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

From: Quentin Anciaux <allcolor.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:57:05 +0100

2009/2/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>

>
> On 26 Feb 2009, at 18:41, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
> There is no identity without memories... makes no sense to me.
>
>
> I take it as a superficial part of identity, with respect to surviving.
> Personal identity, I think is more and less than personal memories.
> By loosing memory "I" would be wounded, not dead.
>

By loosing your memory, the resulting 'I' is no more the previous 'I' and in
this settings it makes no sense to talk about 'I', the subject is not the
same.


>
>
>
>
> If "I" with my memories happen to have no next moment with my memories... I
> will be dead, and no cul-de-sac is false... a next moment where none of your
> memories is left is no more a next moment.
>
>
> No memories at all? In that case some month ago I would have agreed with
> you, but I have lost any certainties here.
>

What is you ? By what you say, I'm as you as you are... But I can assure
you, I'm not you, and if tomorrow you wake up without your memories but mine
instead you'll be me not you anymore (and If you have my memories you'll be
rightly believe so).



>
>
>
> You know it was you because you did wake up as you...
>
>
>
> How could I know that?
>

Because now you remember it and you are fully self aware and know who you
are.


>
>
>
> you didn't know inside the dream...
>
>
>
> This is Maury's conception of dream. I doubt it a lot, and consider it
> refuted by the work of Laberge and Dement (and Hearne) on lucid dreaming.
>
>
Well... I had once what is call a "lucid" dream... but I knew I was somehow
"conscious" only when I was able to recollect it (when I woke up)... I don't
know if I could ascribe meaning to say I was really conscious during the
dream.


>
>
>
> note that I'm not even sure we have of sense of self while dreaming,
>
>
>
> OK, here I disagree rather strongly.
>
>
What could prove that wrong ?


>
>
>
> I accept we have it during a recollection of the dream.
>
>
>
> Personal identity is indeed related to recollection of some memory, even in
> awaked state. Yet I do distinguish dying and forgetting.
>
>
Well I don't differentiate forgetting everything and dying... result is the
same.


>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Memories, like body and brain are things we possess, and this means, I
>> think, that we can still survive without them.
>>
>
> I think not.
>
>
>>
>> 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 ?
>>
>
> You will be dead.
>
>
> Gosh! And what if the backup has been done last year, or one minute ago? I
> will be dead too? Less dead?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bruno
>

Well a backup of one minute ago is nearer to your you now... And in a sense
I could say you survive 'at least a very actual near you did'.

My current 'I' is the past of an "infinity" of futur 'I' where all these 'I'
having as past my current 'I' have all the right to say they were me... But
one of these 'I' which was differentiated of the others 'I' cannot claim
that the others 'I's are valid continuation... They are not.

What I care to continue is 'I', meaning my knowledge, my memories, my name,
what I've done, who I did know... If it dissappears then it's plain death.

Regards,
Quentin



-- 
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
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Received on Fri Feb 27 2009 - 09:57:11 PST

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