On 9/30/2015 7:44 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
It follows from the meaning of the words "psychologically continuous". If I have the same psychological properties as I did yesterday then I am psychologically continuous with my yesterday self. It is nonsensical to assert that yes, I remember everything I did yesterday, I have the same personality that I did yesterday, the same cognitive abilities that I did yesterday, etc., but I am not actually psychologically continuous, because there has been some sort of physical discontinuity. In fact, it is reflecting on this that should make it clear that physical change is irrelevant to psychological continuity except insofar as the physical change makes a psychological difference. If you feel the same, look the same, behave the same etc. today as you did yesterday but you are informed that advanced aliens performed a procedure X on you in your sleep, then that means that whatever X was, it did not affect psychological continuity.
That sounds right, but if you think of testing it, it becomes problematic. How could it be known that you remember what you did yesterday? that you have the same cognitive abilities? the same personalities? You cannot rely on your own introspection because that is what is in question. In fact we judge all those things by there physical, i.e. third party, manifestation. Do you behave the same. Are your memories consistent with physical artifacts. Can you solve the same problems.
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