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if there were no need for 'engineers from the quantum plenum' then we should not have any unanswered scientific questions.

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Started by iplaw, July 28, 2006, 03:52:17 AM

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iplaw

Thought this was a cool essay on identity:

INTERN: Hello, Mr. Beaudine.  You've passed away. Welcome to Purgatory!

JACK: Mary?  What're you doing with that gun, Mary?  M- huh?

INTERN: Laughs. Just relax, Mr. Beaudine.  Take it easy, you've just been shot and killed.  It's quite natural to be a bit confused.

JACK: So â€" is this Heaven?  Hey, a hero, nice!  Takes piece of hero from table and eats it.

INTERN: No, Mr. Beaudine, this is Purgatory.  We are offering you the chance to win an all-expenses paid stay in Heaven, however.

JACK: Win?

INTERN: Yes, Mr. Beaudine.  You see, Purgatory is the hottest game show on the Cosmic Entertainment Network.  Contestants face off against an adversary in a philosophical battle of wits; if they win, they get into Heaven; otherwise, they do a stint as production assistant on one of CEN's other shows, or as we like to call it, spending eternity in Hell.  Laughs.

JACK: And, um, who watches this?

INTERN: Fifty billion people, as of last week's ratings.  I happen to know that God himself sets his TiVo to record every episode.  Of course, his son is the host.

JACK: Jesus?

INTERN: No, his other son, Randall.  He died for your ignorance.  Well, actually, it's the current Vicar of Randall, Pope Andreas I. Randall's on sabbatical.

JACK: So I have to beat some guy in an argument?

INTERN: You'll be debating a philosophical issue with a surprise adversary. After the debate, our studio audience will vote on the winner.

JACK: Great, so I'm dead, and the afterlife is a game show...  All things considered, I think I'm dealing with this pretty damn well.

The Debate

ANDREAS: Welcome to Purgatory, the game where wisdom is your ticket to salvation.   Joining us today from San Francisco, California is Jack Beaudine.  Jack, tell us how you died?

JACK: I was shot by my wife, your holiness.

ANDREAS: Shot by his wife!  What a way to go, eh?  Well, Jack, that's actually what you'll be debating today.  Our topic today is “Who Killed Jack?”  For those of you at home who aren't familiar with the story, Julia North's brain was put into Mary Beaudine's body, and that person then shot Jack.  Now, let's meet your adversary. Today's satan is one of the finest minds in philosophy today, and the most brilliant student I've ever had the pleasure of teaching â€" or should I say learning with! â€" in my Introduction to Philosophy class at Brandeis University, please give a warm welcome to Matthew Sachs!

MATTHEW: Professor Teuber, always a pleasure.  It's an honor to finally meet you, Jack, I've heard a lot about you.

JACK: Thanks.

ANDREAS: Alright then, let's get down to business.  Gentlemen, you have twenty minutes.  Go!

MATTHEW: Well, clearly what we have here is a question of identity.  As Perry said in his Dialogue...

JACK: Now just a minute, I've been with my wife for 27 years, and I'm sick and tired of people telling me I don't know my wife when I see her.

MATTHEW: So, Jack, you're saying that a person's identity stems from their body?

JACK: Well, sure.  You wake up in the morning, and there it is.  You know it's you.  It's been you your whole life, you don't need to look down and see a leg in your bed, and think for a bit before you realize that it's your leg, you just know, you have an innate knowledge that it is your leg.

MATTHEW: But surely you also know that your mind is your own.

JACK: Extends his hand.  See this scar here? That's from the time Mary got rabies from that squirrel she brought home and bit me.  That's who Mary is, the lady that gave me this scar.  And the teeth on the gal who shot me?   Same teeth.  So the woman who shot me is the woman who gave me this scar, and that woman is my wife, Mary.

MATTHEW: What if your wife had lost her teeth due to old age, or because she really needed some extra money from the tooth fairy?  Would she no longer be Mary?

