Bits of my Dissertation, sections of interest from my taught course this term. Somewhere to muse and coagulate.
Parfit on the Redundancy of Personal Identity
Those who apply principles of reductionism to personal identity believe that the ways in which we exist can be brought down to questions about the most basic kind of facts available to us when we examine persons. Parfit is one such reductionist. He shows in his major text Reasons and Persons (hereafter RP) how he wants to reduce discussion about persons down to theories about person-components and their continuations in time and space. In addition, he puts forward the conclusion that person-components have more resilience than persons to certain criteria, and to this end encourages us to reject any higher concept of personal identity as meaningless. We can say all we need to say for the purposes of morality and epistemology of persons without need for any such thing as a personal identity.
Parfit’s reductionism starts by reducing the continuity of persons into two; the continuation of the physical and the continuation of the psychological. He then establishes criteria for these continuations such that their validity can be tested. Parfit begins this process with an example of a teletransporter. This device destroys our bodies, reading the information as it goes, beams that information to another planet and with the scan as a blueprint rebuilds a replica from new organic matter. Is this the same person? One rejoinder that is rejected out of hand is this ‘It doesn’t matter, this is a situation which is impossible, it is meaningless to examine what would happen to a person under this scenario. Coming to conclusions about this kind of example won’t enable us to come to conclusions about persons in general, it’s absurd.’
In order to further his project Parfit is keen to introduce two theories, first that there are two kinds of impossibility that which is deeply impossible, going against the laws of nature; and that which is ‘merely technically impossible.’[PARFIT, 1984, p219] Second, on the model of teletransportation and the other examples set out, he wants to argue that we can end up with something which is as good as personal identity for the purposes of metaphysics and ethics.
However, the reductionism as defined in RP combined with Parfit’s technological examples leads him to note the apparent paradox this creates about personal identity. The nature of the paradox is similar to that of a Sorites problem. It seems counter productive to this reader to consider a case which produces a paradox, leading me to question the method that brought us here. The purpose of this essay is to do just that in an attempt to answer the question; does all this really have a bearing on what we should define as personal identity?
Two forms of continuity
It should be examined exactly how Parfit thinks that persons can be reduced to person-components, why and what this achieves, so this is where I will begin. Before setting out his own reductionism about persons (and therefore personal identity) Parfit makes the following statement.
‘Would this person [who was blind, but has now been fitted with new electronic eyes] be seeing these objects [before him]? If we insist that seeing must involve the normal cause, we would answer No. But even if this person cannot see, what he has is just as good as seeing, both in the way of knowing what is within sight, and as a source of visual pleasure. If we accept the Psychological Criterion, we could make a similar claim. If psychological continuity does not have its normal cause, it may not provide personal identity. But we can claim that, even if this is so, what it provides is as good as personal identity.’ [1984, p209]
In the case under consideration the aberration to the normal cause of psychological continuity is a teletransportation device. This device is a creation of science-fiction, which beams your consciousness from one location to another, to provide a swift mode of transport from, say, Earth to Mars. Parfit wants to use this, and many other technological advancements (and extrapolations) to show that we can construct circumstances when we will produce something that looks a lot like personal identity, but isn’t. Importantly, in addition to this, we are shown that this is a reason for personal identity not to matter.
We can see continuity in two ways; physically and psychologically. Physical continuity is, at its most basic level, the idea that we occupy a ‘chunk’ of the three-dimensional space that is the external world. We move around in this space, but at no time do we disappear from it. In the teletransportation example given in RP this continuity is severed. The body that I call mine is destroyed on Earth, and reconstructed on Mars. Parfit wants to say then that this is a good reason to reject physical continuity. It looks like we have the same body as it is an exact replica. However a line cannot be drawn such that there exists at all points on that line, somewhere in space, a body that I call mine.
Parfit remarks that there are two important criteria for physical continuity, numerical and qualitative identities. Simply put, for something to be numerically identical with something else, it must be the same thing. For something to be qualitatively identical, it must have all the same qualities. The example given in RP is that of billiard balls.
