Clutch

Anyone who makes the same elementary equivocation as you do would indeed advance an equally sophomoric fallacy. We have only your pronouncement that this fallacy is a characteristic of many great philosophers. But even if you thought it was... why would you think this relevant to your own error?

It's very simple; I wish you'd thought at least momentarily about the point I made before fleeing under a smokescreen of Huff.

"Different" is ambiguous between "not identical", a discrete notion on which 3 is as different from (unequal to) 2 as 100 is, and "dissimilar", a degreed notion on which 3 is patently not as different from 2 as 100 is. The latter notion entails the former, but not vice-versa.

Hence there is an ambiguity in the claim (S) "Selves are different over time".

In the discrete sense, this is consistent with all the first-person phenomena of feeling unified over time. Hence someone who claimed to lack numerical diachronic identity of selves need not (and, charitably would not) be making any claim about being very different -- perhaps not even detectably different -- in the degreed sense, over the short term.

Rejecting your first assumption requires only asserting (S) in the discrete sense. Your attempts to portray this as irrational or "loonie", on the other hand, depend in every case on interpreting this rejection as asserting (S) in the degreed sense, and moreover as asserting some very large degree of change.

That's a sophomoric fallacy of equivocation. Educating you about this fallacy is hardly arguing from the dictionary!I think we both know that's false.*Yawn*. I have no interest in comparing books read or qualifications; just deal with the demolition of Assumption 1 or retract it.

mnkbdky

Let me first preface my statement with this, I have been accussed of arrogance once before and I hope this does not come across as being arrogant, because it is certainly not meant to be.

With that being said, it seems to me that you are confusing epistemology with ontology. That fact is memory is a separable quality from the mere fact that it is a contingent property. That is, it is something that could have failed to be. For example, I could not have responde to you. Instead I could have called up a hooker and had wild crazy sex. If this had been done I would have a completely different memories, but it still would have been me who had them.

Identity is not a matter of self-interpretation. Again you are confusing epistemology with ontology. Just because I believe myself to have the property of being the King of France in 1492 does not mean that I have that property. Or just because I have the property of denying that I had sex with a hooker does not mean that I do not actually have the property of having had sex with a hooker. Furthermore, these two identity properties above are, again, contingent to me. They could have failed to be. Yet, if they had failed to be, I could think I was Walter Payton or perhaps that I had sex with Catherine McCormick. Still, though, even if my delusions change it is still me that is delusional. You must make a distinction between contingent properties and necessary properties for indentity.

Yes memories are separable, as we saw above. You are correct is say that they are an inseparable part of how one will act. I think this can be clearly seen. Imagine that you have a person who live to the age of 35, then all of a sudden get hit on the head and loses all their memories, then gets hit on the head again a gets their memories back. As this person accomplished the impossible. That is, has this person been annihilated and then come back? Certainly not. The same person persisted. Again it is a confusion of epistemology with ontology.


No property can become essential. By definition an essential property is something that is had always already. That is, an essential property can never be apart from something. This is to say, If substance X has essential property P, then when X exists P could not fail to exist.

Again, I am not trying to be arrogant, but what was said is the commonly accepted definition of what it means to be diachronically indentical or as I prefer to say an enduring substance. These types of definition can be found in Michael Loux's Metaphysics book, Keith Yandell's Philosophy of Religion book and Alvin Plantiga's the Nature of Necessity. It is not just something I might up. I am working of the shoulders of giants.

Ok, let's clear somethings up here. There are different types of immutability. Immutabilty can either be defined as no change at all, in which case every property that that substance has is an essential property. To put it susinctly, X is immutable if and ony if X does not change in any sense. However, there is also the definition that something is immutable if it does not change in its essential properties (as I have defined it). That is, X is immutable just in case its essential properties EP do not change.

Now, I agree with you that if something is immutable in the first sense then it cannot have experiences (consequently, this is one of the main reasons I believe God to be in time). However, if something is immutable in the second sense then there is nothing to stop it from having experiences. That is, it can gain or lose any of its accidental properties and still remain the same thing.

I hate to harp on it, but notice that you used "I" when identifying what ever it is that was a supporter and opponent. Then you say, "I have almost completely changed my outlook on life and yet "I" remain the myself." Only to then say, "I" am a totally different person than I was 20 years ago. Therefore, identity is mutable." These two statements are contradictory. Something cannot be A and not A at the same time, which would be the case if you remained yourself and became a different person. The fact is, your personality and beliefs changed, not your identity.

