Philosophy Talk

Hi Guys,
been waiting for you to do this topic given John's background. Too bad I didn't have more time to look into all your articles John. I did however become reasonably familiar with the personal identity debate and related thought experiments and came to the conclusion both the personhood and biological continuity camps are going in the wrong direction. We are neither ontologically speaking persons nor biological/animals; rather are a type of complex adaptive system. An argument against Transhumanism helped point this out.

Maybe you could use the below as a listener talking point. Not sure I can skype in during the show but I could try.

If we think that what fundamentally differentiates us from cognitively similar non person animals is a small set of cognitively sophisticated capacities then it isn't too hard to imagine that even more significantly advanced cognitive capacities could differentiate us in a similar way to the way that 'lower' animals differ from us ontologically if we use the personhood account. If we think the individual still exists as this uber mind then we cannot be persons as the person ontology ended when we became this uber mind. In the similar way a non person animal if 'uplifted' to personhood status cannot ontologically have been just a non person animal cogntively.

A related argument also means we or similar animals aren't biological beings even if we are uplifted cognitively . One could imagine that a human uplift is done in a complete synthetic cyborg like manner ending our biological status. If through autobiographical and memory chains we intuitively think this uber cyborg entity is the same individual it follows ontologically speaking it was never a biological or person based ontology.

Then what projects the individual ontology into the future? My conclusion was that what is maintained is a status as a type of sophisticated complex adaptive system through chains of organizational continuity. This allows movement up and down the cognitive continuum plus conversion back and forth between biological and synthetic modes.

Maybe that is too much to fit in as a listener message -& BTW I do deal with brain and hemisphere transfer- but I did hope to get Johns reaction to it.
Cheers
Simon

Dear Dr. Perry:

I suspect this post is one of the more profound to appear on the Philosophy Talk blog. It is true, I believe, that the most facially simple ideas/concepts turn out to be the most complex. I read your narrative more than once-looking for a word that has appeared often in related discussions: consciousness. If you will allow me, I'll try to state some things, as I see them. You and I may be far apart on this topic, but, inasmuch as semantics themselves fluctuate in our modern world, I seriously doubt that we have intractable differences. Perhaps, we shall see. Consciousness, or self-awareness, exists on a continuum. It is doubtful that rocks have any notion of it, or any notion of anything else for that matter. Skipping along the evolutionary scale, it appears that higher mammals have some sense of awareness and it is almost certain that they feel pain; realize their need to eat and drink, and have some compulsion to survive and reproduce. These traits appear to affirm assertions made from the time of Darwin to Dawkins. Life, as it has been said, finds a way.

Selfness, is-ness or suchness, becomes most uniquely human as we move up the evolutionary scale. I could not count the times this has been stated before, but bear with me as I tell a story. Every self develops, as the individual grows, experiences and is influenced: a tradesman might have been an engineer; a doctor: an architect; a despot: a humanitarian---well, maybe that last alternate outcome is a stretch, but consider Ernesto Guevara, or: Hugo Chavez. Selfness is, ah, malleable and as a crazy ex-marine once told me: the Devil hates a coward. History both creates and destroys.

I'll submit to you one last notion, only because I think we are not so far apart in age: The selves we are today are fundamentally different from when we were fifteen years old. Did you think about becoming a philosopher when you were fifteen? I didn't. I just wrote bad poetry. And souls? They may be the foundation for the rest of it, but since we cannot MEASURE self, or consciousness, or souls, how are we to know? If David, Rene, or Emmanuel knew, they did not say---or did they?

If this was test, I hope I got better than a C. If not, oh well...

Cordially,
Neuman
(best to Laura)

My brother has a website. He has been an inspiration to me ever since I realized that we think alike, yet so differently, on so many topics. He is mostly poet; I write things more closely aligned with philosophy---at least, I IMAGINE my thoughts and expressions to be such. On his homepage, LVP says regarding self:
"Can we conceive of what we are while BEING what we are?..." (emphasis added) The question might, at first, seem enigmatic, yet being, on a day-to-day basis, is complicated. Confusing. Utterly frustrating. Our "selves", while developmental, are also malleable, and, therefore influenced by ubiquitous happenstance.

