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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking
Message-ID: <702@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.702
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 04:25:29 EDT
References: <1522@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1668@pyuxd.UUCP> <1552@umcp-cs.UUCP> <701@utastro.UUCP> <664@mmintl.UUCP> <739@utastro.UUCP> <680@mmintl.U <755@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 89
Keywords: identity selfness resurrection
Summary: Identity is information


[Not food]

In article <755@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:
>> >All of this indicates that the word "identity" is being used in at least
>> >two different ways here; one as a statement of likeness, and another as 
>> >a statement of "selfness".
>> 
>> No, what I am dealing with is the perception by the person of identity with
>> the earlier person, and the perception by those around them that this is
>> the same person.  What is this mystical concept of "selfness"?  Does it
>> maybe mean "having the same soul"?
>
>I thought this was made pretty clear in the "assembly line" analogy.

I didn't see this analogy in any of the postings which got here.

>I do
>not really want to get into deep definitions on "selfness" but I think
>the need to use it in the context of assigning unique identity to similar
>objects is evident for Charley's case. I say this because the alternative
>presents even more difficulties as indicated by the identical twin homicide
>story.

I think you have to get into "deep definitions on 'selfness'" if you want
to defend your position.  You seem to feel that uniqueness is a necessary
characteristic of it.  This is precisely what I dispute.

There is no identical twin homicide problem.  Identical twins are not the
same people as each other.  If you make perfect copies of a person, they
are not the same person as each other, or as the still existing "original"
(in the physical sense) (if there is one).  Killing any of them is murder.
Barring telepathy (in an extreme form), two bodies existing at the same time
cannot be the same person as each other.  They can all be the same person
as a person who existed at an earlier time.

>What all this seems to point to, from my perspective, is that
>quantities like location, and time, serve to provide a working criterion for
>determining "selfness" in every-day problems. These quantities however are
>externals from the traditional set of aspects that define identity i.e. the
>statement "you will be resurrected" is meaningless since everything would
>have to be reconstructed so that the "externals" are satisfied.

The way I read the first sentence above, it says that continuity is a
useful guide to determining identity.  The second sentence seems to
support this in the first clause ("externals from the traditional set of
aspects that define identity"), yet the second part implies that it is
fundamental to identity.  If continuity is only a useful guide, it may
be violated in exceptional circumstances.

If you truly wish to *define* identity in terms of continuity, I can do
little but argue that that is not really how the term is used.  You must,
for such a definition, explain how my identity ceases when I die.

Let me return to the music analogy.  A piece of music may be performed by two
different people, who will perform it differently.  The *performances* are
not the same thing -- the performance is the material component.  The *piece
of music* is exactly the same in both cases -- this is the information
component.  I am claiming that identity, or selfness, or mind, is the
information component of us; while our bodies are the physical component.

To push the analogy a bit further, suppose there are two songs with the same
first verse, but different thereafter.  That first verse shares identity
(in the sense that it is part of) the second verse of both songs.  But those
second verses do not share identity at all.  If you don't agree, ask
yourself this question: if a person sings only the first verse, which song
has she sung the first verse of?

>The matter
>transfer scenario presents problems for identity if duplicates are produced.
>I think it is garbage to try to say that the duplicates are indeed one and
>the same as the person that entered in the sense that they both have the
>same "selfness" as the original person.

I think it is garbage to claim they are not.  They will certainly each think
they are.  They will interact with other people as if they are.  They will
have the same hopes and fears, the same loves and hates, as the original.
How are they not the original?

> The duplicates are "copies" of the original, but
>are not "the" original. Destruction of the original by death does not make
>the copies, or any one of them the same as the original, except of course
>one claims that the soul exists and survives to be resurrected.

There is a small point of agreement here.  Destruction of the original does
not make the copies the same as the original.  They are either already the
same, or they never are.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108