Bernard Williams - The self and the future PDF

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The self and the future...

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“What happens to me in the future is not dependent on the body I am in” Questions of personal identity: - What am I, really? - How can I identify myself in the past and future? - What would it take for me to be destroyed? - What is the ground of self-concern? - What is the ground of reward and punishment? Ownership? Marriage? Four Theories: - The Soul Theory: a person is an immaterial soul (not physical) - The mind theory: a person is a mind (share your mind, memories, character traits and fears) - The body theory: a person is a human body - The bundle theory: strictly speaking, there are no persisting persons, to be YOU, involves physical stuff and mental stuff, and once some of these things are taken away gradually are you still you? The Soul Theory: The glass is smashed, is it gone? No, the matter is still there. The glass’ purpose was to serve as a glass full of matter to hold something but it is no longer able to. This view is also known as idealism and immaterialism (non-physicalism) The idea here: is that you occupy your body but you are not your boy really, you are a nonphysical soul, you have no dimensions. Some arguments: - The conceptual possibility of life after physical death. Some believe it is possible. - The conceptual possibility of reincarnation, coming back as someone else. - Libertarianism and the non-physical agent? (not described with physical matter) - Zombies? Mary? Whatever we are, it is our consciousness. Descartes and the epistemic argument for the soul theory: His argument is that ‘I can doubt that I have body’, he would like to work out what beliefs are genuine. He has to doubt everything he possibly can, if he does so and finds some that survive that doubt he will believe in those beliefs. He throws everything into doubt as he thinks, suppose what I take to be inputs from the external world are evil plants by a demon. He imagines all of his mental states are being created by an evil demon. “But I cannot doubt that I think”, “so I cannot doubt that I exist”. “So I can be sure that I exist while doubting that I have a body”. “So whatever I am, I am not my body: I am not anything physical”. Your body does not exist but YOU do. - I can doubt that I have a body - But I cannot doubt that I think - So I cannot doubt that I exist - So I can be sure that I exist while doubting that I have a body

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So whatever I am, I am not my body, not anything physical

Way to respond: What's important is that we have a special relationship with our own mind. I can have familiarity with my mind even if it is pure physical, this will show that in order to work out what I am, it could be my brain not a non-physical thing. Locke an opposing view of the soul theory: - We are very good at recognising ourselves and other persons - But we know hardly anything about souls - So personal identity cannot depend upon having a particular soul - You cannot check that you have the same soul? - by making personal identity so difficult to see and grasp, are we sure it's really there? - What really matters is where your mind goes, not how it gets there Trouble for the soul theory: - Personal identity matters - If you found out that someone was getting a $100 tomorrow it's awesome but if it you you're stoked! - Having a persisting immaterial soul does not matter - A soul doesn't say anything about a character, what thir into or what they look like - So personal identity cannot depend upon having a particular soul - Maybe we should think of souls to carry our character and thoughts - Trying to explain why we should care about souls? We know very little about them - How is it that we recognise souls in others? Locke's Mind Theory: - Also called the “psychological criterion mentalism” - You are a mind - You go where your mind goes - You could die before your physical body does (coma), also your mind could stay alive when your body passes away - Is consistent with the possibility of the afterlife - Neutral about theater the mind is physical or nonphysical - If it turns out that a human mind is non-physical it could have the same results as the soul theory How does the mind persist over time? - It causes connectedness between mental states - I have a pain now, which causes me to remember the pain, these cause two mental states, what I felt and the remembering of the pain will cause me to remember the pain and associate it with what i'm feeling right now - We also need to have similarities between mental states

The standard version of the mind theory: - Person A is identical with person B if A is linked to B by a chain of psychological states, where states adjacent in the chain are linked by similarity and causation - Although we grow up and lose some memories and constantly change, so long as my mental states are still present we are still the same person A and B and a mean neurosurgeon: - A’s brain goes into B’s body; B’s brain goes into A’s brain - One of “a=brain, b-body” and “b-brain, a-body” gets $1 million; the other gets tortured - A gets to make the choice in advance - A choices to go with her brain into Ben's body and she chose right because she now has $1 million With psychological states such as memories, feelings of relief, congratulations and so on, body swapping produces an outcome favourable of the mind being held accountable or these feelings Another example speaking to A: This should be a true description of what happens: - I will torture you tomorrow, and furthermore.. - Before I torture you, i’ll erase your memory of this conversation - In fact, i'll cause you to suffer total amnesia - Then i'll implant in you some new mental states - And those mental states will exactly resemble those of another person: B - And you'll get the bunnies memories because im copying B’s mind into ours - Also I’ll erase B’s brain and copy your mental states into it. And while I torture you I’ll give the bunny $1 million. This case is exactly the same as the case before, it sounds like a terrible days for alice but it this the same thing but described differently....