On 9/30/2015 11:12 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 30 Sep 2015, at 11:02 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
As a practical problem, yes, you'd want these guarantees.
But they are more than guarantees - they constitute the operational
meaning of "psychological continuity".
Brent
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