nal erso on P gue lo ality ort Dia A Imm a nd ntity Ide
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Questions to think about
What makes you think or say that you are the same person amidst change? What is your conception of survival after death?
Characters
Gretchen Weirob Sam Miller Dave Cohen
Setting
First Night
Against personal identity explained in terms of an immaterial soul Millers objective Definition of terms -possible -identity -survival -similarity
What is fundamentally you is not your body, but your soul or self or mind.
Millers conception of personal identity and survival
It is this which must be identical between the person before me now, and the one I expect to see in a thousand years in heaven.
The problem with Millers conception of personal identity
If you cannot see or touch or in any way perceive my soul, what makes you think the one you are confronted with now is the very same soul you were confronted with at Dorseys?
Millers answer to the problem
Well, I can see that it is the same body before me now that was across the table at Dorseys. And I know that the same soul is connected with the body as was connected with it before. Thats how I know its you.
Weirobs response to Millers answer to the problem
Surely this very body, which will be buried, and, as I must so often repeat, rot away, will not be in your Hereafter. Different body, different person. Since youcan never see or touch it (soul), you have no way of testing your hypothesis that sameness of body means sameness of self.
Miller on states of mind
Similarity of psychological characteristics, a persons attitudes, beliefs, memories, prejudices, and the like, is observable. These are correlated with identity of body on the one side, and of course with sameness of soul on the other. So the correlation between body and soul can be established after all by this intermediate link
Weirob on Millers take on states of mind
For all you know, the immaterial soul which you think is lodged in my body might change from day to day, from hour to hour, from minute to minute, replaced each time by another soul psychologically similar. You cannot see it or touch it, so how would you know?
ight irst n th e f t on erdic V
Second night
Against personal identity explained in terms of bodily identity Underlying question in the dialogue -Whether it was the identity of soul or body that was involved in the identity of persons.
Miller against the view that personal identity is just bodily identity
We can judge who we are, and that we are the very person who did such and such and so and so, without having to make any judgments at all about the body. So, personal identity, while it may not consist of identity of an immaterial soul, does not consist in identity of material body either.
Miller against the view that personal identity is just bodily identity
Millers revised conception of a person/conception of personal identity
A person is just a whole (single stream of consciousness) composed of such stretches as parts (person-stages).
Survivalis no problem at all once we have this conception of personal identity. There is, in heaven, a conscious being, and that the person-stages that make her up are in the appropriate relation to those that now make you up, so that they are parts of the same whole namely, you. If so, you have survived.
Miller on Locke
The relation between two person-stages or stretches of consciousness that make them stages of a single person is just that the later one contains memories of the earlier one.
Weirobs Response to Millers Revised Conception of Personal Identity and Survival
The mere possibility of someone in the future seeming to remember this conversation does not show the possibility of my surviving. Only the possibility of someone actually remembering this conversationor, to be precise the experience I am havingwould show that.
Weirobs interpretation
Survival is possible, because imaginable. It is imaginable, because my identity with some Heavenly person is imaginable. To imagine it, we imagine a person in Heaven who, first, seems to remember my thoughts and actions, and second, is me.
Weirobs interpretation
If God creates a Heavenly person, designing her brain to duplicate the brain I have upon death, that person is me. If, on the other hand, a Heavenly being should come to be with those very same memory-like states by accidents (if there are accidents in heaven) it would not be me.
ond sec n th e ict o Verd ight n
Third night
More on memory theory/personal identity explained in terms of memory Cohen on Julia Norths case Weirob on Julia Norths case
Memory is sufficient for identity and bodily identity is not necessary for it. And these are just the properties that personal identity preserves when it is taken to consist in links of memory. She will seem to remember them because she does remember them, and will be you.
Miller and Cohen in defense of memory theory
Weirob against Cohens theory
Cohens theory: Suppose we have two bodies, A and B. My brain is put into A, a duplicate into B. The survivor of this, call them A-Gretchen and BGretchen, both seem to remember giving this very speechBoth have my character, personality, beliefs, and the like. But one is really remembering, the other is not. A-Gretchen is really me, B-Gretchen is not.
third n the ict o Verd ight n
You said, Sam, that I had an irrational attachment for this unworthy material object, my body. But you too are as irrationally attached to your brain. I have never seen my brainnever felt it, and have no attachment to it. But my body? That seems to me all that I am. I see no point in trying to evade its fate.