Once again, you are confusing epistemology with ontology.

See my statements about necessary and contingent or accidental properties above.

What people think and what is actually the case are often different things. By this reason since I think my identity rest in the simple substance that is me, then, I am that. But since you think you are not, you are not. I hat to sound like a broken record but again you are confusing epistemology with ontology. Persons are whatever they are ontologically regardless of what someone believes. The question is do our beliefs about our ontology corrisponde to reality.

mnkbdky

I guest what I am confused on is your dissimilar notion. It seems to me that you are saying that because 3 is closer to 2 than 100 is, that it is not as different. You are correct if you are just saying that it does not take as long to count from 2 to 3 as it does from 2 to 100 (that is, if it is required that I count all the number inbetween). But I do not see how that has any relevence on identity.

I am not equivicating on my definition of change or identity. I have consistently said that any change in somethings essential qualities is a radical change because it annihilates the former object. Change then means, the addition of or subtraction of properties from a substace whether accidental or essential. Any time I use the term identity I mean this: X=Y if and only if X is numerically the same with Y. Now, the only thing X has to do in order to survive is endure through time unchanged in its essential qualities.

What I don't understand is how someone can say that A retains the identity of not A because they are only dissimilar and not strictly different.

It seems you too are confusing epistemology with ontology. How is that our be-able-to perceive difference makes any difference in whether it is actually the case that something is different.

John Page

Well, you could use this as an axiom but it is demonstrably false - a three legged dog is still a dog, even though four legs is still an essential quality.

I suggest you consider soemthing like "When changes of an object's essential qualities cause it to be no longer recognized as belonging to its orginal category or class, it may undergo a change of identity w.r.t the observer."

The threshold for "annihilation", as you put it (which is only an annihilation in the mind of the observer) will be a function of the changes and how the observer maps them onto its notion of the axiomatic object.

Am I making sense?

Cheers, John

mnkbdky

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Marcel
You seem to want to assert that because someone changes through time, that the former state of a person is so stable, as to be fully an definately identifying for the individual.

Please forgive me, as you can tell from my conversations with Clutch I am not very intellegent, but I cannot interp what is exactly meant by this statement. If you mean that I am saying that nothing can change through time and remain the same thing that it was the moment before it change then this is a misinterp of my statements. Rather, what I have tried to say is that time is an accidental property. That is, I could have existed in the year 1492 and not 2003. Either way, it still would have been me. The time in which I exist is not an essential property to my identity.


Try not to go too PO-MO (post-modern, just in case). Both Derrida and Heidegger recognize that language is a necessary thing and that it can get to the truth of the matter. But that is another conversation. And that is also what you appear to be saying, so I will not worry about.

This depends on whose theory you go with. If we go with Buddhist view that physical and mental bundle are causally connected or the Biological view that physical cells reproduce, then, yes, continuation of would be the right word. However, Hume brings this to the level of time itself and believes that all moment are not causally connected, therefore, neither are we. Thus, in the Humeian sense contiuation would be the wrong word. Thank goodness they are all wrong though. The Buddhist is wrong on the mental but both the Buddhist and Biologist are right about the physical, which consequently makes Hume wrong about everything. Rather, the mental is a simple substance that endures through time, so I guess in a sense it is the continuance of that substance, but certainly not in any causal way and the physical is the causal continuation.

[QUOTE]There are not two persons, because they make up the same person; the person is not being torn up into two parts just because he is changing.[QUOTE]

You are right, persons are not being torn apart because that would require them to endure through time. Rather, people are being created and annihilated with every moment. That is, if there is constant addition or subtraction in essential properties then what was, no longer is, and what is, is new.

mnkbdky

To be quiet honest, I am not sure what the essential properties of dogness are. Because, yes, some dogs do only have three legs. I tend to think dogs have souls and hence can remain the same over time regardless of accidental changes like the loss of a leg. I do know at least one characteristic of a dogs essential properties or dogness, it is always self identical. However, if we take the dog to be merely the sum of its parts without a soul then the dog has changed identities. Merely because the former dog had four legs and the one you have now does not.

Categories and Identity are different things. That is, that can be 10 different dogs and yet they can belong to the same category of doghood. But this 10 different dogs cannot be not-identical to themselves. That is, the essential property of being self identical cannot change, otherwise the dogs would be annihilated.