“two white billiard balls are not numerically but may be qualitatively identical. If I paint one of these balls red, it will cease to be qualitatively identical with itself as it was. But the red ball that I later see and the white ball that I painted red are numerically identical, they are one and the same ball.” [PARFIT, 1984, p210]
So I am the same person as myself if a line can be traced through time to show that I am numerically identical with another instantiation of me, and if I share the qualities of that other event of myself.
To this end we might say of people that they are not the same person, for example after they get married, or have an accident. We say that ‘he, the same person, is not now the same person’ [IBID]. With this distinction made in the ways we can be the same, this is not a contradiction. The person to whom we refer holds numerical, but not qualitative identity.
Parfit claims that this shows that numerical identity is the key to understanding the nature of persons, and qualitative identity is an important secondary component. That is to say that events will happen that change me psychologically or even to some extent physically (I might tan, shave, lose a limb…) but if I am numerically identical with myself these things are not the same as dying.
We can undergo major changes over a period of time, like a butterfly that begins life as a caterpillar, becomes a chrysalis and then a Camberwell Beauty [1984, p203]. Parfit only notes this phenomenon, before moving on to the more dynamic case of disassembly and reconstruction.
“Suppose I have the same gold watch I was given as a boy even though, for one month, it lay disassembled on a watch repairer’s shelf. On one view, in the spatio-temporal path traced by the watch there was not at every point a watch, so my watch does not have a history of full continuity. But during the month when my watch was disassembled, and did not exist, all of its parts had histories of full continuity. On another view, even when it was disassembled, my watch existed” [IBID]
Using this and one further complication we are introduced to the Physical Criterion of personal identity. The issue here is based on a thought experiment in which each part of an object is replaced such that, at the end of a period of time none of the original components remain. A ship, which undertakes its repairs at sea ending up constructed entirely of new wood, for example.
The Physical Criterion is then stated;
“The Physical Criterion: (1) What is necessary is not the continued existence of the whole body, but the continued existence of enough of the brain to be the brain of a living person. X today is one and the same person as Y as some point in time if and only if (2) enough of Y’s brain continued to exist, and is now X’s brain, and (3) this physical continuity has not taken a ‘branching’ form. (4) Personal identity over time just consists in holding of facts like (2) and (3).” [IBID, p204]
When discussing psychological continuity he defends Locke keenly, in order to take the principle that persons are, essentially, their memories;
“…yet it is plain, consciousness, as far as ever it can be extended- should it be to ages past- unites existences and actions very remote in time into the same person, as well as it does the existences and actions of the immediately preceding moment: so that whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions, is the same person to whom they both belong.” [LOCKE, 1997, p323]
It is important for persons to have a recollection of their continuation through time. Parfit is quick to point out, however, that there is a problem with large time spans. He pursues Locke’s theory and draws out the distinction between strong connectedness and continuity. This extend theory will become important when he begins his discussion about Relation R. [1984, p205]
Simply put, if I recall an experience that I had twenty years ago, there are ‘strong memory connections’ between me now, and me then. For Locke, if there is no such memory, then the experience twenty years ago did not happen to me, I am not the same person if I don’t remember the experience [LOCKE, 1997 p323]. Parfit rejects this, noting that there is still a ‘continuity of memory’ between me now, and me then. We remember the things that we did, and experienced, yesterday; and yesterday we remembered the day before and so on. A line can be drawn from X (an experience twenty years ago) to point Y (me now) and if there are no points at which that line refers to nothing, I have existed consistently from X to Y.
R-Relations
Parfit then extends this theory, beyond an experience and an associated memory. He argues that there are other relations for which the principle of the psychological criterion can hold, for example; an intention and a later act, which fulfills that intention. This is an example of direct connections, which Parfit will later term Relation R. He then presents us with two relations;
“Psychological connectedness is the holding of particular direct psychological connections.
Psychological continuity is the holding of overlapping chains of strong connectedness.” [PARFIT, 1984, p206]
Importantly, strong connectedness is not transitive. I am strongly connected to myself yesterday, and yesterday I was strongly connected to myself the day before. This process could continue back twenty years. That does not make me strongly connected to myself twenty years ago. However, continuity is transitive, by an appeal to The Psychological Criterion.
