposite view!)
Well, yes. I suspect we’re both focusing on different aspects of what has been lumped together under one, unnatural label.
@Garren:
I know you left two comments — one at the end of Part I (click here to read it) and this one, but I want to reply to both of them at once because I find them strongly related:
~
Where Do We Disagree?
I think that caring about inner experiences of a particular brain is indeed a very important aspect of personal identity. But I also think that caring about continuity is another very important aspect of personal identity, which you cannot consistently dismiss.
Thus my hypothesis: “Identity” is a confused philosophical notion because it equivocates between concern for continuity and concern for inner experiences.
It also does include some concerns over physical differences too, but those seem more minor, and thus I will skip them. But we can’t skip concerns with continuity, because those are at the heart of our disagreement, it seems.
Perhaps you even agree all along, stating “I suspect we’re both focusing on different aspects of what has been lumped together under one, unnatural label”?
~
The Rumors of My Dualism Are Greatly Exaggerated
Maybe it isn’t a good idea to make a body vs. brain divide, but that is what all the philosophical literature in identity does, and I didn’t feel a strong need to go against this trend.
I do agree that the brain is where all our personstuff comes from (see my above comment with Tom), and that “body” in terms of identity dilemmas is best described as “all-of-the-body-except-the-brain”. (For this reason, it might actually be true that none of these identity experiment hypotheticals are physically possible, but I don’t think that helps us define “identity”.)
~
The Intuition Inconsistency in the Brain Hypothesis
But earlier you agreed in response to William’s that “The brain which started out as part of Alice’s body takes “Alice” with it to the rest of Bob’s body.” So if your brain were removed and replaced with the brain of Louis XIV, you would have to consistently agree that this would relieve you in the sense that you no longer fear torture (but sure, you wouldn’t be fully relieved because now you would fear death!).
Now here is where I wonder if evaluating at the personstuff level vs. evaluating at the brain level is relevant: For the slow implanting of memories/desires, and thus changing all of the personstuff from you to Louis XIV, should be the equivalent of changing brains. But you’re not relieved?
Another possibility is that you said you’re “concerned with what a brain will experience”, but you didn’t clarify to which specific brain you are referring to, even if you are referring to just one brain at all. Perhaps you are concerned with Louis XIV’s brain!
But I don’t think you can consistently be concerned only with brains and not be relieved in the “implanted memories/desires” phase.
~
Can You Replace a Brain?
The body would have to be considered part of Dennett’s identity — if he were to use the body to rob a bank, he couldn’t excuse himself with “it wasn’t me doing it”.
I think that I would still be willing to concede this first objection to the brain hypothesis given that the body could be viewed simply the same way someone would view a remote controlled device, like an RC helicopter or a UAV. Those aren’t really “you”, despite you controlling them.
~
Right. I think this is what I wrote about with clones — despite the person having a copy of your brain and body, they are still not you because they now lack that chain of continuity, and what they experience will not be what you experience.
However, both clones (you and the initially indistinguishable copy) would have an equal claim to all of your shared past, and thus there isn’t an objectively true “you” in this sense.
~
You’re right here for discussions of two clones. But this isn’t the objection I was making — instead, I was saying that you could have your body killed and replaced, and then have your brain killed and replaced, and still be the same person.
~
The Full Force of the 4YO Objection
I think this is where we have the potential to disagree the most, and where our two positions can be clearly differentiated. I think all of the other issues can be put aside for this one.
The problem is this: There is a sense in which we were the same person we were when 4YO, though we had a very different brain and body back then.
This is really puzzling for notions of identity which cause us concern over whether our brain changes, because our brain has changed dramatically without removing our identity.
I think this can only be solved in two ways: First, breaking up identity into components and noting that there are many ways in which we aren’t the same person we were when 4YO.
Second, I think the sense in which we still are the same must be continuity, a causal link between what happened when we were 4YO and who we are now.
