Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

From: Günther Greindl <guenther.greindl.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:57:29 +0100

Hi,

> 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.

I think I agree with this view. At least, in mystic mode ;-)

> Memories, like body and brain are things we possess, and this means, I
> think, that we can still survive without them.
>
> 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 ?

We should be careful here: the "mystic I" survives, but I don't think
that that is what most people have in mind when they talk of personal
identity/survival. Here, the concern is clearly continuity of memory.

In normal discourse, the 5 year old Bruno is clearly not an amnesic
survivor; the older Bruno (with his unique experiences) would be dead.

Best Wishes,
Günther

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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 - 19:56:59 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:15 PST