Dear Reader,
I would like to get feedback on my essay, and if possible your thoughts as to how I could improve my paper, and what would be a better conclusion. Thank You!
**My paper is due in two days!
--Harrison
---------------
Imagine that you're on the Star Trek Enterprise. You go to the transporter room, where Scotty de-materializes you and then beams you down to the alien planet below. The trouble is that the transporter malfunctions, and three individuals - all identical to you as you were the moment before you were dematerialized in the transporter room, just seconds before - down to the last atom.
Which of these three individuals, if any, is you - and why? You will need to make use of additional readings to offer alternatives to Parfit's view.
-------------------
In my essay, I will be addressing the concept of personal identity. I am on the Star Trek Enterprise. I am now going to the transporter room, my friend Scotty is about to dematerialize me to bean me down to the alien plant that is below us. Unfortunately, the transporter has been over used and malfunctions during the process of beaming me down. The result is three individuals who are all identical to myself from before I was dematerialized in the transporter room, just seconds before - down to the last atom. My problem is, which of the individuals is me, if any?
According to the Wiggens operation, "We suppose that my brain is transplanted into someone else's (brainless) body, and that the resulting person has my character and apparent memories of my life...after the thought, that the resulting person is me." (pg 400 part I) I will assume that this statement will hold true
After being dematerialized onto the planet there can only be three possible outcomes, "1) I do not survive; 2) I survive as one of the 2 people; 3) I survive as both" (400) I will modify the statement to: I do not survive; I survive as all three people; and/or I survive as all three. The problem with the first statement is that we have agreed that transplanting my brain into another body will allow me to survive. The fact that I was dematerialized and rematerialized perfectly down to the last atom would mean my brain is still in tact, just in all three individuals. So, how would I not survive? Thus, I will reject the possibility that I would not survive. The only way I would not survive is if I wasn't rematerialized perfectly and all three of myself were missing a vital organ. In such a case I would not survive.
Moving onto the next of three outcomes, I survive as all three persons. According to the Wiggens operation, if I rematerialized as three individuals who are all identical to myself from before I was dematerialized in the transporter then I would have to highly doubt that only one of the three will survive. Why would only one survive, what is so special about that one individual? Nothing, they're all the same. Thus, I would have to deem one and two, implausible.
Lastly, I survive as all three. One might think, this is the last of all three so it should be the one to accept...but let me explain. If we stick to the original statement of, "three individuals who are all identical to myself from before I was dematerialized in the transporter." This would suggest that I am the same individual to the very last molecule. Meaning my body and brain are identical. One cannot survive as three persons, although they're the same they are all one person. I will survive the Wiggens operation not as three people, but as one person with three individual bodies with the same mind.
To further explain the paragraph above, lets refer to the following quote, "imagine a divided mind. We can imagine a man having two simultaneous experiences, in having each of which he is unaware of having the other..these involve cutting of the bridge between the hemispheres of the brain...''two separate spheres of consciousness''" (400) If we were to divide the mind by separating both hemispheres, then one would be able to do two things at once by using both hemispheres. What he will be experiencing once he disconnects the hemispheres will be,
"Two streams of consciousness seem to have been straight-forwardly continuous with my one stream of consciousness up to the moment of division. The only changes in each steam are the disappearance of half my visual field and the loss of sensation in, and control over, half my body" (401) One side can be doing math calculations, and the other side can be doing reading. He can see through his vision that this left hand is moving doing say the writing portion, and that his right hand is doing the math. But he won't realize that he is working at the other. Meaning his hemisphere that is working on the math problem won't realize the hemisphere that is working on the writing problem. I am now about to reunite my mind, what will be happening, "I shall suddenly seem to remember just having thought out two calculations" This is the case if my hemispheres were divided. But in our problem we have three separate individuals with everything identical to the last atom. I believe that if Harrison was replicated due to the malfunctioning of the transporter, then in fact I would be three Harrison's (Harrison A, B, and C) I would be the same person, but...as time progresses, however, Harrison-A, Harrison-B, and Harrison-C would become less and less as each other, and less like the Harrison before he was dematerialized. Harrison-A, Harrison-B, and Harrison-C would be somewhat the same person, because they share a common history starting from the original Harrison before de-materialization. But, once they were rematerialized on the alien planet they will start to have difference experiences. Unlike the de-connecting of hemispheres and reconnecting them and then suddenly having the stream on consciousness connect, you would not be able to connect all three brains together with a single corpus collosum to fuse all the streams of consciousnesses together.
