On 29 Jul 2016, at 08:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 29/07/2016 4:30 pm, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 7/28/2016 11:11 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 29/07/2016 3:59 pm, Brent Meeker wrote:
But they are not "one person". Although they share the same
memories of before the duplication that have different memories
afterward.
According to that argument, you are not the "one person" from
moment to moment because you have different memories as new things
happen to you.
I'm the one person I was a moment ago because I have all the
memories of that person and no one else has the memories I have and
he doesn't.
That adds another criterion to the argument. I have no difficulty
with that, but it needs to be made explicit that memories are not
the only criterion. But you have a problem if someone else does have
the same memories as you -- the case of ties in a closest continuer
theory.
The five first step of UDA does not leave any chance to Nozick closest
continuer theory.
No, but it does imply that memories are only one of the many
dimensions that are important in defining the self, or in
determining personal identity. Is physical continuity one of the
other important dimensions?
Physical continuity is a good indicator in the absence of
duplicating machines, but I don't think it's definitive. Consider
the example of multiple-personality-disorder, in which seemingly
different persons occupy the same body at different times.
Hence the no-branching condition in theories of personal identity.
Branching - recombining, both play havoc with one-one notions of
identity. So how is identity to be defined?
Why does it need to be defined? Why not recognize it is not a well
defined concept...like the end of a road. We need operational
legal definitions as to when a person is still competent to make
decisions about themselves...and those are pretty much in place. I
imagine that multiple-personality disorder has also caused some
legal problems: Is Eve White bound by the contract Eve Black
signed? If duplicating machines are ever invented then we can
choose some rough and ready legal definitions. But all this
discussion of theories of personal identity seems more about
semantics and pronouns.
I think the trouble originated in the use of personal pronouns.
I don't think so. I presented more than once a version of the thought
experiment without pronouns just to illustrate that the FPI is
independent of the use of pronouns. Then, the math translation
eliminate pronouns in a way well known in mathematical logic (for the
3p-self) and use an antic notion (aclled the standrd theory by Gerson)
for the 1p-self.
We have legal problems which require working definitions that do not
do too much violence to intuition in difficult cases (duplicates,
multiple personalities, recombinations, etc). Normally, personal
identity is a transitive relation and there are no problems.
However, I think it is more than a merely semantic issue to sort out
the meaning of identity and/or survival in the difficult cases such
as teletransportation and duplication. Otherwise you end up in the
muddle that characterizes the exchange between Bruno and JKC.
The muddle has been shown relying only on Clark's forgetting the 1-3
distinction. he confuses the 3-1 description of the two copies in the
two cities, and the fact that each copy cannot be introspectively
aware of its doppelganger, so that by looking where he finds itself,
he get one bit of information, and he get the feeling that something
has lost the symmetrical character of the experience as seen in the
3p. That is why there is a *first person* indeterminacy in that context.
Bruno
Bruce
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