“The Psychological Criterion: (1) There s a psychological continuity if and only if there are overlapping chains of strong connectedness. X today is one and the same person as Y at some point in time if and only if (2) X is psychologically continuous with Y, (3) this continuity has the right kind of cause, and (4) it has not taken a ‘branching’ form. (5) Personal identity over time just consists in the holding of facts like (2) and (4).” [IBID p207]
In this way Parfit introduces us to his theory that personal identity is not what matters, we can still maintain all the relevant models of epistemology and ethics if we reduce persons down to their R-relations.
“What matters is Relation R: psychological connectedness and/or continuity with the right kind of cause… …In an account of what matters the right kind of cause could be any cause.” [IBID p215]
These relations also have the feature that they do not refer directly to a subject. As seen above the non-subjectivised nature of the continuities can be used to describe everything we can know about an individual, without ever having to say that those continuities are had by a person.
The slip between discussion of the subject and discussion of persons is entirely that of Parfit. TDJ Chappell has worked on this problem in his paper “Persons in Time: Metaphysics and Ethics” [CHAPPELL, 2003]. There is a real problem with this equation of subject and person namely that while it is possible to consider experiences without reference to persons, it is incoherent to undertake the same project rejecting reference to any subject who experiences.
‘We cannot conceive of experiences as only contingently yours, or mine, or whoever’s. There is no possible world in which this very experience is some other subject’s… …If an impersonal description of experience involves eliminating the experiencing subject, then an impersonal description is not a real possibility, and reductionism about the subject is false.’ [CHAPPELL, 2003 p190]
It is not directly necessary to my project to examine Chappell’s arguments around the nature of the reduction of persons here. However, it remains a problem for Parfit that he bundles up discussion about subjects and persons, and this is something that I will come back to later.
Thought experiments and technological examples
In many ways the simplest example of advancement in technology that Parfit describes to us is the ‘teletransporter’ [1984, p199] and it is with this that he begins a discussion about personal identity. In this story, a man travels to Mars using a Teletransporter. The device is a scanner, which destroys his brain and body while recording the exact states of all the cells. This information is then beamed to a Replicator on Mars and used as a blueprint to re-construct out of new matter a new body. It is in this new body that he will wake up. The story is extrapolated further, some years later our man enters the machine, but this time does not lose consciousness. He is informed that this is a new technology, that doesn’t destroy his body here, but still sends the data and replicates him on Mars.
It is by the theme of the second half of this story that we are introduced to the ‘branch line case’ [IBID, p201]. By the medium of this advanced technology we are shown how it is possible that a consciousness could diverge, one line out from the ‘main line’. In the example given in the story, the branch line is shorter than the main line, the scanner has damaged our hero’s cardiac systems, so the Earth-him can expect a heart attack in the next few days while the Mars-him can relax in the prospect of a normal life expectancy. This is the ‘branching form’ noted in the physical and psychological criterion earlier in this essay. For personal identity, it is important not to have taken a branching form.
The point seems to be this; the standard criteria of personal identity, physical and psychological, require non-branching forms of continuity. We have been shown how branching forms are technically possible. So these standard models of personal identity, as described by Parfit, are at fault. Or, there is something else that matters.
“If we believe that my Replica is not me, it is natural to assume that my prospect, on the Branch Line, is almost as bad as ordinary death. I shall deny this assumption… …being destroyed and Replicated is about as good as ordinary survival.” [IBID, p201]
Parfit is keen for us to note the past debate about personal identity, this is the project which I have outlined above at the start of this essay. So with this in mind, we should look to the later examples.
The Psychological and Physical spectra
With the theories of physical and psychological continuation as the principles for personal identity formulated, Parfit takes an example from Williams [1970] as worked against the psychological criterion. Parfit outlines this in a thought experiment about the callous neurosurgeon. To summarize, I am to undergo some manner of operation that will swap my memories for those of Napoleon. The neurosurgeon will open up my skull while I am still conscious, causing me immense pain, and then erase all of my memories. There is no reason for me to expect that this will end my pain, and I may be so preoccupied by it that this change goes unnoticed. Next, the surgeon, will implant into my brain all of the memories of Napoleon. Since this will also, bring no end to my pain, I may not notice this either. When the pain at last subsides, I will have the memories of Napoleon.