How would you disagree?
Apparently by “identifying current with past brains”. How is that not the same continuity hypothesis I mentioned, though? What identification could you make, if not a causal one?
We can also pose this question not in a relation between the past and now, but between now and the future: is it rational to worry about being tortured in fifty years, when you know your brain will be completely different than it is now? I think it is rational, and we reason this because we have a causal link between who we are now and who we will be in the future.
Reasoning otherwise produces errors — saying it will be our brain that will be harmed assumes there is some other locus of identity that can “own” a brain which is false, and saying that we worry about our future experiences begs the question by saying those future experiences are ours. Thus the need for causal links when discussing identity.
~
Two Final Questions
Yes, until they start diverging because they undergo different experiences. And they also would appear different subjectively to each individual clone (see my response to “Can someone really be sort of me, but not me-er than me?”).
~
Correct. The point here is that even though Bob undergoes changes throughout the day, he doesn’t change enough to lose any hostility or grudges… and that’s the portion of identity that is relevant in this specific question.
@Tom:
That seems fine enough to me. Perhaps we could clarify that what this refers to is sociological identity, and what I am referring to is philosophical identity, as in notions of what the word “you” refers to; the self.
~
I think you are getting confused here by using two different notions of “function”. At no point do I ever mention anything about something being linear, nor do I understand how that’s relevant.
~
Mathematically, continuous functions are any functions where all values are defined — they don’t have to be linear. But even so, I am not talking about this mathematical continuity, but rather causal continuity — effecting a change upon an object at some point in time will cause that object to be different at all future points in time.
~
I think it makes sense to do this for sorting out how we define the self. I agree with you that this does not make sense for describing how the self changes over time.
Sure, if it were actually replaced with his brain. Not just because this brain were adjusted to match his memories and such.
Not relieved in the slightest. This brain will still experience the torture.
Only one brain (this one) is involved, whatever its state may be.
Yes, let’s go with that.
Maybe something like ‘organic continuity.’ Copying a human would result in two human beings with the same causal link to the pre-copy human, but only one continues as the original organism.
There’s a PhilPapers survey question…Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?
I would answer ‘death’ because the experience of this brain is what I’m primarily concerned with when I talk about me. However, I agree that we’re not always focused on this aspect when we use identity language. So, again, it’s not that ‘survival’ or ‘death’ is a fact of the matter…it depends on which aspect of identity is at stake.
I wouldn’t be especially worried about a copy of myself who will be tortured tomorrow (aside from my usual reluctance not to hear of anyone being tortured).
That’s why I’ve been saying “this brain” a few times in this response. The more usual “my brain” can be understood as a lightweight indexical, without implying another locus of identity.
Can you find the funny typo? =P
What is the difference? Why do you care about the brain even if it were to be fully rearranged into a duplicate of the brain of a different person? And how is that different than removing your brain and replacing it with a duplicate brain of a different person?
Perhaps we can think of it like this: Consider two computers — A-Computer is running A-Program and B-Computer is running B-Program. Now, we do one of the following scenarios:
Scenario-1: Delete A-Program from A-Computer and upload a copy of B-Program and run it. Delete B-Program from B-Computer.
Scenario-2: Take the first line of A-Program and replace it with the first line of B-Program. Then take the second line of A-Program and replace it with the second line of B-Program. Continue this until all lines of A-Program have been replaced. Run this program on A-Computer, and then delete B-Program from B-Computer.
Do these two scenarios achieve different results?
Here’s one objection to my theory that I think would make better sense with what you are saying than what I am saying, however: arguing that the statement “I have become a copy of Louis XIV” means something. But this makes identity even more confusing, because now we are talking about “My identity has changed into a different identity”, which means you are something other than your identity.
~
I think this is pretty similar to what I suggested depending on what you mean by “original” and how that is significant. The causal link does extend to both copies — as in both new entities will have been affected by changes made to the old entity.
