Time, Self and Mind (ATS1835) Introduction to Philosophy B Semester 2, 2016

1. Time, Self and Mind (ATS1835)Introduction to Philosophy BSemester 2, 2016 Dr Ron Gallagher ron.gallagher@monash.edu Week 8: Self –Identity and Person Stages (3 tutorials left) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rawY2VzN4-c

2. What makes someone the same person over time? Locke: Memory; Reid: Persons are continuing entities; Butler: Memory presupposes personal identity, because there needs to be a consciousness to do the remembering; Parfit: Not identity, survival; Williams: Not psychological survival, bodily survival; Lewis: Connected temporal-person-stages.

4. AT1.3: Due Monday 19 September at 10am (@600 words, 10%) • What is Locke's theory of personal identity? Explain the objections of Reid and Butler to Locke's theory. • (2) Searle’s Chinese Room argument attacks the Turing Test by trying to show that even if a machine passes the test it still may not be thinking. How exactly is the argument supposed to show this? • (Thoroughly explain your answers in your own words, and be sure to define any key terms and positions. 300 words max.)

5. AT1.3: Due Monday 19 September at 10am (@600 words, 10%) • What is Locke's theory of personal identity? Explain the objections of Reid and Butler to Locke's theory. • NOTE • There is no essay by either Reid or Butler in the Unit Reader. • You will find Reid and Butler’s objections to Locke on pp166-169 of the Unit Reader and in Lecture 7.

7. Reid – by invoking memory to define identity you are invoking the concept you are trying to explain. What is it to be a bearer of experiences? I am me because I remember being me. I am my memories. My memories are me. Therefore I am me.

8. Locke on consciousness and memory Week 7 lecture Locke argues that different kinds of thing have different criteria for being the same over time. A is the same ship as B A is the same tree as B A is the same animal as B A is the same person as B Ships, trees, animals and people are very different kinds of thing. So what makes them the same over time is different. For example, Locke equates being the same animal over time with having the same living body. But that is not the right criterion for being the same person. To understand personal identity, we need to understand what it is to be a person.

9. Locke on consciousness and memory Week 7 lecture Locke’s definition of person “…a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places …which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it.” A person is a thinking (conscious) being with a concept of itself as existing through time. So a is the same person as b if a and b are the same conscious being.

10. Locke on consciousness and memory Week 7 lecture “For since consciousness always accompanies thinking and it is that that makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this alone consists personal identity, ie, the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now as it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.” Essay Concerning Human Understanding, chapter 27.

11. Locke’s memory criterion Week 7 lecture It is continuity of consciousness that makes you and the child you once were the same person. But how are distinct conscious experiences united into one person? Locke’s answer: psychological continuity and in particular memory. The memory criterion for personal identity A (at a later stage) is the same person as B (at an earlier stage) if and only if A remembers experiencing the things experienced by B (and only B).

12. Locke’s memory criterion Week 7 lecture Why think that continuity of consciousness is what matters? Locke’s examples: The Prince and the Cobbler One person might occupy different bodies. Two people could swap bodies. We say that the prince is now in the cobbler’s body because there is continuity of consciousness and memory between the prince before the swap and the prince after the swap. The day man and the night man One and the same body might be occupied by two different people.

13. Locke’s memory criterion Week 7 lecture Phineas Gage, 1848 accident Is GageBA (before-the-accident) the same person as GageAA (after-the accident)? “… his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said that he was ‘no longer Gage’.” - John Harlow The memory criterion says: yes, if GageAA can remember doing things that GageBA did.

14. Genuine and false memories Week 7 lecture False memories Suppose someone implants in my mind ‘memories’ of things that never actually happened. Suppose someone implants Shakespeare’s memories in my mind. Does that mean I am Shakespeare? In applying Locke’s memory criterion we need to consider genuine memories.

15. Genuine memories Week 7 lecture S (correctly) remembers doing or experiencing x at some earlier time t if and only if : (1) S has a present disposition to believe that she did herself do or experience x at time t. (2) S did indeed do or experience x at t. (3) The fact that S did do or experience x at t is directly causally responsible for (1).

16. Thomas Reid: forgotten events Week 7 lecture (Reid’s example involves a ‘brave officer’. The idea comes from Ch. 6 of “Of Memory”, the third essay in Reid’s Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, first published in 1785). “Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life: Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that when made a general he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging.”