You may look at my brother's website, if you wish. It is found at: http://www.larryvanpelt.ca/lvpblog/

The fact is we all experience a subjective self, an experiencing self- this is an aspect of reality- no matter how elusive it is to measure or define.
The ghost in the machine connundrum simply reveals a difficulty, not a failure of the existence of this subjective reality.

Descartes and Kant say "I think", that "I" have a self. I scarcely hear anyone saying "I know that YOU have a self". Do we know that all other creatures have a "self"? Animals as well as people? How do we know all apparent humans have a real self?
My thought is, I never objectively know as a fact the "self" of any other creature or being. I think we all conclude we see other "selfs" by instinct that sees others act like us consistently, without the glitches that would reveal an Inner Robot.
WIll I recognize when a machine acquires a "self"? Maybe we can only answer that in the event that in the future we actually do see those wondrous machines?

Morris Berman, in Coming To Our senses, makes the point: "The reason that the self is not amenable to scientific verification is that it does not exist as a discrete entity, but is in fact a process; it can never be a clinical object, never be localized in space or time."
Should this trouble us?
Isidor Chein tells an anecdote:
"The tale goes back when psychology courses at the City College of New York were taught under the aegis of the Department of Philosophy, and psychologists and philosophers shared a tiny, overcrowded office. One day, a student entered the office and approached the nearest person who, as luck would have it, happened to be Morris Raphael Cohen. When the latter looked up, the student said, "Sir, I have a problem."
"Professor Cohen, whose mode of address was as gruff as his heart was kind, barked, "Yes, what is it?"
"Said the student, "I sometimes get the feeling that I don't exist."
"""Who," snapped Professor Cohen, "sometimes gets the feeling that you don't exist?"
""Why, I ...," said the student; then, with a very sheepish expression, he turned around and walked out."
Chein also makes another interesting observation: "The subject, that is, the one who carries out the activity, in our behaviors is generally taken to be the self; the subject in the behavior of others, a person. In our experience of behavior, we are primarily selves and only inferentially persons, whereas others are primarily persons and only inferentially selves."
I think this is a topic best left to the speculations of the professional philosophers but even we laypeople have a stake in it insofar as we live in a society in which the possibility of an afterlife is taken seriously by many. I must admit to being a monist, but if I am wrong I can only hope I will be pleasantly surprised.

All good fun, co-conspirators! Bully for all!

I found myself much like Nature as is the Universe to be infinitely immeasurable.
And defining myself further, pointless.
For surely if One defines infinite and immeasurable then One becomes finite and measurable and that most certainly is not me.
The beautiful side to this is I find every One and every thing connected and the same thIS Way, even the Ones who don't see it yet. Even the Ones who continue to measure.
All is infinitely One
Boundless, immeasurable, absolute, just and free.

=
Just me

Me and the Sea
One day I was fortunate enough to find myself walking down a road to the sea. The trees along the road were overgrown blocking any view or reflection of what was to come. Finally I stepped onto the beach and looked up and found the ocean so astounding it took my breath away. The water, the blue sky, the power of the waves, the sea breeze, the tanned sand, the birds, the beauty I beheld made my heart sing. The ocean view I saw that day was even more profound than beauty, it was the day I saw me.
Oneders, Oneders,

=
MJA

A CAMEO APPEARANCE

I like your simple theory: selves are people. Clean. Concise. Unburdened by the additive complexities we see everyday. The facts of uncertainty have always plagued my hopes, dreams and fears. But I agree, comfortably, with your assessment. So, if we are wrong---we are wrong in unison. I could name ten people who agree with what you have posited.

Each of those ten know ten more. And so on, and so on...

Carry on, John Perry---carry on.