2. “That’s Me”(I am the very same person as the person in that picture) Ben Dichter, age 3 A lot has changed Physical Appearance Size Hair color Atoms in body Memory Gained memories Lost memories
4. Big Questions in Personal Identity Population: What makes two people distinct from each other? Persistence: Under what circumstances is a person existing at one time identical to a person existing at another time?
6. Numerical Identity Space-time worm Really space-time rope Looking for metaphysical glue that makes two stages the same worm
7. Concept of Sameness Same = similar Same = “the very same” http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/lead-lipstick.jpg http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/04/Beetle_Before_After_494.jpg http://www.persuasiveconcepts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/rose.jpg
8. Personal Identity Population How should we distinguish between two different space-time worms? Persistence How should we connect two stages of a single worm?
10. Personal Identity A nonphysical substance Relation to physical world? Epiphenomenalism Cannot be studied Basically have to make stuff up Plato’s soul swap 3 main approaches Soul (Dualism) Body Mind Descartes
11. Personal Identity 3 main approaches Soul Body Mind Just like the car Cells in my body change like car parts I am the same person if my matter undergoes only slow, gradual change.
12. Evil Mad Scientist’s Lab James Simkins Some other guy I am the same person if my matter undergoes only slow, gradual change. BRAIN
13. The Mind Approach Locke: I am the same person if and only if I can remember being that person Problem: A=B B=C A≠C Solution: rope again 3 main approaches Soul Body Mind
14. Exploring the Mind Approach Someone wakes up and has the mind of Michael Jackson Remembers everything Same goals, fears etc. Is he Michael Jackson? Through the Mind Approach, yes http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/music_images/michael_jackson_king_of_pop.jpg
15. Now we are stuck James wakes up as Oprah Problem: Oprah already exists We can fix this “No branching” rule Multiple occupancy http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2006/0605/oprah0508.jpg
16. “Let’s give up” Anticriterialism: Personal Identity cannot be known “Open Concept” Is an escalator a staircase? No right answer http://www.khanya.co.za/blogs/images/head_in_sand_2.gif
18. 1. Tatiana and Krista Hogan Conjoined twins Neural bridge between thalami Receives sensory input from body NY Times video Youtube http://a.abcnews.com/images/Nightline/ht_twinswhoshareabrain_08_100611_ssh.jpg
19. 2. H.M. Epilepsy treatment: bilateral medial temporal lobectomy Took out most of hippocampus and rhinal cortex Full anterograde amnesia: cannot form long-term explicit memories http://www.impawards.com/2001/posters/memento.jpg
20. Applying the Mind Approach to H.M. Body Approach Mind Approach Does H.M. die every time he spaces out?
21. 3. K.C. Injured Hippocampus in motorcycle accident Good semantic memory, but no episodic memory Semantic: Who is president? Where were you born? Cannot imagine himself in the future either Episodic: http://flowtv.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/play-on-the-beach-350x233.png Does K.C. even have an identity rope?
22. 4. Dissociative-Identity Disorder 2 personalities, Even and Odd Like housemates that never see each other Separation of identity appeals to both consciousness and memory mind approaches
28. 5. Split-Brain Cut the corpus callosum to treat severe epilepsy If image is shown to left visual field, patient cannot verbally identify image Can react to image in other ways (laugh, grab object) 2 selves?
29. It’s a Cartesian trap! Temptation: 2 different selves Really just 2 different subsystems (homunculi) We have created a particularly obvious communication gap Communication gaps exist in all of us (e.g. body language)
30. Breaking Down the Cartesian Theater of Consciousness Descartes: Consciousness cannot be subdivided We have privileged and infallible window into our own consciousness Homunculus within the brain
31. What we can learn We are color-blind in our peripheral vision Introspection does not always work If we are not looking, we will not notice it’s not there When in doubt, we make stuff up! Our intuitions about consciousness may merely be the result of an illusion sustained by a combination of not looking and making stuff up.
Look at different philosophical approaches to the questionWe’ll be looking at a few different cases to try to get a sense of how these theories could be applied in real lifeHopefully at this point we’ll have some additional insight into personal identity that can inform our theory
Personhood: Is a fetus a person? Could a non-human be a person? Could a computer be a person? Euthanasia? Population:
Take an ordinary thing that we all understand and show that there is more than meets the eyeDMV. Under what conditions should someone need a new license plate?Before specific rules, what types of rules?
How ropes are made: fiber, yarn, strands, ropeDifference between “her lipstick is the same color as a rose” and “this is the same car”What are the fibers and the friction of the rope analogous to?
Plato’s soul swap:
Liver transplant, ok. Heart transplant, ok. Brain transplant… is this a body transplant?Brain: personality, goals, desires, fears, memories
Bernard Williams
Ethical
James Simkins as MJUse rope analogy
Fission problems: Cannot be THE VERY SAME PERSON (numerically identical) Both look at a picture of Oprah and say “That’s me” Both owe friend $20 In Pittsburgh AND New York (or where ever Oprah lives)No branching rule problems: identity depends on something external someone in another galaxy could kill you favors destruction of double not something we care about very unintuitive
Friedrich WaismannPuzzle cases have no right answer and besides, they are silly and impossible
I’m going to take you through 4 (5) examples where
Tatiana doesn’t like ketchupDo not have privileged knowledge of experiences
1953Would have tied from seizruesTiny chunk, devistating effectNever again bilateral
The length of the rope is the experienced time
Surprisingly hard to detectGet very good at giving semantic answers to episodic questionsDoctor says “Sorry, but you are a zombie, not actually a person”So maybe memory is not the right way to go. How about perception?
Olson
If a person goes out of existence whenever he or she is not conscious, does that me we go out of existence every time we sleep?
ShellyKaganCourse called “Death” available on iTunes U
Show image of nude person to left visual field, patient will laugh, but not be able to say why
We only feel that this should be two selves because we have a left-over Cartesian Theater notion that our mind should have complete knowledge of itself.The logic is: Righty cannot speak an answerRighty does not know the answer and Lefty doesRighty and Lefty must be two different selvesThis presupposes that the mind is indivisible and that it has complete knowledge of itself. If we say there is a split of personal identity in this case, we must say so for all cases in which systems in the brain do not communicate
Descartes: The pineal gland is the physical link from our brains to our soulsIntuition motivated by the fact that consciousness seems continuous and we feel that we know how we workMen in black
So what part(s) of consciousness are essential to our personal identity? Emotions? Sensory input? Knowledge? Memories?
Demonstrate that we are color-blind in our peripheral vision