There are a number of problems that Parfit highlights about this example. The thought experiment may beg the question of subject hood, by inferring that I might be in so much pain that I do not notice the change in my memories, already implies that the person in pain would still be me, even without my memories. Even though, as Parfit wants to have it, psychological continuity is severed, and there is some meaningful question about the nature of the person we are left with. This seems to be another confusion with the subject/person distinction.
Next, we are invited to muse over a revision of the argument given above. This time, the neurosurgeon will exchange, on a one for one basis, my memories with those of Napoleon. The change from my memories to those of Napoleon will be gradual. Thus is highlighted the second problem, that of Sorites. On this description, we are tempted to think that, after each flip of the switch, there is so little change that we must essentially have the same person. As with the Paradox of the Heap, where we are forced into the of absurdity referring to one grain of rice as a heap [HYDE, 2004], we are seemingly lead to the absurd conclusion that a 99% saturation of Napoleon still makes me the same person. Have we somehow created a paradox of personal identity?
There is one agenda worth noting before I continue. First, Parfit seems to be of the opinion that memories are somehow modular. He briefly discusses the speculation surrounding how memories are stored in the brain and settles on the macro model. This relies on whole chunks of physical brain matter being equivalent to our memory of the sea, or our ability to use nouns. Interestingly in the above thought experiment the implication is that this is a purely psychological exchange, not a physical one as you would expect if chucks of brain were being cut out and replaced. In fact the process of this transferal of knowledge is never stated, which is not cause for attack on the method in itself, but is an interesting point worthy of note.
The paradox of personal identity
In creating an apparent paradox of personal identity, Parfit wants to show up some errors in convention. He highlights specifically the notions of empty questions, which he asserts as a better model of the situation we find ourselves contemplating.
“Though there is no answer to this question [‘will this still be me?’ when I have some portion of my memories swapped by the mad neuroscientist], I could know exactly what will happen. This question is, here, empty.” [1984, p 233]
The point here being this; we can know all there is to know about a given situation, what proportion of the memories will be mine and what particular connections these will be. There is no more information to be gained by answering the question, ‘is this resulting person me?’
Parfit goes on to demonstrate, with further examples how we can have this same situation of an empty question with disruptions to our physical make up. In this case, parts of my physical form are replaced in 1% increments up to the case where I am 99% new matter, but with all of my own continuing psychology. We are still faced with empty questions about who I will be near the middle of this spectrum. There is a similar case cited about a ship that, over the course of its time at sea, undergoes many piecemeal repairs such that none of the original wood remains (mentioned earlier in this paper). Parfit alters this analogous example when it comes to persons, and at the 100% end of the spectrum (where I am 100% replaced) my original form is destroyed and my new form, constructed out of fresh organic matter, is created in my place. This is equivalent to the example of teletransportation.
It is unclear why this last 1%, from 99% to 100%, should be different from the rest. Why does the 100% case involve a complete destruction of my form in order to change my old matter for new? The model is designed to show us how we can disrupt continuities, so destruction and replacement is the theme. Importantly, if this were not the case then we might be confronted with a new kind of continuity. Here the physical continuity would simply expand to cover the new matter. There would be time when new matter is in contact with the old, merely altering the continuity rather than disrupting it. As far as biological science can tell us, this is happening all the time naturally as cells are replaced. Parfit’s new example has to be a statement of something different.
We are then introduced to the combined spectrum, where both my physical and my psychological continuities are altered. I am, by stages, given new memories and a new body. This all leads to an interesting need to state that, if I am totally destroyed and then a replica of Greta Garbo is created out of new matter, that’s not me.
We do not tend to think of persons in such a way that would lead us into paradox about them. So constructing examples about how we think of persons that lead us to paradox seems counter productive. It might be that this problem arises with the confusion between subject and person. When the neuroscientist alters my memories, it is not possible to conceive of this process changing the subject. He does his experimenting on the same humanoid form. It is impossible to imagine this happening without referral to some subject, otherwise the experiment is meaningless.
