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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Continuity and Personal Identity
Message-ID: <634@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 20:21:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.634
Posted: Thu Sep  5 20:21:01 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Sep-85 11:23:13 EDT
References: <621@mmintl.UUCP> <1442@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 73
Summary: 


In article <1442@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>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?
>
>I've replied to this problem in private mail,

(which I did not receive)

>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).

This does not necessarily follow.  (Although I do agree with the conclusion.)
There are those who will argue that it is the *continuity* of existence which
matters.  When large portions of the body are lost, the lost portions die,
while the remainder is still a living organism; thus it is reasonable to
ascribe the identity to that portion.

Perhaps a better example is childbirth.  There is continuity from the
pregnant woman to both the mother after birth and to the infant.  Why do
we identify her with one and not the other?  I won't go so far as to claim
that no continuity-related argument is possible, but I think commonality of
thought and memory provides a more convincing explanation.

>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.

It is quite consistent to maintain that in case #3, there is no identity
between the original and the copy.

Let me deal with an alternative case.  There is a recent novel by Kim
Stanley Robinson, titled _Icehenge_.  In this he posits the development
of techniques whereby lifespans are extended to centuries.  However, he
assumes that memories of more than about a century or so are lost.  Leave
aside the question of whether it would work that way, and assume it does.
Is a person who has lost all memories of an earlier time still the same
person?  One may assume that there will still be behavior patterns and
attitudes in common, but the commonality is potentially quite vague.
On a theory of continuity, of course, there is no such problem.


So, you ask, having presented arguments for both sides, where do I stand
on the issue?  The answer is very simple -- there is no such thing as
identity.  Or more precisely, identity is a convenient linguistic tool
for dealing with the universe in ordinary cases, but it breaks down under
closer examination.  It is not a property of the universe, but of the way
we think about the universe.

That being the case, the original question (whether a resurrected or
reconstituted person would be the "same" as the original), becomes purely
a question of what definition we wish to use for identity; i.e., a purely
semantic argument.