JACK: No, she'd still be Mary, and we'd save a lot of money on toothpaste and dentist's visits.  She's still the same woman who had the teeth.  The loss of the teeth is perfectly natural.

MATTHEW: How is loss of teeth different from loss of body?

JACK: Or loss of mind.  A person is their past, everything that's happened to them, everything that's made them what they are.  And the body, the whole body, not just the teeth, of my wife is the body that shot me.

MATTHEW: But didn't your wife's mind also experience the biting incident?  The person who you claim is your wife would have no recollection of the incident.

JACK: Matthew, do you have a mother?

MATTHEW: Last time I checked.

JACK: What would you do if she went into a coma?

MATTHEW: I imagine I'd be rather upset.

JACK: Why would you be upset?

MATTHEW: Because my mother was very sick.

JACK: Ah, but not dead.  But still existing.

MATTHEW: Yes... so?

JACK: If her brain is not functioning, the only thing that makes her your mother is her body.

MATTHEW: Well, no, the thing that makes her remain my mother is that she has the capacity to, at some point in the future, have the mind of my mother.

JACK: What if there were no chance of her coming out of the coma with more than 90% of her mental functionality intact?

MATTHEW: She'd still be my mother.

JACK: And if there were no chance of her regaining any mental functionality?

MATTHEW: Then she'd be dead.

JACK: What about 50% mental functionality?

MATTHEW: ... Yes.  Still my mother.

JACK: And what if she could only hope to regain 1% of her mental functionality?

MATTHEW: It isn't the numeric percentage of mental functionality that makes her mind my mother's mind, and thus her my mother.  It's that â€" here, let me explain it in inductive terms.  At the moment my mother began existing, there was obviously a person who was my mother, right?

JACK: Yes, of course.

MATTHEW: Okay. So, a person's mental state changes at each instant in time.  These changes are a result of the person's environment, which includes their current mental state.  Now, consider a mental state at one instant in time, and a different mental state at the next instant in time.  Those two mental states are part of the same identity if and only if taking the environment that the first mental state was in and having it act on that mental state will produce the second mental state.

JACK: I don't think I follow you...

MATTHEW: I'm saying that a person is identified by the fact that there is a contiguous chain of mental states from their current mental state all the way back to their original mental state.

JACK: What do chains of mental states have to do with identity?

MATTHEW: Well, clearly, identity is not determined by one's body.  Julia-mind in Mary-body thought of herself as Julia, and people's bodies change all the time, what with losing teeth and such.  And I'm convinced now that identity is not determined by the current state of one's mind.  My mother's mind at 1% capacity bears very little similarity to my mother's mind at 100% capacity.  And yet, it seems quite reasonable to say that the mentally-impaired person is still my mother.  This must be because there is a relation between the two people, mother-normal and mother-impaired, one becomes the other, and so they are the same.

JACK: Alright, so, back to the question at hand.  None of this answers our topic. The body transplant changed Mary's state to the state where she thought she was Julia.

MATTHEW: Jack, what if it were possible for a mind to exist, and interact with the outside world, without a body?  What if you could get your brain removed from you skull and put in a jar with a nutrient drip and an internet connection?

JACK: That'd be a neat trick.

MATTHEW: What if Mary's brain were in one of those jars, and it swapped place with Julia's brain?  Who would be in the jar, Mary or Julia?

JACK: Julia, I suppose...

MATTHEW: So you see, it must be the mind that determines one's identity.

JACK: But â€" jars aren't -

ANDREAS: Oh, I'm sorry, we are out of time.  Studio audience, please select who you believe made the most convincing argument, using the controls in your seat.  For those of you tuning in at home, we have a word from our sponsor, Consolidated Teletransporter Works...

Huxley

#1
I dont see how this should be an either/or argument.

There seems enough to suggest that neither have to be mutually exclusive.

iplaw

#2
I think that's the point.  I don't think anyone was trying to prove anything other than it's an interesting topic.