In then further attempting to expand the hypothesis from persons to subjects, the combined spectrum thought experiment considers the creation of a new subject. In destroying me, and creating Greta Garbo we have learned nothing about the nature of persons. This situation, for the original subject, is as bad as ordinary death. The subject to whom the experiment refers has changed. This still shows us that there is a subject to whom the continuities refer.
Parfit’s project to reject the notion of personal identity seems to have failed at an important hurdle. While the theories of continuity he sets out are coherent as descriptors of how we maintain through time, the confusion between his use of person and subject clouds his conclusion. We cannot reject subject hood, without ending the discussion in nonsense. The resulting paradox must be a symptom of something more problematic, since the criteria are designed to hold without need for subject or person. It may be possible that the continuities need not refer to a person, but if this were the case then I would argue that we should reject them as descriptors of persons, rather than reject personhood itself.
References
CHAPPELL, TDJ (2003) ‘Persons in time: metaphysics and ethics’ Time and Ethics pp. 189-207
HYDE, D (2004) ‘Sorites Paradox’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ (2004) (Accessed: 22nd April, 2005)
LOCKE, J (1997) An essay concerning human understanding, 5th edn. London; Penguin Books Ltd p323
PARFIT, D (1984) Reasons and persons, Oxford University Press
WILLIAMS, B., (1970) ‘The self and the future’, Philosophical Review 79, No. 2
The Mystery of Consciousness – John R Searle.
Published by Granta Books 1997, 215 pages ( + XVI)
John Searle writes this book as an amalgamation of a series of articles published in The New York Review of Books between 1995 and 1997. He undertakes discussion of six accounts of consciousness theory: Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers and Israel Rosenfield. The discussions range from sympathetic and informative - the case of the first two accounts especially – to abrasive and trivial, in the case of Chalmers particularly. This does not, however, impact on the use of the text as a tool for overview in this ever more complex field of discussion. Searle himself writes his position in the form of a prologue and introduction, and then a final concluding chapter.
The over-arching theme of the book, which comes from Searle, is that consciousness is a biological process. The brain is our medium for having consciousness, and consciousness is a direct product of the brain. This position is problematic in itself, relying heavily on specific definitions of consciousness, which are set down in the introduction as trivial, common sense notions;
‘“consciousness” refers to those states of sentience and awareness that typically begin when we awake from a dreamless sleep and continue until we go to asleep again, or fall into a coma or die or otherwise become “unconscious”.’
This statement of the ‘common sense’ is typical throughout the work and has the result of giving many of Searle’s more detailed arguments a simple rejoinder. His theories are regularly restatements of an idea that is trivially true on his model of consciousness, relating directly to what becomes his basic theory - ‘consciousness is in the brain’
Despite this logical stasis, and possibly because of it, the works Searle lays down over the course of this short book are demonstrated to be diverse and controversial in the field. The method used throughout the book is to summarise an original work and then discuss the position or ideas in relation to Searle’s own thought. This system works well, and it is supplemented in places by direct exchanges with the philosophers in question. These letters between Dennett/Searle, and Chalmers/Searle, provide an insight into the debate as it currently rages.
Chapter 2, a discussion on Francis Crick contains a well explained account of brain processes and synaptic relations. From the position of ‘consciousness is in the brain’ – which I will call the CB theory from here for simplicity – this account is clearly appealing. The science, while complex, is not overwhelming, and clearly described with diagrams and explanations. There is only a little philosophy in this chapter, as Crick is primarily a scientist. However, this starting section gives the reader a good background to the science of the issues at hand.
Chapter 3 establishes another position based on the structure of the brain. Edelman, according to Searle, thinks that an individual neuron is too small to be the key to consciousness, and as such develops a theory based on groups of neurons. The science is again clear and simplified, with these ideas remaining in clear focus. Put simply groups of neurons send information to each other and in a kind of relay, get a version of that information reflected back at them. It is in this ‘re-entry’ (p41) process that consciousness is based.
