Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 23 Feb 2009, at 17:15, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 2009/2/23 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden <mailto:marchal.domain.name.hidden.ac.be>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The copy could be you in the deeper sense that it could be you even in
>> the case where he loses some memory, all memories, or in case he got
>> new memories, including false souvenirs. But then it is like in the
>> movie "the prestige", your brother can be you. This path leads to the
>> idea that we are already all the same person. It is "not being the
>> other" which is an illusion in that case. I don't insist on this
>> because we don't need to see that arithmetic is the theory of
>> everything (and that physics comes from there). But it is needed for
>> the "other hypostases" and the whole theological point.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>> <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
>>
>>
>> If the "copy" has no memory of being me then It's not me...
>
>
> Memory is very important, and play an important role about what is to
> have a normal personal life and history. But it could be that it is not
> a necessary (nor sufficient criteria of personal identity. After all,
> when someone get amnesic after a car crash, we don't say that such a
> person has died, but we say he or she has lost his or her memory.
Because of continuity of the body. If we knew the person's body was
destroyed and now someone who looked the same and had the same traits
of character, but different memories, appeared we would say it was a
different person who just happened to be similar - and the person
would agree with us.
>
>
>
>
>
>> or you mean there is something which is not memory but which is "me"
>> (and render memory useless as primary property of the self) ?
>
>
> I think this is possible. I think the answer does not depend of comp.
> Comp is consistent with many incompatible answer. Actually I believe
> that personal identity is a very deeply personal matter. I identify
> myself more with moral values and attitudes, not really with memories,
> which are useful for many practical things, indeed capable of
> implementing those values, but the values are more eternal than their
> relative local and contingent incarnation or implementation.
But those values were learned and so are that sense memories, even if
not conscious memories. So were perhaps "hard-wired" by evolution;
but that too is a form of memory.
>>
>>
>> It is a matter of semantic but if you accept that memory is not what
>> can be ascribe to "you" then "you/I/..." doesn't mean anything... in
>> that sense you are me and vice-versa, and everyone is everyone but I
>> don't see this as a theory of self identity.
>
>
>
> Personal identity and memory could be a useful fiction for living. Here
> I was alluding to possible deeper sense of the self, which makes me
> conceive that indeed there is only one person playing a trick to itself.
> Like if our bodies where just disconnected windows giving to that unique
> person the ability to have a sort of stereoscopic view on reality.
>
> In some dreams, I have very different memories, yet "I" was there, and
> "I" was me.
Isn't that because "you" remember the dream when you are awake and can
compare the memories?
>To get amnesic, even irreversibly, is not dying, even if it
> is a big impediment in practical life, and it should be avoided, unless
> it is reversible (and then it procure an interesting experience (the
> main reason i am fascinated by nocturnal dreams, and since recently, in
> salvia reports).
>
> Memories, like body and brain are things we possess, and this means, I
> think, that we can still survive without them.
I'm doubtful. I suspect that "I" is a construct of the brain, part of
how it makes sensible story of the world. You call it a useful
fiction - but just because it's a story, doesn't mean it's fiction.
>
> Suppose that I die tomorrow, and that sometimes after someone find a
> backup of "me" at the age of five, so that "I" am reconstituted from
> that backup. Would you say I am dead, or would you say that I have
> survived, only with a severe sort of amnesy ?
Dead.
Brent
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Thu Feb 26 2009 - 12:32:53 PST