~
This is where the matter of debate gets even more bizarre, honestly. I’d want to explore this aspect of the debate further before choosing sides. I also think you should personally expand on how there are different aspects of identity at stake (not that I disagree).
~
But you are worried about yourself tomorrow, saying nothing of copies. And you don’t care that your brain is different; just that it is still your same brain.
~
Fair enough, but I think it does confuse questions of identity for those who are not concious of it (see “I have become a copy of Louis XIV”).
I care about this particular brain’s experience because I believe the brain — not its personality pattern — is the primary subject of consciousness. (Unless it’s a soul or something.) So in the first case I[subject of consciousness] will experience torture even if I[personality] am changed to match someone else[personality].
No, but I don’t see how it fits into the discussion. Neither scenario sounds like a physical brain replacement.
This isn’t such a problem if it’s understood that two aspects of personal identity are being used. Guess I’m advocating a sort of identity dualism here:
brain/hardware/subject of consciousness
vs.
brain state/software/personality
Yes, that sounds right. My feeling is that I[subject of consciousness] will experience any future suffering in this brain, and won’t experience anything copies may experience.
I think I get it. Let me draw out the analogy further:
Scenario-3: Delete A-Program from A-Computer and upload a copy of B-Program and run it.
Scenario-4: Destroy A-Computer that contains A-Program, then build C-Computer, upload a copy of B-Program and run it.
Is this a better comparison? Here you worry about A-Computer whereas I worry about A-Program. I’m not sure how to resolve this difference.
My feeling was that by changing the computer incrementally, you changed the part of the brain that mattered.
Lets go back to Dennet’s “Where Am I?” piece. In this piece, he was at one point recreated with a computer simulation. What are your reactions to this? Do you think this was enough of a change of his entity?
~
Hmm…
This seems inherently sensible, but now I am troubled because of it’s implications on issues on some of the other strange philosophy of identity concepts: mind uploading and teleportation (you mentioned the latter). I don’t think these entail any kind of death that matters. I’d have to explore that further.
~
That’s a very smart dualism that I am willing to fully accept. But now we have to resolve the issue of why you care about the first and I care about the second.
Yes, that’s what we’ve each been focusing on.
After reading Dennett’s article myself, I want to write a blog post on it. For now I’ll just say I think both brains (natural and artificial) are distinct subjects of conscious experience. I have a complaint or two about the details of Dennett’s story, so I’ll think about it some more then post.
Did you catch the cartoon link in my recent post about identity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXKUcsvhQc
Best philosophy presentation ever.
I do care about both. I’m not keen to have my personality rewritten, but I might prefer that to experiencing torture. It’s just that I don’t think a personality rewrite itself would do a thing to keep me from experiencing torture (except torture based on a desire specific to my current personality).
Changed my mind about writing a post of my own about the Dennett piece; I had misread a certain detail earlier.
Now I think he wrote a very clever story in which the main narrator could either be Yorick or Hubert, and the ending narrator is the other. Dennett’s original consciousness remains in Yorick; Hubert is a newer conscious entity with the same personality (until the glitch anyway).
There is still a fact of the matter which brain each narrator has an interest in protecting to extend his own conscious experience.
…and I’m going to endorse the terminology ‘brain’ vs. ‘husk’ as two divisions of the body, instead of ‘brain’ vs. ‘body’.
Can you explain how this is different than what happens when you go to sleep and wake up the next morning?
What is the precise difference between your brain biologically changing over time into a brain that becomes completely different, and your brain being killed and then reconstructed? What if your brain was dissembled and reassembled piece by piece?
Perhaps we can only settle this by exploring the issues of mind uploading and teleportation, which I will do in a future post. There really ought to be a better way to answer this question than an intuition battle.
~
It’s a good presentation, but it begs the question — people could have different intuitions. The part with the two clones debating over who should die is an interesting one, though.
~
This does seem reasonable.
~
I also agree.