On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 02:22:07PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote: > On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 11:01 AM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I am not convinced that they are the only two possible > > outcomes. Remember my skepticism of the Parfit Napoleon thought > > experiment. > > > > > There may be other theories of personal identity that are consistent. I > only mention that there are two I am aware of that are. What was your > skepticism regarding Parfit's thought experiment?
Parfit's thought experiment imagined that you could smoothly interpolate between your own consciousness, and that of Napoleons, by replacing neurons one at a time. My criticism was that I could not see that this is obviously possible. At some point during the transformation, a percolation threshold is reached, and you'll lapse into unconsciousness, way before you'll start thinking you are Napoleon. Another way of expressing this phenomenon is "the straw that broke the camel's back". So whilst it is likely that Parfits process can apply between, say W and M in Bruno's teleporter example, it is far from obvious that it will work between W and Napoleon as Parfit imagines. In such a world, there will definitely be multiple persons, who are more than single observer moments. ... > > > If B and C both remember being A, then they can claim > > to being the same person as A, in spite of the fact that B and C are > > different people. > > > > What is the problem with that point of view? > > > > Identity relations, by definition, are transitive. If A is identical to B, > and A is identical to C, then B is identical to C. Then maybe "personal identity" is not an "identity relation" so defined. The teleporter example leads us to conclude that W is H and M is H, but W is not M. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
