Re: Personal Identity and Ethics

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:13:26 +0100

On 22 Feb 2009, at 23:34, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/2/23 John Mikes <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>:
>> Stathis,
>>
>> I usually appreciate the wisdom in your posts. Now I have a retort:
>>
>>> "...What I find incoherent is the idea
>> that the psychological properties might be able to be duplicated but
>> nevertheless there is no continuity of identity because the soul
>> cannot be duplicated."<
>>
>> If you accept the topic (to be discussed) of the unidentifiable
>> imaginary
>> "soul", than you have to accept that "IT"(???) can be duplicated as
>> well.
>> Once we are in Wunderland we are in Wunderland.
>
> I don't believe in the soul so perhaps someone who does can comment
> (Tom Caylor?): is it that it can't be copied at all, i.e. not even God
> could make a soul-copying teleporter, or is it just that it can't be
> copied via physical means?


Well, I have waited for Tom's answer, but I think I can say something.
Personally I identify "soul" with the first person. Simply. To save
your soul means to save your subjective life.
And yes, there is a sense such that even God cannot "duplicate a
soul": the first person is not duplicable. When you are duplicated
into an exemplar in Washington and an exemplar in Moscow, you, as a
first person don't feel being duplicated. You feel being completely in
Washington, or being completely in Moscow. Your doppelganger is, after
the duplication, just another soul. You just share with the
doppelganger a personal similar subjective past. I would say the soul
is unique, only the windows through which that soul can look as been
duplicated. Of course our language has not been selected for really
talking on such issues, so we got sometimes false "semantics" problems.



>
>
>> And if "you find yourself there" you have no notion of your destoyed
>> identity "here" and you A R E the copied fake (I call it 'fake',
>> because it
>> is extracted from your 'here'-relations which constitute the
>> essential
>> content of your identity. The "there" YOU is either another one with
>> relations to the "there" circumstances or a fake replica of what
>> you were
>> 'here' (and have no knowledge (memory) of it. Or is the duplicate
>> homesick?
>
> By that argument you could also say you are a copied fake of the John
> of a year ago, since most of the matter in your body has been
> replaced.

OK.

Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Received on Thu Feb 26 2009 - 12:13:40 PST

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