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Single Idea 5521

[filed under theme 16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity ]

Full Idea

If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters.

Gist of Idea

If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity

Source

Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314)

Book Ref

'Personal Identity', ed/tr. Martin,R /Barresi,J [Blackwells 2003], p.314

A Reaction

I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [Self as the continuity of our conscious existence]:

1650 For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates]
21828 A person is the whole of their soul [Plotinus]
5511 For Locke, conscious awareness unifies a person at an instant and over time [Locke, by Martin/Barresi]
12509 If the soul individuates a man, and souls are transferable, then a hog could be a man [Locke]
1376 Identity must be in consciousness not substance, because it seems transferable [Locke]
12512 If someone becomes conscious of Nestor's actions, then he is Nestor [Locke]
12513 If a prince's soul entered a cobbler's body, the person would be the prince (and the man the cobbler) [Locke]
12514 On Judgement Day, no one will be punished for actions they cannot remember [Locke]
1397 Locke sees underlying substance as irrelevant to personal identity [Locke, by Noonan]
12973 We know our own identity by psychological continuity, even if there are some gaps [Leibniz]
21306 Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume]
21311 Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume]
7546 A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell]
7946 The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C]
1393 One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit]
5521 If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
5522 Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
5351 We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
23547 It seems absurd that there is no identity of any kind between two objects which involve survival [Fine,K]
5504 Maybe we should see persons in four dimensions, with stages or time-slices at an instant [Martin/Barresi]
5503 Maybe personal identity is not vital in survival, and other continuations would suffice [Martin/Barresi]
7947 In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself [Macdonald,C]