On 6/22/2015 10:10 PM, Pierz wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 11:31:26 AM UTC+10, Bruce wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
> On 6/22/2015 5:37 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>> meekerdb wrote:
>>> On 6/22/2015 2:56 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, June 23, 2015, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net <javascript:>
>>>> <mailto:meek...@verizon.net <javascript:>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 6/22/2015 3:11 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I diverge from my previous self from moment to moment in ordinary
>>>>> life, but I still consider that I remain me. If I woke up
>>>>> tomorrow taller because I had a growth spurt during the night I
>>>>> would still consider that I was me; yet by the "closest
>>>>> continuer" theory, I would stop being me if a copy that hadn't
>>>>> grown was made somewhere else.
>>>>
>>>> I think waking up somewhere else would count strongly against
>>>> being the closest continuation.
>>>>
>>>> What if, while both are asleep, the original is moved to another
>>>> location and the copy moved to the original's bed?
>>>
>>> That would help, but there's an implicit assumption that
>>> asleep=mindless. Anesthetic would make a better example. But won't
>>> both the original and the copy find himself in a disjoint location
>>> incompatible with where he was before?
>>
>> I think part of the problem here is that the first-person impression
>> is taken to be definitive. Since the closest continuer theory weights
>> bodily continuity fairly highly in the metric whereby 'closest' is to
>> be determined, what happens to your body, whether or not you are
>> conscious of it, is an important consideration.
>
> It was my understanding that closest continuer was to be judged entirely
> in terms of conscious thoughts, e.g. memories. Of course these include
> memories of ones body so noticeable physical changes would count
> against, but discontinuity that was not noticeable wouldn't. Causal
> connection doesn't count because the idea is to explain everything,
> including causality in terms of consciousness. I'm not even sure the
> theory is coherent. I want to ask; continuer of what? It seems to
> intuitively rest on the idea a being or soul that *must* continue and so
> must attach to some best vehicle.
That might be Bruno's idea -- he defines personal identity solely in
terms of memories of one's previous selves. In fact, in the way you put
it here, such a theory seems to be inherently dualist.
But in my opinion, Bruno's definition is too narrow, and self-serving.
The closest continuer theory as discussed in the philosophical
literature on personal identity is much broader. It takes account of all
features of a person -- memories, bodily features, environment, causal
connections, values, temperament, personality, skills, etc, etc. The
definition of a 'person' is seen as irreducibly multi-dimensional. Of
course, that means that one must define a metric across those dimensions
in order to determine what is 'closest'. The metric is not absolutely
specified by the theory, and I think it can, in fact, be flexible, in
that one weighting of factors might be more appropriate in one setting
than in another.
The point is that one should capture as much of the notion of personal
identity that we use everyday as is possible. In particular, it should
take account of those difficult cases where memory is lost or impaired
in one way or another. Bruno's definition is just too restrictive to be
of any use in the real world.
Any use in the what?? I suppose the practical applications for "closest continuer"
theory are manifold?
The point is that if computationalism is true, then identity can be defined in terms of
the state of a computing device (brain or its replacement device) at some level of
substitution - the theory does not need to specify what that is. For the purposes of the
early steps of UDA it's enough to agree that a duplication is in principle possible.
This seems to follow unless you add some magical ontological property of self-ness over
and above the mere physical/computational configuration of a person. Arguing about
whether closest continuer is a better theory of personal identity just seems to muddy
the waters AFAICT. Closest continuer seems to be a theory about semantics - like the old
argument about removing planks from one ship and putting them on another - at what point
does identity become exchanged? That is a silly, pointless argument to have because it's
just a matter of definition. If comp is true then *something in the computational state
of the observer* must account for the continuity of observer moments.
The problem is that "in the computational state of the *observer*" implicitly rules out
anything except conscious thoughts, so gaps in consciousness and memories can't be bridged
by physical continuity of the body and then it's no longer clear that "identity can be
defined in terms of the state of computing device (brain)" because the level of
substitution is assumed to be above the quantum level where duplication could only be
accidental.
Brent
That's all you need to know,
Bruce
> But maybe Stathis should explain what he means by the theory.
>
> Brent
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