17. Thomas Reid: forgotten events General = Officer = = Boy Week 7 lecture “These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr Locke’s doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general. When it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was flogged at school.” [transitivity of identity]

18. Thomas Reid: forgotten events General = Officer = Boy X Week 7 lecture “But the general's consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging, therefore, according to Mr Locke’s doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, and at the same time is not the same person as him who was flogged at school” The problem is that identity is a transitive relation, but ‘A remembers the experiences of B’ is not.

19. Joseph Butler: the circularity objection Week 7 lecture “And one should really think it self evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity.” Think about the conditions for genuine memory (2) S did indeed do or experience x at time t The person who remembers must be the same as the person who had the experience. Genuinememory presupposes identity. So memory cannot be used as a criterion for establishing personal identity.

20. Joseph Butler: the circularity objection Week 7 lecture In William Gibson’s story, Casey asks ‘If she calls me, is it her?” Suppose we try to apply the memory criterion to answer this question. To decide if Lise after ‘crossing over’ (LCO) is the same person as Lise, we check to see if LCO can remember things that Lise and only Lise experienced. LCO might have apparent memories of things Lise did. But for them to be genuine memories, we need to check if it was really LCO who did those things and not someone else. That is, we have to decide whether LCO is the same person as LCO. And now we’re back where we started…

21. The memory principle Week 7 lecture Our definition of genuine memory satisfies the Memory Principle If A remembers doing something that B and only B did, then A is the same person as B. What does Butler’s objection show about the Memory Principle? It does not show that it is false. It is true. But it is true because ‘A is the same person as B’ is part of the definition of what it means for ‘A to remember doing something B did’. This means that you can’t use memory as a way of deciding or finding out whether A is the same person as B.

22. Essay Topics Due Monday 10th October 10am @1250 words 30% Write on one of the following topics. 1. Time Travel How can David Lewis's solution to the Grandfather paradox be used to solve the problem of the logically pernicious self-inhibitor discussed in your Unit Reader? Be sure to clearly lay out the problem and the solution to the grandfather paradox, and to draw the parallels between that paradox and the logically pernicious self-inhibitor problem. Discuss whether the solution to this problem seems as plausible as the solution to the Grandfather paradox. Required reading: David Lewis, 'The Paradoxes of Time Travel’ The Logically Pernicious Self‐inhibiter If time travel is possible, it must be possible to build ‘a logically pernicious self inhibiter’. Here is an example devised by John Earman: Imagine a rocket ship that can fire a probe into its own recent past. Suppose the rocket is programmed to fire the probe unless a safety switch is set to on, and that the safety switch is turned on if and only if the rocket detects the return of the probe. The rocket will fire the probe if and only if it does not fire the probe. That is impossible. (TSM Reader Page 10) That is: it can fire the probe and it can’t fire the probe.

23. Earman asks us to consider a rocket ship that at some space-time point x can fire a probe that will travel along a timelike loop into the past lobe of x's light cone. Suppose the rocket is programmed to fire the probe unless a safety switch is on and the safety switch is turned on if and only if the "return" of the probe is detected by a sensing device with which the rocket is equipped (230-232). Is the probe fired or not? The answer is that it is fired if and only if it is not fired, which is logically absurd.This contradiction does not suffice to show that time travel per se is impossible. Rather the whole situation is impossible, and this includes assumptions about the programming of the rocket, the safety switch, the sensing device, and so forth. But, although the contradiction could be avoided by giving up some of these assumptions, Earman suggests that we have good evidence that rockets can be so programmed. Earman concludes, "Thus, although we cannot exclude closed timelike lines on logical grounds, we do have empirical reasons for believing that they do not exist in our world" (232). http://www.reasonablefaith.org/tachyons-time-travel-and-divine-omniscience#ixzz3E7PIvINl Earman, John (1972) Implications of causal propagation outside the null cone. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50 (3). pp. 222-237. ISSN 0004-8402 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/tachyons-time-travel-and-divine-omniscience

24. Logical Paradoxes This sentence is false. Everything I say is always a lie. The Barber Paradox and the Set of All Sets. “The male barber shaves every man in town who does not shave himself. Who shaves the barber?” Assuming that every man in town has to get shaven, there is no escape from this dilemma. Bertrand Russell used this exercise to show that certain kinds of classification were impossible.

