Me, Myself and My Replica
Parfit takes on a form of the Reductionist view on personal identity, arguing that despite knowing all the facts of the situation, it may still remain unclear whether a person is ‘themself’ or not. He claims that in his Branch-Line Case, being destroyed and replicated is about as good as ordinary survival. I will show that this is not the case by considering an alternative which Parfit did not discuss. Parfit begins by describing a method of simple teletransportation, in which a man on Earth presses a button and is destroyed. An hour later, a Replica of this man appears on Mars remembering pressing a button on Earth, going unconscious and waking up an hour later on Mars. Parfit then modifies this situation to define …show more content…
To do this I will show that there is an alternative result for the Combined Spectrum which Parfit did not consider, and as a result being destroyed and replicated would be as bad as dying in regards to the Branch-Line Case. This result will also be applicable to the Psychological and Physical spectra. To begin, it is evident that the resulting person would always believe that they are, in fact, themselves. Under this assumption, it does not matter whether the resulting person is characteristically similar to the original person. To elaborate, no matter where the resulting person is in the Combined Spectrum, they may not be 100% similar to the original person, but it is contradictory for them not to be 100% themself. Moreover, such transformations are not impossible in regular life: an example of such a psychological change could be a form of rehabilitation or psychotherapy, and on the physical end, there are people that undergo extensive plastic surgery to change their appearance. These processes are not instantaneous, but significant psychological and physical changes can occur. Considering this alternative in the simple transportation example, everything is exactly as Parfit describes it. There is a man on Earth that presses a button and is destroyed, then an hour later a Replica of this man appears on Mars and continues to live his life, knowing that he is himself. No existing things are affected. However, when considering this in terms of the Branch-Line Case, there is a significant difference. As soon as the man on Earth presses the button, his life diverges from that of the Replica on Mars, and they become two distinct individuals. Despite that no other person is affected by the Earth-man’s cessation to exist, the individual on Earth does still care that he will die. It is this loss of life that creates the major
Parfit takes on a form of the Reductionist view on personal identity, arguing that despite knowing all the facts of the situation, it may still remain unclear whether a person is ‘themself’ or not. He claims that in his Branch-Line Case, being destroyed and replicated is about as good as ordinary survival. I will show that this is not the case by considering an alternative which Parfit did not discuss. Parfit begins by describing a method of simple teletransportation, in which a man on Earth presses a button and is destroyed. An hour later, a Replica of this man appears on Mars remembering pressing a button on Earth, going unconscious and waking up an hour later on Mars. Parfit then modifies this situation to define …show more content…
To do this I will show that there is an alternative result for the Combined Spectrum which Parfit did not consider, and as a result being destroyed and replicated would be as bad as dying in regards to the Branch-Line Case. This result will also be applicable to the Psychological and Physical spectra. To begin, it is evident that the resulting person would always believe that they are, in fact, themselves. Under this assumption, it does not matter whether the resulting person is characteristically similar to the original person. To elaborate, no matter where the resulting person is in the Combined Spectrum, they may not be 100% similar to the original person, but it is contradictory for them not to be 100% themself. Moreover, such transformations are not impossible in regular life: an example of such a psychological change could be a form of rehabilitation or psychotherapy, and on the physical end, there are people that undergo extensive plastic surgery to change their appearance. These processes are not instantaneous, but significant psychological and physical changes can occur. Considering this alternative in the simple transportation example, everything is exactly as Parfit describes it. There is a man on Earth that presses a button and is destroyed, then an hour later a Replica of this man appears on Mars and continues to live his life, knowing that he is himself. No existing things are affected. However, when considering this in terms of the Branch-Line Case, there is a significant difference. As soon as the man on Earth presses the button, his life diverges from that of the Replica on Mars, and they become two distinct individuals. Despite that no other person is affected by the Earth-man’s cessation to exist, the individual on Earth does still care that he will die. It is this loss of life that creates the major