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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Continuity and Personal Identity
Message-ID: <1442@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 17:27:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1442
Posted: Thu Aug 29 17:27:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Sep-85 09:14:07 EDT
References: <621@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 39

In article <621@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:

>The question is, in what sense is this the resurrection of the "same" person,
>instead of just a "copy"?  To make the question more pointed, suppose two
>such "copies" are made simultaneously; are both the same person?

>This question is not of purely religious relevence; we will have the
>technology to make such copies soon (within 30 to 100 years, I would guess;
>but the time scale is not important to the philosophical argument).

I've replied to this problem in private mail, but since there seems to be
general net interest, I'll repeat the series of thought-experiments I
presented there.  Let us start by considering how a person when he is
young is the same person as he is when he is old.  For the sake of this
argument, let's assume that there is no supernatural component to a person;
since this makes things the most difficult.  Now, it's clear that the
physical body in and of itself does not constitute physical identity, since
large portions of the body can be lost, and yet it is the same person.  So
the mind plays some part in identity (and may indeed be the only component).

Now consider a person of whom an atom-by-atom copy is made.  Through which
does the chain of identity pass?  There are four possibilities; either it
passes through one or the other, or both, or neither.  I think it's
reasonable to claim that identity continues with the original.  So the
question becomes where the identity of the copy comes from.

To elucidate this, consider the third experiment.  It this case, a copy is
made *which destroys the original*; this is essentially matter transmission.
Now the question is, is there an identity chain through the transmission?
If you choose to deny identity to the copy in #2, then it seems to me that
in this case the person dies in the transmission, and a new person appears
at the other end.  If you choose to have continuity through the
transmission, then it seems to me that in #2, one must say that identity
passes through the copy as well as the original in #3.

As a result of these, it appears to me that the options for transmitting
identity are very broad indeed.

Charley Wingate