perry night 1, 2, 3

night 1: gretchen’s challenge

Show that survival is even possible

She is willing to be comforted by the possibility of afterlife, but:

• Survival must mean her surviving—not a replica or someone similar.

• Comfort requires anticipating her own future experiences.

Similarity is not enough:

n1: miller’s proposal

Miller argues:

• Gretchen is essentially an immaterial soul.

• The soul survives bodily death.

• So survival is possible.

n1: gretchen’s obj + candy analogy

Soul Theory makes identity unknowable

Her core concern

• Souls are invisible, intangible, unobservable.

• We judge personal identity in everyday life based on bodies and psychology.

• If identity were identity of souls, then our judgments would be groundless, since we have no way to “bite into” a soul (Candy analogy).

Candy analogy

• We learn “same swirl = caramel” by testing countless candies.

• But with souls, we cannot test correlations.

• So “same body = same soul” is unjustified.

n1 conclusion

Identity cannot consist in identity of an immaterial soul because:

• We cannot observe souls.

• We cannot establish criteria for soul sameness.

• Therefore we do not use soul identity in identity judgments.

Miller concedes defeat for the night.

night 2: miller and locke’s memory theory

Using Locke:

A person-stage now is identical with an earlier person-stage if the later one remembers the earlier one’s experiences.

Thus:

• If someone in Heaven remembers thinking Weirob’s thoughts, that person is Weirob.

• Therefore, survival is possible.

n2: gretchen’s obj

She distinguishes:

• Real memory = actually remembering what you yourself experienced.

• Apparent memory = seeming to remember (e.g., a deluded person who thinks they are Napoleon).

Only real memory grounds identity.

• real memory requires that the rememberer is the same person who had the experience

• This makes Memory Theory circular:

  • Identity defined by memory.

  • But memory defined by identity.

n2: cohen’s repair attempt: causal memory theory

Cohen suggests:

• A real memory is one caused in the right way by the past event. Not merely caused by hypnosis or suggestion.

This avoids circularity:

• Memory = apparent memory + appropriate causal connection.

Miller now claims:

• God could “cause” the right brain states in a Heavenly person via copying Gretchen’s brain → identity preserved.

n2: gretchen’s SECOND objection; the duplication argument

If God can create one Heavenly person with copied mental states, He can create two, ten, An infinite number.

Problem:

• If two people both remember Gretchen’s experiences, are they both Gretchen?

• Impossible: one person cannot be numerically identical to two.

• thus: memory continuity is not sufficient for identity

n2: trying to patch causal memory theory

Cohen tries to patch the theory by saying:

• “You survive only if one Heavenly rememberer is created, not many.”

Gretchen shows this is absurd:

• Identity shouldn’t depend on the existence of other people.

• One duplicate = survival

• Two duplicates = annihilation
  This is incoherent.

night 3: Gretchen’s View:

Identity = Bodily Identity

She prefers the simplest view:

• A person is a living human organism.

When the body dies, the person ceases to exist.

n3: Cohen’s challenge

The Case of Julia North

Julia North’s:

• Brain is transplanted into Mary Frances Beaudine’s body.

• The survivor has:

  • Julia’s memories, personality → psychological continuity

  • Mary Frances’s body → bodily discontinuity

Court ruled: the survivor = Julia.

This seems to refute Body Theory.

n3: gretchen’s response

She argues:

• The survivor merely seems to remember being Julia (apparent memory).

• Psychological continuity is not reliable evidence of identity.

• The person who wakes up is Mary Frances, deluded by altered brain states.

She rejects brain-based criteria.