Re: A calculus of personal identity

From: John M <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:10:19 -0700 (PDT)

Bruno:

This thread is more than I could follow in detail at
this time, when I am involved with different areas to
speculate on - on other lists. I apologize. Not that I
assume you're missing my input (usually marginal), but
for not being better informed on the details.
I pick from time to time a post and so I saw
references to experience - meaning stored in "that
thing: memory"
 
My question: do we have a wider agreement what to call
'memory' - as a process? Those fables of physiologists
with stored 'codes' in tissue do not make sense to me:
one has to remember first the topic to remember then
the code applied and recall the stored molecular
variations to REMEMBER at all. Then decipher into the
'meaning' it stood for. Those alleged 'codes' are
fixed and the tissue-variations do not alter into any
faded or even distorted 'remembering'.

It pertains to your "naive time-concept" which I go
along with strongly: it is in our conscious thinking
(as the 'time' of unconsciousness is missing from the
'time'). Not a fundamental parameter as certain
physics theoreticians say. (Cf my worldview
narrative).
We think timelessly, spacelessly, and assign sp/t to
it, as coordinating factors. So we can "go back" and
take another look at it - what we call - the memories.
No two person/alitie/s see the revisited event etc.
identically - maybe similarly. 'I' myself also see it
differently from the former sight: I changed in the
meantime. Memories are stable only in digital form
fixed, in mechan. machines. (not us!-machines).
 

You use 'illusion' a lot. I think it is a narrowed pic
from ALL 1st pers. content which ALL are "illusions" -
as I picked up the distinction here: - as the
'percept' of reality. You narrow the total (illusion)
to those domains you find 'unreal' vs other 'unreals'
you may consider as 'real'.
And I return to my earlier favorite: 3rd pers. info.
It is as 'believable' as close its formulation comes
to our own (1st pers.) ways.

So I see a fine line between solipsism and
unsolipsism: we 'illusion' the existence of 3rd
persons and accept 'them' just as real as those
illusions which you do not call 'illusions'. I am on
your side of the fine line.

Thoughts like these prevent me from considering the
teleportation/duplication topic worthwhile thinking
in/ about. To remember (see above) would necessitate a
teleportee to teleport back into the environment where
a 'second look' is feasible, not resulting in some
different event of the remote environment. So in my
terms an 'outsourced' (teleported/duplicated) entity
lost its background-identity.

Regards

John M

 



--- Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:

>
> Le 28-juin-06, � 14:52, Stathis Papaioannou a
�crit
> :
>
> >
> > Bruno,
> >
> > I have cut out some of your detailed response to
> my post where I think
> > we basically agree.
>
>
> Good idea. Of course it will looks like I disagree
> with all what you
> say, but just remember we are concentrating on those
> points where we
> disagree, or where we misunderstand each other. A
> case will be made
> that it could be a question of vocabulary, but
> perhaps also I am nearer
> to Lee Corbin on those points; we will see.
>
>
>
> > There remain some differences, and some failings
> on my part to
> > understand more technical aspects of your work.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as
> having the original
> > experience, but this applies to recalling one's
> own past as well.
>
>
> Are you really sure? When two people share memories,
> they can only
> share third person information, which will trigger
> their respective
> unsharable first person identities/memories.
> When recollecting our own memories, we do recollect
> (approximations) of
> our unsharable first person memories, which *does*,
> in the present,
> participate into our present first person identity.
>
>
>
> > You may argue that recalling our past is different
> because we have
> > just the right brain structure, other associated
> memories and so on to
> > put it all in context, but in principle all of
> these might be lacking
> > due to illness or the passage of time, or might be
> duplicated in a
> > very good simulation made for someone else to
> experience.
>
>
> Yes. Note that from a first person memory POV,
> perfect quasi memories
> are not distinguishable from "real memories" (if
> that means anythings:
> assuming comp "real" memories and artificial quasi
> memories are just
> equivalent).
>
>
>
>
> > The only way to unambiguously define a first
> person experience is to
> > make it once only; perfect recollection would be
> indistinguishable
> > from the original experience, and it would be
> impossible for the
> > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a
> memory or to know
> > how close to the original the recollection was.
>
>
> I agree.
>
>
>
>
> > The postulate of a first person entity persisting
> through time
> > violates the 1st person/ 3rd person distinction,
>
>
> I am not sure, although it makes sense, but only
> because eventually it
> is the whole idea of objective time which is
> "illusory". Subjective
> time, I would say, cannot be illusory, nor can
> subjective pain be.
>
>
>
>
> > since it assumes that I-now can have 1st person
> knowledge of
> > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such
> knowledge is impossible
> > except in a 3rd person way.
>
>
> I disagree. I do have a first person account of
> I-yesterday, and some
> first person feelings about possible first person
> feelings of myself
> tomorrow, all of which are non describable in any
> third person way.
> Again we could be in agreement here. If you want I
> have no doubt about
> my "I-yesterday", even if I don't believe at all in
> some absolute third
> person describable notion of "yesterday". But I do
> "feel" I-yesterday:
> I cannot separate it from "I-now" and "I-tomorrow".
> This is completely
> independent of the fact that I may well die in a
> second.
>
>
>
> > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the
> apparent anomaly of
> > 1st person indeterminacy in the face of 3rd person
> determinacy in
> > duplication experiments.
>
>
> I don't see any anomaly, to be sure. Only weirdness,
> relative to
> probable prejudices.
>
>
>
> > Let us assume as little as possible and make our
> theories as simple as
> > possible. I *have* to accept that there is
> something special about my
> > experiences at the moment which distinguish them
> from everyone else's
> > experiences: this is the difference between the
> 1st person POV and the
> > 3rd person POV.
>
>
> OK, but just remember that in the UDA thought
> experiment, the first
> person is almost defined by the content of a
> personal diary/memory. And
> what makes those experiences personal here is that
> they are destroyed
> together with the body during destructive
> teleportation or duplication.
> But the memories refers, in the present, to
> subjective (first person)
> past and future. We cannot have illusions about
> that, only about third
> person extrapolation *from* that.
>
>
>
>
> > It is tempting to say that my 1st person POV
> extends into the future
> > and the past as well, explaining why I think of
> myself as a person
> > persisting through time.
>
> I would say it is in the nature of the first person
> to persist in
> *subjective* time. I have more problem with (naive?)
> notion of time and
> space. So again I would agree it is an "illusion"
> that "1-I" persists
> through some notion of 3-time and 3-space, but
> somehow the first person
> is inextricably linked to a notion of 1-time and
> 1-space. The illusion
> would consist in believing in a sort of describable
> existence of myself
> in some describable notion of absolute space-time.
>
>
>
> > However, this latter hypothesis is unnecessary. It
> is enough to say
> > that the 1st person POV is valid only in the
> present,
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===


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Received on Thu Jun 29 2006 - 11:11:35 PDT

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