Dar al-Hikma

[Vivisectus]

Correct me if I am wrong, but your argument seems to presuppose that if memories are removed, all functional connection disappears between the person that was there, and the person as it is now. But that strikes me as being based on an overly simplified model of the brain as a sort of receptacle of memories.

The memories in the brain may be removed, or inaccessible, but a lot of things remain: hormonal balances, simple quirks of the way the brain is built and integrated into the rest of the nervous system, sensitivity or insensitivity to stimuli... and all of these could translate into preferences, affinities, and drives. These in turn would make a person more likely to develop in certain ways, and could even be perceived as representing significant parts of someone’s personality, or at the very least the things that drives it to develop.

We can wonder if there ever is a “blank slate” – either for the infant being born into the Elysian Fields, or for our poor stroke-victim: both start with a considerable amount of inherited baggage, especially Paul the amnesiac. For instance, one does not require a memory of a vicious dog attack to develop an deep-seated fear of dogs, just to name a simple example.

You would have to propose a much more invasive kind of stroke to achieve the kind of difference as those between a dead man in the past and a new born child: and it would be a curiously gratifying stroke for you, as it would have to be the kind of stroke that makes you correct about your example by default: you would end up saying “Let us suppose someone had a stroke that made it exactly as if this person was now someone completely different, someone without any personality at all, but still functioning as a rational person in all respects!”

Come to think of it, it seems to me you would also require a strange genetic epidemic to hit the world that makes all new-borns more or less identical.

In other words, is there not the very real risk that your thought-experiment is phrased in such a way that it already contains the conclusion you are looking for?

[Vivisectus]

Another fun thought occurs to me:

If the return of a consciousness can happen after a "gap" independent of memory or the sensation of continuity, then how do we know that the same consciousness returns after any gap in consciousness? Do you also argue that once a person becomes unconscious, the first person to wake up after that can be said to be the continuation of the consciousness of the person who fell asleep?

[LadyShea]

I am with Christina, it makes no sense to me to talk of subjective experiences when a person has died, for without a living brain there is no subject to experience anything. I would call it "cessation" rather than suspension or disruption.

So, imagining Nicos' viewpoint alone, we ignore the outward appearance of the matter and focus on the purely subjective experience which Nicos should be expected to encounter. What can we say of the moment when personal identity finally fails him? At that moment Nicos' subjective experience is suspended — in toto — by the functional disruption of death. This suspension is still understood most readily as an unfelt time-gap. Nicos' subjective experience of death is thereby reduced to an elemental, which is just this:

Subjectively, Nicos' unfelt time-gap continues, indefinitely.

I also don't consider a newborn a blank slate, since the brain exists in the womb, neural connections have been formed, no matter how few.

[ChristinaM]

Originally Posted by wstewart

Questions on related topics are OK by me. Only, in thread, I think it makes sense to defer questions that go beyond the scope of Old/New Paul while that scenario is under active debate. PM's an option.

Thanks. I think that for now I'll just follow along since I'm not well-versed at all in philosophy. Most people don't want to take a break to explain the entire history of western philosophy to me so that I can follow along LadyShea seems to have the same sort of questions that I do but will express them using correct terminology so I'll just watch for a while and see if my questions get answered by the end of the discussion. It's really interesting.

[Vivisectus]

Ooooh critical question #5:

What distinguishes a new consciousness that has not existed before from one that has, and is a continuation of a dead person's consciousness?

[ceptimus]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

Is a child born right now, while I am still alive, any less a part of me than a second child born just after I die?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Another fun thought occurs to me:

If the return of a consciousness can happen after a "gap" independent of memory or the sensation of continuity, then how do we know that the same consciousness returns after any gap in consciousness? Do you also argue that once a person becomes unconscious, the first person to wake up after that can be said to be the continuation of the consciousness of the person who fell asleep?

You'll find that Wayne addresses these points at the end of Chapter 11, I believe, and I think he even says existential passage can happen without death.

We can come up with all kinds of interesting thought experiments. But, for me, I just want to cut to the chase. We can compare what I shall call "standard physicalism" (SP) with "existential passage" (EP). Let SP stand for the usual idea of non-religious materialists, that when we die we die and that's it, though future people are born.

What I want to say is this: For both those who have subjective experiences, and for those who are objective observers, there is no difference at all between what is felt and observed under SP, and what is felt and observed under EP. It therefore follows that EP is superfluous.

