exam question 3: amy kind on locke and reid's debate.

READING: AMY KIND

Pt 1: what are we

Focus on what we’re made of; non physical or immaterial?
Another way to ask abt our nature is what are we? The nature of a thing; what is takes for that thing to persist.
Personal identity over time.
- How is it that two creatures w diff qualities are the same person? This is the question.
Mona lisa vs the thinker.
- Its essential to the mona lisa that it has colurs and paint. If u destroy the mona lisa w blue paint, u destroy it
- But its not essential to a statue that its a certain colour. If u dunk it in blue paint its still the thinker.
- What it is to be a painting vs a statue.
- Alternatively, if u drape the mona lisa over ur couch and bend the canvas, it hasnt been destroyed. But if u bend the statue, you;ve destroyed the thinker.

Essential vs accidental properies

Property = any feature or quality of a thing. ex) being red, being a student, having feet, being delicious
Property P is an essential property of X if X could not exist without being p
Property P is an accidental property of X if X could exist without benign P
- Water: being liquid (accidental) vs being made of h20 (essential)
- Baseball: being played outdoors (accidental) vs involving balls and bats (essential)
- Mona lisa: having a certain shape (accidnetal) vs having a certain colour (essential).
- If u have a essential property that can come in degrees, what happens when u chip away at that property? At what point is it no longer the thing?
- Ship of theseus.
- Relates to whether or not we ARE a soul, not HAVE a soul.
What are human’s essential properties?
- What am i -> what are my essential properties
- We can answer w 2 other questions
  - What properties of me could change while i continue to exist? These are my accidental props ie; wearing gray shoes, being a studnet, etc.
  - What props if i stopped having those props, i would cease to exist? The properties that make me me

Person A att time is t1 is identical to person B at some later time t2 if and only if ____

Person a and b
- Picking out a person at a time and another time in different ways.
- Dont say “elena is identical to elena”, cuz then the assumption is already made.
Identical to
- What does identiity/identical even mean?
- Two senses

Qualitative
1. “X is identical to Y” X and y are similar in their qualities or features.
2. Ex: this coke can is identical to that one.
3. Or, compatible w x and y being two distinct things
4. Ex: shes just not the same person anymore
Numerical
1. “X is identical to Y”. x and y are one and the same thing
2. Compatible w large qualitative differences: something can change while remaining itself.

3 main hypotheses

The souls theory
1. Person a at time t1 is identical to person b at some later time t2 if ad only if a has the same soul as b
The psychological theory
1. Person a at time t1 is identical to person b at some later time t2 if and only if b’s psychology is connected to a’s psychology in the right way
2. Memory is emphasized. What even is the right way?
3. Umbrella of possible theories.
4. Memory disorders pull the bodiyl and psych theory apart.
5. Dr jekel and hyde.
Bodily theory
1. Person a at time t1 is identical to person b at some later time t2 if and only if b’s body is connected to a’s body in the right way.

Reincarnation also makes the theories disagree. Only the soul theory can make sense of that.

Lockes objection ot the soul theory in favour of the psych theory

On the basis of reincarnation. “If i dont have the memories of socrates if he was reincarnated in me, its not correct to say i am socrates”
U can have the same soul but not be the same person.
Lockes memory theory: a at time t1 is identical to b at some later time t2 if and only if b remembers an experience had by a
- As far as u can remember, u are u.

Ried’s objection

Suppose there's a general who remembers being in the trenches. But he doesn't remember being a child eating an apple. The young soldier in the trenches does actually remember being the child.
Locke's theory doesn't give us the idea that identity is transitive.

