Week 9
The Mind’s ‘I’ –
The Existence of the Self
Who are you, again?
1. Your name/what would you like to be called?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you athletic? Do you feel fit for your age?
4. How big is your family? Are you close to them?
5. Is it important to have lots of friends, or just few
close ones?
6. What movies/books/music do you like?
7. Are you nice? What’s one nice thing you’ve done?
8. What is your earliest memory?
9. What do you want to do after you graduate?
What is it that makes you you?
i.e.,
What makes you a unique individual?
i.e.,
What is your essence?
= what makes you what/who you are;
if it’s lost, so are you.
What are “you”?
A Self:
A subject/experiencer of experiences
An agent of actions, decisions
An owner of mental states
What are “you”?
A Self:
The pilot of your personality….
What are “you”?
A Self:
The pilot of your personality….
Personal Identity =
What makes your self different from other selves?
** What makes you the same you over time? **
qualitative “identity”:
Dresses share all the same qualities,
but aren’t the same in a strict sense.
Personal Identity
numerical identity:
What makes x and y one and the same thing.
Same body?
brain?
behavior?
memories? ?
Personal Identity
Why does numerical identity matter?
Because:
you care about your future;
you feel guilt for your past;
you aren’t morally responsible for crimes that
you didn’t commit.
Soul criterion of PI
What makes you who you are =
your soul
Descartes:
You = thinking thing
= “a mind, intellect, understanding, or reason”
* “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum) *
* “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum) *
I can doubt everything else about me…
but I can’t doubt that I exist.
“I am F” –
could be wrong about every F;
can’t be wrong about which “I” I’m talking about.
“immunity to error due to misidentification”:
Wittgenstein:
“To ask ‘are you sure it is you who have pains?’
would be nonsensical.”
The Hogan Twins:
How many souls do they have?
How would you know?
Could they ever wrong about whose pain it is?
Physicalist Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
a) your body
But your body is always changing….
The “Star Ferry” of Theseus
Physicalist Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
b) spatiotemporal continuity
Physicalist Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
b) spatiotemporal continuity
Problem – “The Prince and the Cobbler”
Physicalist Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
b) spatiotemporal continuity
Problem – “Freaky Friday”
You & your mom
swap all memories, psychological traits
Did you survive the swap (and vice versa)?
If so, physical continuity isn’t necessary for PI
Physicalist Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
c) continuity of the brain
Why is brain continuity so important?
“Because the brain determines your
memories, psychological characteristics, etc.”
Replace your brain with silicon chips –
Do you still survive?
If so, brain continuity isn’t necessary for PI
Psychological Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
psychological continuity
John Locke:
“Place the self in whatever substance you please”
You =
The continuity of conscious experiences,
memories, thoughts, desires, etc.
Psychological Criteria of PI
What makes you who you are =
psychological continuity
Psychological Criteria of PI
Problem:
Teletransportation
Derek Parfit:
Derek Parfit:
Would you press the button or not?
Why or why not?
Would the person on Mars be identical with you?
Derek Parfit:
Now, which one is you?
Transitivity of numerical identity:
If A = B & B = C, then A = C
Psychological criterion:
Apre-TT = Bpost-TT (Mars)
Apre-TT = Cpost-TT (Earth)
** But, **
Bpost-TT (Mars) ≠ Cpost-TT (Earth)
How can one thing become two things?
What reason would make
“Apre-TT = Bpost-TT (Mars)”
true in the first case, but
“Apre-TT ≠ Bpost-TT (Mars) ”
true in the second case?
Identity should depend just on the “intrinsic” relation
between A and B….
Split-Brain Cases
Split-Brain Cases
Split-Brain Cases
Two streams of consciousness in one person?
Parfit:
No – there was never a single person to begin with.
(David Hume’s) Bundle Theory:
Ego Theory –
Persisting identity of a person
across changing mental states
is due to the continued existence of an
Ego, Self, subject of experience
Bundle Theory –
There is no Ego/Self/Subject that the unifies the
bundle of changing mental states.
Buddha & Parfit
Persons are unreal –
There’s just degrees
of psycho-physical
continuity
Why do “I” still think “I” exist?
Split-brain patient:
Why do “I” still think “I” exist?
Split-brain patient:
Confabulates a story to give a unified explanation
for disunified experiences.
Steven Pinker:
Narrative Theory of PI
What makes you who you are =
The story you tell about yourself
Daniel Dennett =
The Self = the “centre of narrative gravity”
Narrative Theory of PI
What makes you who you are =
The story you tell about yourself
Daniel Dennett =
The Self =
the “centre of narrative gravity”; i.e., a fiction
“Our tales are spun, but for the most part
we don’t spin them; they spin us.
Our human consciousness, and our narrative
selfhood, is their product, not their source.”