To explain what I have started in the latter part of the previous paragraph, "Harrison-A, Harrison-B, and Harrison-C would become less and less as each other. and less like the Harrison before he was dematerialized. Harrison-A, Harrison-B, and Harrison-C would be somewhat the same person as long as they share a common history starting from the original Harrison before de-materialization. But, once they were rematerialized on the alien planet they will start to have difference experiences" this is all possible due to q-memory (quasi-memory), I am q-remembering an experience if,
"(1) I have a belief about a past experience which seems in itself like a memory belief,
(2) someone did have such an experience, and
(3) my belief is dependent upon this experience in the same way ... in which a memory of an experience is dependent upon it." Q-memory is basically remembering without the identity requirement. Harrison A, B, and C is similar to the original Harrison as long as they can q-remember events that occurred with the original Harrison.
The next relation would be between an intention and an action later on. One might say we could only intend to perform actions of our own. But intentions can be also described as "q-intentions" (405) one person could q-intend another persons action. The Harrison before being dematerialized could q-intend to perform the actions of Harrison-A, B, and C. He could q-intend to be a marketing management major for one of then, fire fighter for another, or do absolutely nothing for the other one. The term, "q-intend as one of them" (405) doesn't mean directive-ness. I can't just want Harrison-B to be a fire-fighter by just intending him to be one. But when I'm the original Harrison before being dematerialized, and Harrison-B is one of the resulting persons then I can. By thinking like this it would allow one person to survive as three. Original Harrison would be able to survive as Harrison-A, B, and C. just to a certain degree.
What is Psychological connectedness? Psychological connectedness in short, is the direct psychological relation. One important thing that must be noted is that psychological connectedness is not transitive, which means the opposite of transitive (If A=B, B=C, C=A) Say for example, Harrison-A, B, and C have 5 stages, 1-5, where Harrison A, B, and C derive from the original Harrison. If Harrison A, B, and C at stage 1 q-remembers the original Harrison, and Harrison A, B, and C at stage two q-remember the Harrison A, B, and C at stage 1, and so on until stage 5. Harrison A, B and C, at stage 5, will be able to q-remember Harrison A, B, and C at stage 4, and so on back to the original Harrison. Just because they are tied to the future Harrison above them and the past Harrison below them, doesn't mean Harrison A, B, and C at stage 5 will be psychologically connected to the original Harrison before he was dematerialized. The reason for this is, "q-memories will weaken with the passage of time, and then fade away." (407) Thus, the Harrison A, B, and C at stage 5 would be a completely different person from the original Harrison if he doesn't have any Q-memories of the original Harrison. To give an example, so one may further understand psychological connectedness: I want to write a book about ants when I'm 5 and when I'm 40 I write the book or I want to be a fire fighter when I'm 3, I eventually become one when I'm 30.
Unlike psychological connectedness, "psychological continuity" is transitive, which means if A=B, B=C, then C=A hold true. It is a chain of psychological connectedness. You have a person that survives overtime though these connections. Although both imply survival, psychological connectedness is more important if we are to talk about the survival of a person because the original Harrison can't survive as either Harrison-A, B, and/or C if neither of them remembers anything about the original Harrison. Even though I deemed psychological connectedness as more important than psychological continuity in terms of survival, the fact that, "one of these is a relation of degree" (407) implies that "survival" has multiple degrees.
I want to introduce the idea of fusion. What is fusion? According to Merriem-Webster fusion is, "a merging of diverse, distinct, or separate elements into a unified whole" Psychically, fusions is merging two or more separate entities, or persons. However, psychologically fusing two entities are more intricate to explain. I've mentioned before about the experiment where one would be able to separate their hemispheres and rejoin them whenever they choose. When the hemispheres were reunited, the individual was able to recall doing both the English and math problems. Similarly, the one person that resulted from the fusion of two persons, would be able to q-remember the experiences he had from the two original lives. Parfit mentions this, "The one person who results from a fusion can, similarly, q-remember living the lives of the two original people."(405) for example, Harrison-1 (a business major) and Harrison-2 (a nursing major) were to pass out, and a mischievous wizard who decides to cause even more trouble, fuses both Harrison-1 and 2 together. When they re-awaken Harrison-fused would be one person. Harrison fused would be able to q-remember having taken both business courses, and nursing courses. None of the Harrison-1 or 2 q-memories would be lost. Unfortunately, not everything would need to be lost. Unfortunately, not everything will be remembered. "...some things must be lost. For any two people who fuse together will have different characteristics, different desires, and different intentions." (406) the newly formed person would be unable to keep everything they had as the two individual persons. A way to combine all their qualities will be through something called, compatibility. Compatibility will allow the newly formed person to have both qualities from Harrison-1 and 2 to coexist together. According to the textbook, "These can coexist, in one resulting person. Some will be incompatible. These, if of equal strength, can cancel out, and if of different strengths, the stronger can be made weaker" (406)
Say Harrison-1 likes a girl named Anna, and wants to visit the Philippines. He is about to fuse with Harrison-2 who wants to go to Maryland, and plans on taking tennis lessons. According to compatibility, the Harrison resulting from synthesizing from both Harrison-1 and Harrison-2 would have the interests and desires of the persons used to compose the fused Harrison.