Personal identity

READING: AMY KIND

Brendan is still brendan, but in what virtue is he the same person? Theories
- Refer above. Soul, body, psychological.
Absolute amnesia: if u completely lose all ur memories, u are not the same person. Some ppl argue this. But its precarious.
The transitivity of identity
- Is a is identical to b, and b is dientiical to c, then a is identical to c.
- Lockes theory violates this w the solider-general-kid example.
Kind thinks we should modify the theory
Modified theory:
- A at time t1 is identical to b at some alter time t2 if and only if there is continuity of experience memory (episodic memory) between b and a.
  - Kinds rope analogy
    - Memory is like a chain.
    - Continuity of memory
    - Roep-wise, its made of diff threads. But wtv its the same idea: personal identity is a chain of memory. Even if u dont remember being that child or doing a certain thing, a version of u remembers it, and u remember that earlier version
- Two further modifications
  - A memory doesn't have to be actually present in ur awareness to count for identity: potentially occurrent memories are enough (sleep)
  - Perhaps memory isn't the only part of our psychology thats important to identity: maybe continuity of personality traits, desires and intentions, habits, or other psych states matters too.
    - Jekyll and hyde!
      - Hyde hates the ppl that jekyll likes. They have the same memories, but different experiences of things.
      - Your desires change overtime though. But they seem to change conituniously, but what does that mean to change continuously rather than sharply? But the theory is still promising
The main implication of the psych theory as opposed to the bio theory is that the psych theory says “so long as theres psychological contitniuty between u and smo else, it doesnt matter tha u have the same body.
Take body swaps
- Taking ur psychology and putting it in another body. Avatar, freaky friday, etc.
- U are now under the delulsion that u are someone else (some guy argues this?).
- A bodily theorist would say that in freaky friday “theyre not swapped minds, but the mom has been killed and the daughter is under the delusion that she is the mom. Because the mom’s biology didnt translate to the daughter in the body swap”

Next chapter of kind’s book. The one we read for today

Body swaps still count as u. If thats possible, then i can take my current psychology, put it in 2 bodies, and have 2 of ME. fission cases.
- So who is rlly me?
- margret case
  - Imagine theres a teleporter. The atoms desconttrust and then reconstruct to take u to wherehrver u need to go. Psych theory says thats still u. The reconstructed person has psych continuity. Say theres a hiccup w the transporter device and it accidentally produces TWO of the same person who both have the same memories of stepping onto the transporter to go visit their dad and etc etc.
  - So, who is the “original”?
Why are we interested in this case at all?
- “Eugh philosophers like to do brain teasers eugh its not important bleh”
- Phislophers are interested in the underlying explanation instead of the practical question. Getting to the core of things.
- Some phil cases dont try to make things right, but they try to pick apart all the different explanations.
- Extreme theoretical stress test.
Margaret case tests both psych theory and body theory
Any ans u give to “whos is identical to margaret” has some weird results. Lets look at those answers

Both meg and peg are identical to margaret
1. Appealing answer. Psych theory says theyre the same person.
2. Pretty strong case, but heres the problem: transitivity of identity
3. Transitivity of identity: meg is identical to margaret, peg is identical to margaret, therefore meg and peg are both identical.
4. But that sounds weird right? Cuz suppose meg and peg both move on or one of them sprains their ankle. Thyere no longer the same. Or suppose peg has a child. That would mean that MEG can be her mother? Bizarre. One could die while the other survives. This assumes that they have to be different people.
Meg not peg is identical to margaret
Peg not meg is identical to margaret
1. The trouble here is that its arbitrary to choose one and not the other. Why would it be peg and not meg? Or vice versa?
Neither is identical to margaret
1. Kinds objection: recall that this is not the first time margaret used the transporter.
2. How can both meg and peg bare the same relationship to margaret make it the case that their is identical to margaret? They all share teh same memories and experiences and shit.
There is no fact of the matter. No answer.
1. Questioning the question.
2. No fact of the matter? This means vagueness.
  1. Vague in philosophy means that in certain grated words, its neither the case that it is right or wrong. When ur going bald, its not the case that u have to have ZERO hairs on ur head to count as bald. But its rather, a spectrum.
  2. Its a matter of degree, not a defnitite matter.
3. What if identity was like this? Borderline cases, almost bald cases. Its a bad question to ask.
4. THESEUS SHIP!! I remember this.

Survival identity: i survive at a future time t if and only if there is some person at time t who is identical to me.

Qualitative identity vs being numerically identical.
Identity can survive psycholligcal changes. Its not that meg has a diff psych that meg is diff to marg.
The non-branching psychological theory: A at time t1 is identical to B at some later time t2 if and only if there is continuity of psychology between B and A, and there is no other person who stands in a relation of psychological continuity to A.
Survival as continuity: i survive at a future time T if and only if there is some peson at time T who is psychologically continuous w me
- Psychologically continuous and identical dont amount to the same thing.
- Combine this w the non-branching theory and we get:
Identity doesnt matter: i can survive at a future time T even if there is no person at T who is identical to me.

Four dimensionalism

Each person and object is composed of diff spatial parts: head, shoulders, etc.
Four dimensionalism holds that persons and objects are also composed of diff temporal parts: my 2010 stage, 2019 stage, and etc are parts of me.
Just as i am the whole composed of all my spatial parts, four dimensionalism holds that i am the whole composed of all my temporal parts: a spacetime worm stretching from my birth to my __

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