Let us consider: x dies, and y is born.

Under SP, x fades out, loses consciousness but does not feel or experience any "passage" to a later person, or later point of view. EP agrees with this. Under both SP and EP, x is well and truly gone, forever. There is no "felt passage."

Under SP, y comes into existence, but does not feel that his subjective perspective has "passed" from any prior person. EP agrees with this. Under both SP and EP, y, qua y, emerged from a blank void, with no prior memories of another point of view possible even in principle.

Under SP, outside observers witness x dying, and y being born. They do not note anything "passing" from one to the other: No soul, no body or brain, and no passage of subjective continuity. Under EP the same thing is true. No soul, nothing phyiscal, and no way in principle even to observe any generic subjective continuity or existential passage, since these things, being subjective, cannot be objectively observed even in principle.

Thus, under both SP and EP, everything looks exactly alike, both to subjective persons and objective observers.

Since there is no experiential or observational difference between SP and EP even in principle, it seems that like the aether with respect to light, EP is a superfluous idea.

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by davidm

...you are saying that there is a passage from Old Paul to New. Is that not right?

Yes, that's the essay view. But not for the reason you've given.

In essay it's the subjective/objective transitions that delimit unfelt time-gaps, and these transitions are universal, in the sense of common natural phenomena. New Paul's transition therefore seems adequate to end the unfelt time-gap, irrespective of the degree of injury, "pattern" loss, or amnesia encountered prior to the transition. The transition provides the necessary and sufficient function. Additional functions, metaphysical entities or "substances" are not specified in essay because they seem always to fall under Occam's Razor, as unnecessary, or perhaps just meaningless.

Were the passage dependent instead upon your non-functional "substance" it would be effectively magical. Can you wield Occam's Razor on that magic yourself?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by davidm

Er, but I AM giving you a brief account.

As to the rest, subjective awareness created ex nihilo happens under EP, as does merger: One, two, three or many people die, and subjective continuity from all those people continues in only one future person. There can also be splits: subjectivity continuity continuance from dead x to newborn twins y and z, for example.

BTW, Wayne's book isn't that long, and especially to get to the main point you can skip the first eight chapters and read from Chapter 9 on. I don't see why doing so is such a big deal, if you want to discuss this. In the case of peacegirl, several of us, including you I believe, DID read the whole book; what we were contesting is her own inability, ever, to provide her own summary of the main points, in her own words. Now I have summarized Wayne's thesis for you; if I've erred, as I say, I expect he will inform me.

OK, I read chapter 9 and parts of the other chapters, it seems that Wayne is proposing several possibilities for 'Passage' that would account for multiple births with not enough deaths, and multiple deaths with not enough births. It really gets very speculative.

Oh, Sorry about the outburst yesterday, I was just frustrated that it seemed like no-one was addressing the actual question but answering side issues.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by thedoc

OK, I read chapter 9 and parts of the other chapters, it seems that Wayne is proposing several possibilities for 'Passage' that would account for multiple births with not enough deaths, and multiple deaths with not enough births. It really gets very speculative.

Oh, Sorry about the outburst yesterday, I was just frustrated that it seemed like no-one was addressing the actual question but answering side issues.

Well, Wayne is here, why not pose questions to him?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by wstewart

Yes, that's the essay view. But not for the reason you've given.

In essay it's the subjective/objective transitions that delimit unfelt time-gaps, and these transitions are universal, in the sense of common natural phenomena. New Paul's transition therefore seems adequate to end the unfelt time-gap, irrespective of the degree of injury, "pattern" loss, or amnesia encountered prior to the transition. The transition provides the necessary and sufficient function. Additional functions, metaphysical entities or "substances" are not specified in essay because they seem always to fall under Occam's Razor, as unnecessary, or perhaps just meaningless.

Were the passage dependent instead upon your non-functional "substance" it would be effectively magical. Can you wield Occam's Razor on that magic yourself?

As Vivisectus has noted, though, it's not clear that in case we should call the substance of the brain "non-functional."

Also, ironically enough, it appears you and I are wielding the Razor in cross purposes. If you read my comparison of standard materialism and existential passage, I suggest the razor lops off the passage.

