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Saturday, July 01, 2006
“The Good Ship NEWF”
Fran here. A citation by Ace has me thinking about one of the more basic questions of metaphysics, so, since Saturdays tend to be slow here at Eternity Road anyway, I thought I'd dispatch the Curmudgeon out to weed the hedge while I talk a bit about questions of identity.
Who are you? I mean, really? And how do you know?
That phrase "identity theft:" what does it mean? Is the thief really stealing his victim's identity? Perhaps one could assert that in a small number of cases -- Jack Nicholson's old movie The Passenger comes to mind -- but far more often, he's stealing some group of the rights or privileges associated with that identity, isn't he? He doesn't want to be you; he simply wants to be able to do a few of the things you're entitled to do.
But let's get back to basics. Who are you? How do you know? And how do others know you for who you claim to be?
Most of us, thank God, never have to grapple with the question to any serious degree. That doesn't mean it isn't a serious question. Just ask Jeff Medcalf.
The question is hard to answer even when applied to inanimate objects. For example, let's imagine that I own a sailboat -- I don't, having no interest in water recreations -- and that I've named it the NEWF, after my late, beloved, exceedingly moist Newfoundland Bruno. The good ship NEWF can be viewed:
- Holistically, as a unitary entity with a clearly designed-in function and an associated identity, or:
- Reductionistically, as an assemblage of anonymous (I hope) wooden, steel, rope, and canvas parts.
When its function as a sailboat is being exercised, its holistic, functional identity is clearly the one of immediate interest. Yet if I were to shipwreck myself upon some lonely island -- perhaps Staten, with its forbidding landfills, or Fire, with its natives'...disturbing fleshly practices -- NEWF's reductionistic characteristics would come to the fore, as I made use of its planks for firewood and its sails for blankets. Many would claim that in that second case, there no longer is a good ship NEWF, merely a pile of useful, unnamed items.
Here's the ultimate poser about identity: Imagine that, in the quite ordinary course of maintenance, I were to remove one of NEWF's deck planks and replace it with another -- but instead of discarding the removed plank, I laid it aside. Imagine further that, over the years, I pulled up and replaced (but did not discard) still more planks, until a decade hence, I had replaced every component built into the original boat with an identical substitute. Would it still be the good ship NEWF?
I'll take you a step further: Imagine that I'd saved all the replaced components, and out of sheer philosophical whimsy built a boat from them that was identical to the original. The replaced components, torn one by one from the original structure, have now been reassembled into...the original structure! But...but...the "original" -- the one that now contains no component built into the NEWF at its moment of christening -- is sitting over there, at that dock! Which one is the good ship NEWF?
In practical terms, the problem is unimportant, as anyone who were to do such a thing would swiftly be certified and packed off to some pleasant institution with soft walls. But metaphysically, it spotlights the nature of identity as men understand it.
The undefined abstraction we call identity is inseparable from continuity.
The boat with "all new" components would have been continuously the NEWF, in service as the NEWF gives service, from the moment of its christening to the moment of the question, regardless of how many of its parts had been replaced. Its identity as a holistically, functionally viewed item was never interrupted. The components torn from it had no identity of their own; their "participation" in the NEWF's identity was strictly as "supporting cast." Their removal could not undermine the NEWF's "NEWFness," any more than the receipt of a transplanted kidney from Smith could lessen Jones's identity as Jones.
So who are you? Don't you owe your identity as yourself to having been continuously "in residence" in your body and mind from the moment of your birth? How much of that assemblage could be replaced without undermining your claim to your identity? What about the possibility of an "interruption in service?" That is, if you were to die tomorrow, and some time later were revived exactly as you are today, would you still be legitimately the person you are today? Would the length of the interruption matter to the argument? And what about the regular, refreshing interruptions of consciousness we call sleep?
For the really strong of stomach: were you who you are today -- in essence, not in acquired capabilities nor extrinsic possessions -- before you were released from your mother's womb? If so, what intervening events or changes, had they occurred, would have negated your fetus's claim to be you? If not, why not?
Discuss!
Comments
Oooh! Metaphysics!
I’ll just go over here and hit some rocks foor a while.
Posted by og on 07/01/2006 at 10:21 AMWell, just at the moment, I think I’m the result of a freak transporter accident. Like maybe Scotty forgot to service the Heisenberg compensators, so the real me is still stuck in the pattern buffer.
Must be some synchronicity going on, as I was talking about this sort of stuff with friend over breakfast this morning. “The Mind’s I” (Dennett - Hofstadter) comes to mind as a good read.
I’m surprised you didn’t bring in the religious argument. For example, a Buddhist would argue that you’re the same “you” through multiple incarnations.
I would argue that I am indeed the same “me” as I was when I was born. Or perhaps I am the sum of my life so far. It’s rather difficult to pin down this “essence” of self, without falling into gestalt arguments, but there seems no alternative. For what I perceive as being myself is, as best I can put it, the product of a multitude of brain activity, including the memories and knowledge acquired throughout my life. Of course, that raises the question of brain injury resulting in debilitation. I’d argue that “self” can change over time while still maintaining the same essence. Scraping and painting the boat doesn’t make it a different boat. But that’s not quite apt. I have in mind a construct of a 4-dimensional lump of play-doh, which over time can both grow and shrink, but still retains continuity with how it was in the past. But it’s still the same lump.
Posted by jed on 07/01/2006 at 02:51 PMThis war ma grannie’s bruim. O’er th’ years, she’s hed three niu haids ‘n’ four han’les. A’-in-a’, she’s beed a guid bruim.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 07/01/2006 at 05:25 PMThis really goes to the principle of a thing being more than just the sum of its parts. Your boat for example is a ‘boat’ even if you replace every last plank and stringer, as long as you do it piecemeal. The essence of ‘boatness’ remains as a sort of ‘soul’ of the whole object, and the new parts become part of the whole - they have no seperate existance as such.
As far as the kidney analogy, the kidney become part of Jones as soon as its fitted, no seperate existance you see:
Organs- We’re going for MacDonalds, Kidney, you coming?
Kidney- No thanks, I’m holding out for KFCUMMMM, what was the question again?
Posted by on 07/02/2006 at 06:39 AMOkay, what if you get all the replacement pieces and swap them all out in a short amount of time, let’s say a day. You call the new boat the NEWF from that time on. The old parts you reassemble into a boat a day later.
Now which one is the NEWF?
Does this, in part, rely on me? I can say which boat is the NEWF, regardless of the parts.
Posted by Russell on 07/02/2006 at 09:47 AM
