Personal Identity. Who - and what - are you?
- Created by: Olivia Grace Matthews
- Created on: 11-01-16 11:54
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- Personal Identity. Who - and what - are you?
- Qualitative Identity: Similarity
- Numerical Identity: Being one and the same thing
- Synchronic Identity: Identity in one moment
- Diachronic Identity: Identity over time. Can I be convicted for a crime from 30 yrs ago if I am 'Not the same 'I'?
- 'Essence' - Fixed personal features that make you who you are,
- 'Body-swapping'
- You and Obama switch bodies
- This and 'you hallucinate being obama' are essentially the same phenomenon
- This is a thought experiment
- 3 PI Thought Experiments
- Challenges
- 'Swapping' is a challenge
- Teleportation
- Duplication
- Tests
- Responsibility: If you commit a crime and then you are swapped, which person is put on trial?
- Anticipation: If you know you're about to be tortured who should anticipate the torture?
- Comparisons
- Tennis club moves to diff place with diff members. What makes it the same club?
- Grandfather's bike with every component replaced over the years. Same bike?
- Challenges
- Soul Theories
- Christian answer: Soul survives death. You are your soul
- Reincarnation - have to be In some sense identical to another person or even a creature.
- Hinduism: Atman (soul) bears your identity
- Buddhism: your karma survives. But for Buddhists there is no actual 'self'
- Advantage: Simplicity
- Occam's Razor suggests we try to do without souls-not clear what the soul explains or if it exists
- Problems
- A Soul theory can say anything because souls aren't observable
- If your soul is transferred should you feel fear?
- Should a criminal be let off?
- What if God makes a copy of your soul and you end up in both heaven and hell?
- The duplication problem
- If one is in heaven and one is in hell how can they be one in the same?
- If A is in heaven and B in hell can you anticipate the torture in hell?
- Would it be fair if B committed further sin and you were punished too?
- You can only be one in the same with someone who is in the same place as you
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