In any event, we can posit another, more extreme scenario. Suppose evil doctors kidnap old Paul and, armed with advance technology, yank the brain out of his head and totally destroy it. Then they rebuild the brain such that New Paul is a blank slate. New Paul wakes up and finds the world as a newborn babe does, with no memory of Old Paul. But the totally refurbished brain is in the same body. What is the state of passage in this case?

As an alternative, we can image the evil doctors rebuilding the brain such that it creates a new Paul, with false memories of a non-existent past. In this case, when New Paul wakes up, he is in the position of anyone who wakes up in the morning after sleeping: He can remember a consistent past life, but in this case, the past is utterly fictitious. What is the state of passage in this case?

Another scenario. Joe Barnes is a plumber, 51 years old. He wakes up in the morning, and has a consistent set of Joe Barnes memories for his 51 years of life. At the end of the day, he goes to bed. Right after he goes to bed, Barack Obama wakes up in the White House. Obama, also 51, has a consistent set of Obama memories of his 51 years of life. Since Joe went to bed and right away afterward Obama woke up, can we not posit that the subjectivity of Joe passed to Obama? Maybe this happens every day, to everyone? If so, now would we know? How we would verify or disconfirm this?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by davidm

Well, Wayne is here, why not pose questions to him?

If you look back at the question as first posed it was addressed to you, Wayne, Peacegirl and anyone else who cared to answer.

I did have 2 objections to Chapter 9 but not relivant to the main subject.

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

The memories in the brain may be removed, or inaccessible, but a lot of things remain: hormonal balances, simple quirks of the way the brain is built and integrated into the rest of the nervous system, sensitivity or insensitivity to stimuli...

You think persistent properties such as "hormonal balances", "quirks" and "sensitivites" can have bearing on the question of Old Paul's passage to New. But how could any of these three example properties actually determine the passage outcome, in functional terms? I don't see how they could.

I think davidm has a similar difficulty.

[thedoc]

As I read chapter 9 there was a refeence to 'time-gaps' and it seemed to be implying that the mind or consciousness lost track of the passage of time. I would contradict this with my own experience, in that even sleeping I do not loose track of time, and when awake and occupied in other activities my mind is accurately aware of the passage of time. 2 examples,

When sleeping, if I have determined that I need to be up at a certain time the nest morning, I can reliably wake up in time to be out of bed at the necessary hour without an alarm clock or any other external signal.

I buy on EBay, and I will usually have the urge to check an auction in time for the auction to close, even if I am not in proximity to a clock and am occupied with another activity. I have usually made some mental note of the closing time beforehand. The thought will come into my mind that a particulr auction might be closing and when I check it is shortly before the auction does close, just in time to bid if I choose.

My point is that the mind, (at least mine) is aware of the passage of time, usually quite accurately. So I question the validity of 'time gaps' of consciousness.

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by davidm

As Vivisectus has noted, though, it's not clear that in case we should call the substance of the brain "non-functional."

When it doesn't perform the requisite subjective function, it certainly is non-functional. No other function or property delimits the unfelt time-gap, which is concomitant with passage of Old Paul to New.

Crediting instead some non-functional brain "substance" with the passage would be effectively an invocation of magic. And of course magic explains nothing.

Originally Posted by davidm

Also, ironically enough, it appears you and I are wielding the Razor in cross purposes. If you read my comparison of standard materialism and existential passage, I suggest the razor lops off the passage.

No. Magic gets lopped off.

Originally Posted by davidm

In any event, we can posit another, more extreme scenario. Suppose evil doctors kidnap old Paul and, armed with advance technology, yank the brain out of his head and totally destroy it. Then they rebuild the brain...

Your sci-fi is non-functional, hence magical, hence superfluous.

Can you explain Old Paul's passage to New, without resorting to any form of magic?

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by thedoc

As I read chapter 9 there was a refeence to 'time-gaps' and it seemed to be implying that the mind or consciousness lost track of the passage of time. I would contradict this with my own experience... My point is that the mind, (at least mine) is aware of the passage of time, usually quite accurately. So I question the validity of 'time gaps' of consciousness.

James was distinguishing felt from unfelt time-gaps in his treatise on the stream of thought. It's the unfelt time-gaps that differ from common experience. They entail transitions, and limits, that are made explicit in essay. E.g., the subjective/objective transition and the corresponding limit of personal identity.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by wstewart

When it doesn't perform the requisite subjective function, it certainly is non-functional. No other function or property delimits the unfelt time-gap, which is concomitant with passage of Old Paul to New.