Chapter 4 details a position based in mathematics following the method used by Penrose. This chapter, like the one on Crick is technically demanding on the reader. Stated briefly, it contains the ideas of Gödel’s theorem, which states that “ there are statements in mathematical systems which are true, but cannot be proven in those systems.” (p56) and cytoskeletons, which are basically the microscopic building blocks of neurons. The area of interest for Searle here is the distinction between Strong AI (which Searle wants to reject) and Weak AI (which Searle can accept) . Strong AI being the position that ‘the mind is just a computer program. There is nothing else there.” (p9) Weak AI, by contrast, is he view that “the computer is a useful tool for simulations of [..] anything we can describe precisely.” (p9) Weather predictions, cash flows and some brain processes are stated as examples of this phenomena. Gödel’s mathematics is complicated, but is explained well in English. The main aim of this discussion for Penrose is to object that we can even be simulated on computers, the idea of Weak AI. The sections discussed by Searle, on cytoskeletons and clear as he follows Penrose in his task to show that they seem to operate at a quantum level. The main thrust of this chapter is that when we better understand quantum physics and mathematics, we will be able to understand clearly what gives rise to consciousness.
Thus far, Searle has been sympathetic and clear about the ideas of these men. Understandably so, they all (to some degree or another) support his CB theory. However, the debate becomes much more interesting when Searle works thorough the hypotheses of Dennett and Chalmers. At this point, he is working against ideas that are based on a different starting position than the CB theory. In essence, Dennett wants to deny consciousness – as the process which explains qualia (the qualitative states of subjective experience – my pain for one), ‘that special feeling’ [emphasis in original] (p118). In Chapter 5 Searle’s unmoving position becomes more pronounced. In arguing with Dennett on his radically different approach, the principles that give rise to the idea that ‘consciousness is in the brain’ begin to show more clearly as lacking. Statements that are designed to be the final word [ “If is consciously seems to me that I am conscious then I am conscious” (p122) for example] sit starkly against this more distinct background.
In chapter 6, Searle undertakes a brief history of the debate over consciousness. Starting with Cartesian Dualism (the view that everything can be split into two parts, the mental – a soul – and the physical – a body), moving swiftly through Materialism (consciousness should be explained by reducing it to the physical – beliefs are just states of the brain) and Behaviorism (there is nothing but pains, beliefs and actions and consciousness should be explained in terms these things), and finally settling on Functionalism (see below). This is the starting point for his discussion of Chalmers, who in his book The Conscious Mind augments Functionalism with the theory that consciousness can be added on as something out with the main system. Functionalism is the theory that combines (at least in principle) the least problematic components of Behaviorism and Materialism. However, ordinarily this idea has needed to deny the reducibility of consciousness to be practical. Chalmers does not seem to worry about this, and merely adds in consciousness as a periphery to the system, which according to Searle, makes him a Functional Duelist – and puts him right back at the original problem.
Rather than attempting to solve this quandary, Searle re-applies his idea ‘consciousness is in the brain’ to see if it will stick. Unsurprisingly it won’t, and this leads to a further ‘exchange’ chapter as Chalmers attempts to defend his position.
The book is well structured, with a good index of terms and people. Searle always clearly defines his objections to ideas, however it becomes steadily more problematic for the reader to distinguish between the Searle’s version of, say, Dennett and Dennett’s ideas themselves. Importantly though, this book demonstrates some key problems surrounding not only the idea of consciousness specifically, but the ways in which we are inclined to think. The book contains a clear account of the commonly used thought experiment ‘the Chinese Room’ as well as clear explanations of key theories in the debate – from Dualism to Functionalism, taking in outright denial en route.
The fact remains that the debate over consciousness will not be resolved quickly and quietly. Searle adds more to the fervor of the debate with his no-nonsense approach to ideas which do not suit him. Bearing this in mind, a reader must be on her guard. Searle does not fall foul of direct misinterpretation, but in some places the simplifications miss important features and corollaries of the original texts. It is from these sections that direct debate has formed. The text remains a useful starting point for the issue at hand, showing the spectrum of ideas on the subject. As a tool for further reading and insight into some of the basic concepts under discussion in the wider arena The Mystery of Consciousness is invaluable. Be warned, however, the style is compelling and swift – and along with it come simplifications that inspire reference to the original texts for more advanced understanding.