However, according to incompatibility: Harrison-1 hate to party, and prefers hip-hop over rock. He is about to fuse with Harrison-2, who likes to party, and prefers country over pop. The fused Harrison would be impartial to partying, and be open minded to both hip-hop, and country.
As I mentioned before the dematerialized Harrison will be broken up into Harrison-A,B, and C. Starting off from the original Harrison breaking down into Harrison-A though C can be pictured as a tree and the original Harrison as the trunk of the tree. From the trunk, stems separate branches, Harrison-A through C, which is connected to the trunk. They branch out and over time another branch branches off the branch that branched off the trunk (branch 3 stemming from branch 2 stemming from branch 1 branching off the trunk) The branch being connected to the previous branch is "''a past self''" (408) These branches may cross each other, the fact that they are connected and/or branching off each other means that there is physical connectedness. There are degrees of connectedness only because Harrison "stemmed out" into three different branches (Harrison's) the idea of the continuation of branching out is only acceptable if it is applies to more than one life.
I am going to stray away from Partfit for a bit, and go into Descartes mind-body problem.
Descartes notes that the components of the body,
"sensed that I had a head, hands, feet, and the other members that make up a human body...physical objects whose affects could either be beneficial or harmful-beneficial to the extent that I felt pleasant sensations and harmful to the extent that I felt pain. In addition to sensations of pain and pleasure, I sensed hunger, thirst, and other such desires" (189)
There are two components of the body, the physical and the mental. The external objects have the ability to either harm or pleasure him, he learns that he must have a body and that nature teaches him this; mind and body are intermingled to make one unit, "I heard that people with amputated arms and legs sometimes seem to feel pain in the missing limb..." (190) although the mind and body are intermingled to make one unit, the body is divisible, while the mind is not. One can break, and extend things into smaller parts, but we can't do that with the mind. Applying this to the Harrison's example: If the original Harrison were to be replicated due to the malfunctioning of the machine, the resulting Harrison (A, B, and C) would be able to survive as all three individuals according to what Descartes is saying) Although there are three of them, they all have three bodies, and minds) The only problem I can think of is, since the mind is not physical, how would it be rematerialized? Who would get the mind out of all three? According to Descartes, the mind is not something you can divide. So I would assume being rematerialized would include giving all three Harrisons a mind of their own.
This brings me to Daniel Dennetts, "Where Am I?" Famous scientists confronted Dennet to go on a mission to disarm a nuclear device called, "STUD" Since this mission was dangerous, it require Dennett to separate the brain from the body. His brain was placed into a vat, where it would be able to control his body via implants, antennae, and such. Through flipping a switch, one would be able to establish a connection between the brain and body, and at the same flip of the switch, break the connection. (412-414) Dennett, after the surgery, was trying to comprehend which was him...the brain in the vat, or the body looking into the vat. This raises the question of which one would be Dennett? I would say there is no Dennett. But how does this all tie in with my paper? Imagine if Dennett's brain were cloned - then there'd be two Dennetts. As I mentioned before Harrison-A, Harrison-B, and Harrison-C would be identical for the moment because it has only been a few moments since they've been dematerialized. They would be different Harrison's because of the different sets of stimuli would bring about different changes in the brains. Not needing to go into the problem of which one is Dennett (in our case, which one is the surviving Harrison) whether it's his brain, or his body...since the machine malfunctioned bringing about three identical Harrison's (A, B, and C) similar to the very atom. The fact that his brain and body are the same implies that all three Harrisons would survive.
To sum up my thoughts on which of the three individuals (Harrison-A, Harrison-B, or Harrison-C) is me, I would say I am all three until each of the three individuals start changing due to different experiences the brain goes through. As long as the statement holds that, I am rematerialized into three individuals down to the last atom (implying that my body and brain are exactly identical) then I could safely say I am all three individuals and will continue to survive as all three individuals as long as they can q-remember the original Harrison, before being dematerialized.