Crediting instead some non-functional brain "substance" with the passage would be effectively an invocation of magic. And of course magic explains nothing.

No. Magic gets lopped off.

Your sci-fi is non-functional, hence magical, hence superfluous.

Can you explain Old Paul's passage to New, without resorting to any form of magic?

I don't see how magic is required. "Passage" in this context is defined by materialism, but it also may just be a manner of speaking. Perhaps it's wrong to say Old Paul has passed to New Paul.

Under materialism. we just look at the bare facts. There are two different personalities, but they share the same body. They also share the same brain, but the radical reconfiguration of the brain is what explains how we get New Paul later than Old Paul. Some would say that New Paul and Old Paul are entirely different people, but it's undeniably empirically true that they share the same body and also they share a brain, albeit this brain has been radically reconfigured, which the standard materialist would say accounts for the change from Old to New.

This, it seems to me, is just an extreme example, as I've previously noted, of what happens to all of us from moment to moment: our brains get reconfigured by experience, but usually not so drastically that we suffer a mortal amnesia that robs us of all past memories and makes us a blank slate.

As I'm sure you know, many people would be inclined to turn your "magic" charge back on you, and ask what Nicos and Thanos share? They do not share the same brain, or body. One died and the other was born. How, then, does subjective point of view pass from one to the other? And given that the extinct person is well and truly gone, and feels no sense of passage, and that the new person does not feel as if he has ever been "someone else," how does this scenario differ in any respect from the standard materialist claim, viz, x dies and y is born? What does existential passage add to our understanding of this situation?

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by davidm

I don't see how magic is required. "Passage" in this context is defined by materialism, but it also may just be a manner of speaking. Perhaps it's wrong to say Old Paul has passed to New Paul.

New Paul has initiated the objective/subjective transition that ends an unfelt time-gap. If Old Paul's unfelt time-gap ends with that transition, he encounters passage to New Paul, subjectively. If not, he doesn't. Passage should be understandable in these terms.

Do you accept these terms? Do you still think Old Paul passes to New, in these terms?

Of course in my view the transitions are necessary and sufficient for the passage. In your view something else is required. Some unspecified, apparently "un-reconfigured" portion of New Paul's brain, which somehow does something to enable the passage from Old Paul to New.

I've no idea what that addition could be. Whatever it is, it would need to have some definite, relevant and vital function which explains its necessity.

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by ChristinaM

Thanks. I think that for now I'll just follow along since I'm not well-versed at all in philosophy. Most people don't want to take a break to explain the entire history of western philosophy to me so that I can follow along LadyShea seems to have the same sort of questions that I do but will express them using correct terminology so I'll just watch for a while and see if my questions get answered by the end of the discussion. It's really interesting.

OK. btw, the essay has this basic structure:

• Chapters 1 - 4 are historical.
• Chapters 5 - 8 provide contemporary scientific and philosophical background.
• Chapter 9 applies the background material to William James' unfelt time-gaps, and to Old and New Paul.
• Then Chapter 9 ff. applies all that to Nicos and Thanos, with some unexpected results.

For the moment, it's Old and New Paul in the spotlight. Possibly background chapters 5 - 8, or the endnote references, will clarify the terms and their application to Old and New Paul.

[ChristinaM]

Wayne, I think I'm just so centered in my atheist view that the concept of any sort of self or subjective view after death is virtually meaningless to me and instead of a gap there's a cessation. If I stand back a bit and watch you and David discuss it I can suspend my own disbelief and follow the logic and it's a very interesting workout for my brain.

[wstewart]

Originally Posted by wstewart

New Paul has initiated the objective/subjective transition that ends an unfelt time-gap. If Old Paul's unfelt time-gap ends with that transition, he encounters passage to New Paul, subjectively. If not, he doesn't. Passage should be understandable in these terms.

Do you accept these terms? Do you still think Old Paul passes to New, in these terms?

Of course in my view the transitions are necessary and sufficient for the passage. In your view something else is required. Some unspecified, apparently "un-reconfigured" portion of New Paul's brain, which somehow does something to enable the passage from Old Paul to New.

I've no idea what that addition could be. Whatever it is, it would need to have some definite, relevant and vital function which explains its necessity.

If no such brain function is present in the Old/New Paul scenario, how could the same-brain requirement possibly apply?

