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Full Idea
I think personal identity depends on the identity of the body, and that a person's ownership of states of consciousness consists in their standing in a special causal relation to the body by which he is identified.
Gist of Idea
People own conscious states because they are causally related to the identifying body
Source
A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
Book Ref
Ayer,A.J.: 'The Concept of a Person etc' [Macmillan 1973], p.116
A Reaction
I think with this is right, with the slight reservation that Ayer talks as if there were two things which have a causal relationship, implying that the link is contingent. Better to think of the whole thing as a single causal network.
| 5661 | We identify experiences by their owners, so we can't define owners by their experiences [Ayer] |
| 5662 | Maybe induction could never prove the existence of something unobservable [Ayer] |
| 5664 | Consciousness must involve a subject, and only bodies identify subjects [Ayer] |
| 5668 | People own conscious states because they are causally related to the identifying body [Ayer] |
| 5665 | Memory is the best proposal as what unites bundles of experiences [Ayer] |
| 5666 | Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress [Ayer] |
| 5669 | Personal identity can't just be relations of experiences, because the body is needed to identify them [Ayer] |