25. Essay Topics..continued 2. Free Will Option 2 a): Soft determinists say free will is compatible with determinism, hard determinists deny this. Explain why soft determinists think free will is compatible with determinism and why hard determinists object to this. Which view do think is most plausible? Give your own examples that help illustrate/justify your points. Explain your reasons. Required reading David Lewis, 'The Paradoxes of time Travel' Richard Taylor, 'Freedom, Determinism and Fate' Option 2 b): Some hold that free will is (a) not only incompatible with determinism but (b) also incompatible with indeterminism. Explain this objection and explain how Kane addresses (b). Evaluate Kane's position. Do you think his view allows for people to have genuine control over and to be genuinely responsible for their actions? Give your own examples that help illustrate/justify your points. Required reading: Kane, ‘Libertarianism’

26. 3. Thinking Machines On the question whether machines can think, Descartes and Turing are in strong disagreement. Evaluate the arguments on either side. Does Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument help resolve the debate? Required reading: Alan Turing, 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' John Searle, 'Minds, Brains and Programs' (Quotes from Descartes can be found in the Notes to Part 3 of the Study Guide.) How does Descartes’ argue against thinking machines? How does Turing’s argue for thinking machines? How does Searle argue against thinking machines? TIP Don’t confuse thinking, intelligence and consciousness (or syntax, semantics, understanding and intentionality).

27. 4. The Self If you teletransport to another planet, we might wonder whether the resulting individual is you---whether you've really survived. Parfit argues that identity is not what matters when we consider our futures in such cases. How does he reach this conclusion by considering the problem of fission? Is this a good argument? Is there more reason to think that identity does matter to survival? (Here you might focus more on Williams or Lewis, rather than discussing them both in detail.) Required reading: Derek Parfit, 'Personal Identity' Bernard Williams, 'The Self and the Future' David Lewis, 'Survival and Identity'

28. Teleportation Imagine a teleport machine that works as follows. It scans and records everything about your body, down to the atomic level. That information is then sent to the receiving teleport machine, which reconstructs your body exactly from a stock pile of raw material. The scanning process destroys all the original atoms of your body. Question: Is this really a way to travel? Would you use it? Is the person who arrives at the destination you?

29. Teleportation

30. Teleportation Imagine the machine breaks down. An exact duplicate of you is created at the destination, but the original you is not destroyed. Or what if two copies of you were created at the other end? Again, the person / people at the other end are psychologically continuous with you, But are they really you? Most people answer no – this kind of machine is not a way to travel. It just creates a duplicate of you (like an identical twin). Perhaps it is bodily continuity that really matter then, rather than psychological continuity. (Williams)

31. Parfit’s argument (1) Identity is a one-one relation that does not admit of degrees. (2) Psychological continuity need not be one-one and can come in degrees. (Fission and fusion cases) (3) What matters in survival is psychological continuity (whether your mental life continues on) Therefore: (C) What matters in survival is not identity. Lewis wants to accept all three premises, but reject the conclusion.

32. Temporal stages Lewis makes use of the idea that a person is a unified whole consisting of temporal stages or temporal parts. Think of a person as a four-dimensional object which is stretched out in time. At any particular time, only the temporal parts are present, never the whole person. This conception of identity through time should be distinguished from an endurantist conception, according to which the whole person is present at all the times that it exists.

33. Tensed Identity “You may feel certain that you count persons by identity and not tensed identity. But how can you be sure? Normal cases provide no evidence…. The problem cases provide no very solid evidence either. They are problem cases just because we cannot consistently say quite all the things we feel inclined to, We must strike the best compromise among our conflicting opinions. Something must give way: and why not the opinion that of course we count by identity, if that is what can be sacrificed with the least total damage?” Lewis, ‘Survival and Identity’, p. 227

35. 5. Knowledge Gettier raises some serious challenges for the traditional account of knowledge. Nozick develops his tracking account in part to answer the problems identified by Gettier. After explaining both Gettier's challenge and Nozick's proposal, evaluate the strength of Nozick's proposal as a response to Gettier's challenge. Required reading: Edmund Gettier, 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?' Robert Nozick, 'Knowledge and Skepticism'