An external function, such as a comparison, maybe? That is, some comparison of the part's composition at both ends of the unfelt time-gap, to verify that the unchanging part is truly unchanged. This would entail some agency, to record composition at both times, compare them, and make enforceable judgment. Or I suppose records would be unnecessary if the agency were able to compare across time, but that would involve time-travel. And of course external agency and any record-keeping, time-travel or other actions would themselves need explanation, to put it mildly. The explanation would almost certainly lead to Occam's "needless multiplication of entities".

[davidm]

Originally Posted by wstewart

If no such brain function is present in the Old/New Paul scenario, how could the same-brain requirement possibly apply?

An external function, such as a comparison, maybe? That is, some comparison of the part's composition at both ends of the unfelt time-gap, to verify that the unchanging part is truly unchanged. This would entail some agency, to record composition at both times, compare them, and make enforceable judgment. Or I suppose records would be unnecessary if the agency were able to compare across time, but that would involve time-travel. And of course external agency and any record-keeping, time-travel or other actions would themselves need explanation, to put it mildly. The explanation would almost certainly lead to Occam's "needless multiplication of entities".

I've already posited an even more extreme scenario, that evil scientists rip Old Paul's brain out of his head, completely destroy it, and then insert a new brain. In one version of the scenario, the new brain is a blank slate, and New Paul wakes up in Old Paul's body, but with the mental outlook of a newborn infant, and of course no memories. In Scenario 2, the refurbished brain has a false set of consistent memories, so that on waking, New Paul feels as if he were just waking from ordinary sleep, from an unfelt time gap, and his memory reaches back to his existentially perceived, but utterly counterfeit, past.

For the purely materialistic point of view, there is no account in these two scenarios of existential passage even in principle, though we can say in a loose sense that Old Paul has "passed" to New Paul in virtue of the fact that they share the same body and one was changed into the other through physical means.

The problem with these "unfelt time gaps," as I see it, is this: the very use of "gap" presupposes an end to the gap, for that is what a gap is: a temporary abridging. But we already know, even under existential passage, that when x dies, the gap never ends for x as x, so x, as x, can never, as it were, come to the opposite shore. As for y, who is born later than the death of x, there is no "ending of the gap," since for y, there is only a fathomless void prior to his first becoming aware, and he has no memory of any personal past or "prior point of view." Given these states of affairs, which definitely obtain under existential passage, I submit again that there simply is no functional distinction between the claim of EP and that of standard materialism. Everything looks exactly the same for everyone under both EP and SM, so why invoke EP? if x "passes" to y, x will never experience or feel this fact; and if y passed from x, y will never be able to feel or know this in any way. How is this different from just saying, "x died and y was born," and leave it at that?

[LadyShea]

david, I posted this recently.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I am with Christina, it makes no sense to me to talk of subjective experiences when a person has died, for without a living brain there is no subject to experience anything. I would call it "cessation" rather than suspension or disruption.

I also don't consider a newborn a blank slate, since the brain exists in the womb, neural connections have been formed, no matter how few.

Until I understand why suspension and disruption were used instead of cessation, I am afraid I can't follow Stewarts reasoning.

Additionally, until peacegirl can specify the referent in the various uses of personal pronouns, I don't see that there is anything to ask questions about.

[thedoc]

Yes, in the situation of death, there needs to be an explination of why it is considered as a "Time-Gap" that implies a begining and an end. The usual concept of a death is the cessation of everything, it is only in a religious context that there is a continuation of anything.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

david, I posted this recently.

Until I understand why suspension and disruption were used instead of cessation, I am afraid I can't follow Stewarts reasoning.

Yes, I think this is the key problem. The use of the term "gap," under the very reasoning of Existential Passage, just is NOT a "gap" for x, as x. For x as x, it's permanent cessation -- which is exactly the same thing that standard materialism says. And, again, y, avowedly under EP, has no sense of having bridged a gap -- as he comes to be consciously aware, he cannot have the sense of retroactively cognizing the existence of an unfelt time gap, since he has no memory of the "prior point of view," and hence no sense of there having been a shore on the other side of a gap that he has bridged. If he agrees with EP, he may come to believe that there had been some such prior shore, with a prior but different personal point of view, but he will never feel or remember it. For my money, this just means we must take an eliminativist or deflationist point of view, arguing that at best EP collapses into standard materialism and there is nothing more to be said.