This a confustion of epistemology with ontology. There is a difference if I believe that I observed the annihilation of something and whether the annihilation actually took place.

Clutch

This is the perverse straw man that is rapidly diminishing the marginal utility of talking to you.

Please read carefully: It is the crux of my view that there is no identity over time. That's right. Read it again.

I've said this only about ten times now, in English and everything.

What I have demolished is your Assumption 1.

I have demolished it by limning a perfectly reasonable view on which there is no identity over time.

I have defended the reasonableness of this view by pointing out the misfire of your claim that it is unreasonable.

Your claim is that it's "loonie" to hold that the real connection between diachronic selves is one of psychological continuity rather than identity.

This claim misfires because it falsely assumes that the ongoing changes, on the psychological continuity model, would be radical. Your examples are of people changing their names, becoming wholly dissimilar, and so forth, over very short periods of time. The psychological continuity model entails no such thing.

It does entail -- indeed, trivially, comprises -- that there is no diachronic identity of selves. It entails this because it posits no hidden or transcendent simple substance, just a dynamic collection of psychological states. But unless you have some actual argument for the unreasonableness of that view -- other than your question-begging observation that it's inconsistent with... er... the view that there is such a substance -- then your Assumption 1 fails.

Since you have no such argument, your Assumption 1 fails.

John Page

Can you enlighten me by describing a dog's soul?
Agreed - but is not a category comprising one member equivalent to a single identity? Furthermore, the appearance of a dog persists over time - is the dog *your Fido* at t1 the same as the dog *your Fido* at t2? No, they are differentiated in time thus Fido comprises a series perceptions matching axiomatic Fidoness. A pack of dogs (of which Fido is a member) is perceived through sensing multiple instances of dogs which is a less restrictive definition than Fido.

Conclusion - an identity is a category containing one member. Both Identities and Categories are axiomatic concepts stored in the mind/brain and used to map perceptions.
... or whether you believe it actually took place. I agree we need to understand how it is we come to know things.

Cheers, John

mnkbdky

Ok, I have read it twice. Are you saying there is no such thing as diachronic identity? (don't answer this, it is a joke).

If you recall I ammended it to read:

(A1') Some rational people believe that they remain the numerically same person from the time they start reading this sentence to the time they finish.

Then what this argument would amount to is showing that if they believe this then they must also believe in the soul. But someone could just as easily argue

(A1steaksauce) Some rational people believe that they do not remain the numerically same person from the time they start reading this to the time they finish.

[QUOTE]I have defended the reasonableness of this view by pointing out the misfire of your claim that it is unreasonable.

Your claim is that it's "loonie" to hold that the real connection between diachronic selves is one of psychological continuity rather than identity.[QUOTE]

It is just a category mistake, that is all. pshychology deal with epistemology and identity is ontology.

What you have failed to do is give me any argument as to how how a physical event (i.e., brain event), is different from the mental event it produces. This is the task of a materialist. You cannot merely assert pyschological continuity. Read my post to ex-xian about the different types of theories. Then offer me yours if it is different. You could also check out the books I recommend to ex-xian, Jaegwon Kim's Mind in a Physical World is a great book, he determines that all accounts so far to remedy this problem fail. However, he still does not give up his materialistic view point. He believe that just because we cannot currently do it does not mean that it cannot be done. I agree, and encourage him to look. However, I don't think it can be done. And Scott Sturgeon in his book Matters of Mind also feels that every account fails because of what he calls the "overdetermination" objection. He view is that this can never be resolved and therefore we should remain agnostic as to whether there is a soul.

The question to you, then, is this; How is that the mental pyschological continuity is different from the physical events that cause them? That is, how is the physical brain event different frome the mental psychological continuity?

At least we are talking again. That makes me feel warm in my P-ness.

Bill Snedden

Between the time I read your reply to my last post and my composition of a reply, I note that both Clutch and John Page have made essentially the same points I would have made using about 70% less words and in a much more coherent manner. I'll leave their responses as comprising mine and comment only on this in your last post:

Why should the materialists be expected to meet a burden of proof that you yourself, as the one making a positive assertion, have been unable to meet? I've seen no "theory of the soul" that offers the types of explanations you require, above. Where does it "live"? Of what is it comprised? How does it function? And so on...

Regards,

Bill Snedden