Life after Death
06 Aug '08 08:133 editsOriginally posted by twhiteheadHowever, as long as the concept is gray edged, it can be difficult to answer questions relating to continued existence when a significant proportion of the properties commonly used to describe the coin are changed.
There is no need for a new 'gold coin' concept. However, as long as the concept is gray edged, it can be difficult to answer questions relating to continued existence when a significant proportion of the properties commonly used to describe the coin are changed. For example, if I use a press to change the pictures on the coin, is it still the same gold co ...[text shortened]... which personality would continue after death, the original one, or the modified one? Or both?
Yes, I see your point and agree with it. Our diagnostic capabilities are not always good enough to keep pace, so to speak, with our hypotheticals. However, for the main thrust of this thread, I intend if possible to steer clear of such issues (although I would like to continue to discuss them with you on the side). So, I'll recast my question:
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Suppose I choke on a jawbreaker and die (according to some medical definition of natural death). Then, my family takes the body and cremates it, reducing it to ash. My question is, can someone present some reasons to think that after this cremation I still exist?
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I'm also specifically not trying in any way to restrict the discussion to concepts of the self like the one that I have been discussing with twhitehead that is reducible to psychological features.
If we destroyed your body then reconstituted it 10 years later, would it still be you?
I simply don't think I can answer such questions without knowing more about the situation. Again, my view of personal identity relies on psychological connectedness over time. For instance, let's suppose someone dies at time t1. Then, some researchers take the body to a lab somewhere and somehow revive or implant mentality sufficient for personhood back into the body at time t2. Is the person post-t2 the same person as the person pre-t1? I say it would depend. What if the two had radically different psychology and, for example, had different memories, preferences, character traits, values, etc? In my opinion, under such circumstances, the two are not the same person. How radically different would they have to be? I'm not sure I am prepared to answer that -- that would get into the "gray" area as you are calling it. But surely we could at the very least point to extremes -- say where the two psychologies are identical (or different, in the other extreme) on nearly all accounts.
If not, then it in my mind causes major problems for any possible concept of life after death. The question would be, which personality would continue after death, the original one, or the modified one? Or both?
As Palynka hinted, you are glossing over other possibilities here. For example, many people hold a concept of the self that is not reducible to psychological features. For instance, many people presumably are committed to the notion that their personal identity stretches back to something like the zygote at conception (for instance, there seem to be lots of people who argue that the person exists from conception). The zygote at conception is a single diploid cell and simply has no mentality. Obviously, they are not going to be committed to a view of the self that reduces to mentality, or talk of "personality" as you are employing it, etc.
I tend to find such concepts bizarre, however, which is one reason why I started this thread: I am interested in what reasons they have for holding such an irreducible view of the self.
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