What is personal identity? What makes us the same person as the one I was some time ago? That was Locke’s question when he presented his case. His answer was: Our identity is our memory. For instance, I remember now that I was the general who won the Battle of Newtown many years ago. I also remember that I was the boy who stole apples from an orchard. Therefore, now I am the same person as the general and as the boy. However, there is a problem, so it was commented later. Say, I remember that I was this general, but I forgot about my lapse as a boy. But when I was the general, I still remembered it. Then we must conclude that I am the same person as the general but not the same person as the boy. This cannot be true, and when the discussion on personal identity flared up again some years ago, this problem was solved by stating that the continuity of our memory is what makes us the same person as my predecessor. Then I am the same person as the boy who stole apples, even if I have forgotten about it, if the general who I was still remembered his boyish lapse.
There is yet another problem in Locke’s case: He supposes that the body is not important for who I am. After having received the prince’s soul, the cobbler is the same person as the little prince who grew up in a palace, even if he is now making shoes with the help of a body that grew up in a poor quarter. Intuitively we tend to think that Locke’s idea is right, if we apply the criterion of continuity just explained. So, although neo-Lockeans devised all kinds of weird thought experiments in order to improve and fine tune Locke’s point of view, they ignored this point. Brains were swapped with other bodies, brains and bodies were teletransported to other planets, while the organism left behind was not destroyed by mistake, etc. All this has led to interesting literature, but these thought experiments contained a crucial flaw: They suppose what they want to improve, namely that you can separate the brain from the original body. Once you think so, it is not difficult to show that a person is different from the body that it “inhabits”, as I have made clear in an article. Instead of the examples I discussed there, I want to present another one.
If my body is not important for my personality, why then have one? In order to answer this question, I called a scientist friend and asked him to remove my brain from my body, put it in a vat, keep it alive and feed it with all information I need in order to think that I am still the person with the body that I was before the experiment begun. Next, since I am a runner, I wanted to participate in a race on 5,000 m, and my scientist friend made that I thought that I did. I even won the race in a personal record. However, in reality there was no race, for it was all simulation. Nevertheless in my memory I won the race in a PR. So, for me, I am the person who has won, etc. The question is then: Can I be the person that I think I am, even if I cannot do what I think that I do? Following Locke and the neo-Lockeans that answer is “yes”, for that I am not more than a brain in a vat without a body doesn’t count. What counts is the memory, and all what is relevant for my being a person in the (neo-)Lockean sense is simulated in my brain by my scientist friend. But if you aren’t a (neo)-Lockean and if you aren’t me (the brain) there in the vat, I guess you’ll say “no”. And after my scientist friend had replaced my brain in my body and had erased the running simulation from my brain, it’s what I think, too: This thought experiment shows that although my memory may be part of the person that I am, it doesn’t make up the person that I am. My person is also made up by my body, as I have also made clear in my article just mentioned, for otherwise I couldn’t run a race. In addition, my person is made up by others who see me winning and praise me for my running qualities. Etc. Therefore, we must conclude, I think, that the person that I am is an aspect of the human being that is running there and that later remembers that race. Or, following Meijsing, we can also say that the person is a property of the human organism I am. And, as we just have seen, my person is not only made up by what is in my mind and by the characteristics of my body, like that my body is made and trained for long-distance running. It is also made up by the others around me who consider me (also much later) as the winner of a race. In short, my person is made by all what shapes me, like my experiences and thoughts, the features of my body and the relevant others.
Inspiration
- John Locke,
An essay concerning Human Understanding.
(1689).
- Monica Meijsing, Waar
was ik toen ik er niet was? Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment