On 4/13/2015 2:08 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:2015-04-13 19:50 GMT+02:00 Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected] <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>>: On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <[email protected] <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote: *From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Telmo Menezes *Sent:* Monday, April 13, 2015 7:49 AM *To:* [email protected] *Subject:* Re: Michael Graziano's theory of consciousness On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 13 Apr 2015, at 05:31, Bruce Kellett wrote: The philosophical literature is full of extended discussions on this, and it is widely understood that ideas such as brain transplants and duplicating machines play merry havoc with our intuitive notions of personal identity. Yes, it simply vanish. Personal identity is an illusion, but the FPI is not, and that result is not used in the reversal, so I prefer to let is for other threads and topics. That seems like a flat contradiction. Personal identity is an illusion but First Person Indeterminacy is not. You can't have first person anything if you do not have a notion of personal identity. I am actually very suspicious of any argument which begins, or ends, with "X is an illusion." Be X consciousness, personal identity, free will, space, time, or anything else. The theory is supposed to explain our experience of these things. Writing them off as "illusions" is not an explanation. Only if the theory fails to explain how the illusion arises. For example, there was a persistent illusion that the universe revolves around the earth. Astronomy eventually showed that not to be the case, also explaining why it looks that way. Telmo – I agree with you. An argument for something being an illusion needs to show how the illusion emerges out of the underlying reality; it needs to demonstrate the mechanisms that drive the illusion and how they work to transform the actual real events/experiences/etc. into whatever is subsequently perceived as experienced or real. Simply saying that something is an illusion is not adequate; I agree with that. And I think your example of the Aristotelian earth centric universe, is a good one. The mechanism by which it produced the illusion was demonstrated in that case. Here's the mechanism: my body is destroyed, and another similar body is created. Because it's similar, it thinks it's me. If two were created, both would think they were me. It would, if functionalism/computationalism is true... but it could be for example, that causaly linked matter till birth (or before...) is necessary (why not...) for being that particular individual... as my current body even if all its matter is continuously replaced, it is not replaced in one go, it is as said "continuous", all matter composing my body is causaly linked... I'm not saying it is like that and that computationalism/functionalism is false (well I believe in computationalism), but currently, as we're nowhere near to have the ability to make copies of ourselves... it's hard to say, and as we have no 3rd persons reproduceable and sharable test to be convinced that the copy would really be us (we only have a metaphysical believe and a theory to say it should be)... even if that copy was made of flesh and blood and that a super high res scan would show that it has the exact same atoms with the exact same properties as the living body it was copied from... we would still have no proof it would be the same person... we would have a theory that if we succeed to "copy" a person and if the resulting copied person was alive and well and claimed to be the same as the "original" that indeed the copy and the copied would be the same person... but that is not a proof... (but that is what I believe it would have to be). We would have evidences that it must be (like the copy claiming he is the same as the original), but that's all we would have, only the "copy" would really *knows* it... like in a quantum suicide experiment, only the experimenter staying alive would have more and more confidence, quantum suicide is true.Physics is irrelevant to the philosophical problem of personal identity. It is only required that consciousness be logically duplicable.
Which is part of the question. The other part is what constitutes duplication. How much discontinuity and difference in character is allowed before it is no longer a duplication?
If my body is destroyed and another similar body is created, perhaps by miraculous means so that it will also have a similar consciousness, then the new body would think it's me, and if two were created they would both think they were me.
But philosophy aside, your wife will have to decide which one is her husband. The state will decide which one owns your house. Philosophers may ponder, but men must decide.
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