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Full Idea
The real man, I believe, however the police may swear to his identity, is really a series of momentary men, each different one from the other, and bound together, not by a numerical identity, but by continuity and certain instrinsic causal laws.
Gist of Idea
A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.124)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'Mysticism and Logic' [Unwin 1989], p.124
A Reaction
This seems to be in the tradition of Locke and Parfit, and also follows the temporal-slices idea of physical objects. Personally I take a more physical view of things, and think the police are probably more reliable than Bertrand Russell.
| 7545 | Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed [Russell] |
| 7546 | A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell] |
| 7547 | Matter requires a division into time-corpuscles as well as space-corpuscles [Russell] |
| 7548 | Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell] |
| 7549 | If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell] |
| 7550 | We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell] |
| 7551 | Matter is a logical construction [Russell] |
| 7552 | Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell] |
| 7553 | Sense-data are purely physical [Russell] |