Parfit on Personal Identity

[Philo]

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Just thinking that I am Napolean does not make me psychologically continuous with Napolean. If, however, Napolean's complete mental states had been recorded by a machine and then transferred to my brain then I would be psychologically continuous with Napolean. If my own mental contents were erased beforehand, then we can imagine that after the mental state transfer I have Napolean's personality, memories (maybe), dispositions, and such.

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So if your mental mental states were recorded by a machine and transferred to me, we would both be you?

chez

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No, because that would violate the logic of identity. We would both have what Parfit thinks is actually important to me, however. And if I died as a result of the procedure and you lived on then I should think that that's about as good as me living on, according to Parfit.

Are you familiar with Parfit?

[chezlaw]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just thinking that I am Napolean does not make me psychologically continuous with Napolean. If, however, Napolean's complete mental states had been recorded by a machine and then transferred to my brain then I would be psychologically continuous with Napolean. If my own mental contents were erased beforehand, then we can imagine that after the mental state transfer I have Napolean's personality, memories (maybe), dispositions, and such.

[/ QUOTE ]
So if your mental mental states were recorded by a machine and transferred to me, we would both be you?

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

No, because that would violate the logic of identity. We would both have what Parfit thinks is actually important to me, however. And if I died as a result of the procedure and you lived on then I should think that that's about as good as me living on, according to Parfit.

Are you familiar with Parfit?

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Not familiar with him at all, just trying to get a handle on ths idea.

So, whilst the two of us exist (with your mind) then neither of us is you but somehow something changes when one of us dies?

chez

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just thinking that I am Napolean does not make me psychologically continuous with Napolean. If, however, Napolean's complete mental states had been recorded by a machine and then transferred to my brain then I would be psychologically continuous with Napolean. If my own mental contents were erased beforehand, then we can imagine that after the mental state transfer I have Napolean's personality, memories (maybe), dispositions, and such.

[/ QUOTE ]
So if your mental mental states were recorded by a machine and transferred to me, we would both be you?

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

No, because that would violate the logic of identity. We would both have what Parfit thinks is actually important to me, however. And if I died as a result of the procedure and you lived on then I should think that that's about as good as me living on, according to Parfit.

Are you familiar with Parfit?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not familiar with him at all, just trying to get a handle on ths idea.

So, whilst the two of us exist (with your mind) then neither of us is you but somehow something changes when one of us dies?

chez

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Well, I would presumably still be me while I'm alive. Parfit claims that we can use psychological continuity as a criterion of identity so long as it does not branch, or split off in two or more directions. In that case we cannot have identity, but we can have what Parfit calls 'survival', which is psychological continuity without identity.

Parfit rejects what seems like a very intuitively plausible principle called the "only x and y principle." It says that whether or not a and b are identical can only depend on facts about a and b and the relations between them.

Parfit thinks that since the various relations that we might take to constitute identity over time can hold to varying degrees, then 'identity' in that sense can hold to varying degrees (but of course identity is usually thought to be an all-or-nothing concept). Since those relations can obtain without identity obtaining, he claims that identity is not what really matters to us.

Psychological continuity is what really matters, and survival in Parfit's new sense entails psychological continuity but not identity.