Christian Park
Assignment #6 In this paper, I will define two concepts of personal identity, one being the Ego Theory, and the other being the Bundle Theory. By presenting examples of teletransportation and split-brain patients, I will show that the Bundle Theory is more plausible, which indicates that our natural beliefs of personal identity are false and inconclusive. According to the Ego Theory, a person existing over time is explained by a continued existence of a subject of experiences. The consciousness of a person is unified at any moment of time because there there is only one person having many experiences at that moment. The entire life of a person is unified as a result of that same person having all those life experiences. A …show more content…
One might reply by saying that the original transporter is equal to the person that exits the transporter, but is not equal to the person on Mars, due to the physical continuity of the former relationship, which does not apply to the latter relationship. However, if this view is adopted, Parfit suggests that it is then important to take into account the replacement of the cells. This consequently results in questioning whether there is some critical point of replacement that then determines whether you are the same person or not. The belief of a critical point comes from our natural intuitions that identity is either all or nothing. But this idea seems implausible and ambiguous, that there is some moment or percentage of cell replacement, or that a small amount of cells will make the difference, due to the fact that a person will never be able to distinguish the change. It is hard to believe that the supposed critical point would evidently result in a new conscious being, since that person will always believe that he or she is that same …show more content…
This view might seem to go against our natural beliefs that there is some matter of fact that makes a person the same person, and not just to an extent or gray area. But, this is exactly the problem Parfit thinks we have with identity, which we must change our views on. If we were to follow these natural beliefs then even ordinary survival would be detrimental to our identity because as previous shown, it is hard to determine why or what makes a person the same. We are physically changing from moment to moment and in a sense dying at every moment. We can only conclude that we are mostly the same due to our psychological continuity. In addition to the teletransportation and cell replacement examples, Parfit brings up another situation concerned with split-brain patients based more on scientific evidence than theoretical conception, to strengthen his argument for Bundle Theory. He believes that these cases refute the Ego Theorist’s criteria for personal identity, that there is one unified stream of consciousness having multiple experiences at one
Assignment #6 In this paper, I will define two concepts of personal identity, one being the Ego Theory, and the other being the Bundle Theory. By presenting examples of teletransportation and split-brain patients, I will show that the Bundle Theory is more plausible, which indicates that our natural beliefs of personal identity are false and inconclusive. According to the Ego Theory, a person existing over time is explained by a continued existence of a subject of experiences. The consciousness of a person is unified at any moment of time because there there is only one person having many experiences at that moment. The entire life of a person is unified as a result of that same person having all those life experiences. A …show more content…
One might reply by saying that the original transporter is equal to the person that exits the transporter, but is not equal to the person on Mars, due to the physical continuity of the former relationship, which does not apply to the latter relationship. However, if this view is adopted, Parfit suggests that it is then important to take into account the replacement of the cells. This consequently results in questioning whether there is some critical point of replacement that then determines whether you are the same person or not. The belief of a critical point comes from our natural intuitions that identity is either all or nothing. But this idea seems implausible and ambiguous, that there is some moment or percentage of cell replacement, or that a small amount of cells will make the difference, due to the fact that a person will never be able to distinguish the change. It is hard to believe that the supposed critical point would evidently result in a new conscious being, since that person will always believe that he or she is that same …show more content…
This view might seem to go against our natural beliefs that there is some matter of fact that makes a person the same person, and not just to an extent or gray area. But, this is exactly the problem Parfit thinks we have with identity, which we must change our views on. If we were to follow these natural beliefs then even ordinary survival would be detrimental to our identity because as previous shown, it is hard to determine why or what makes a person the same. We are physically changing from moment to moment and in a sense dying at every moment. We can only conclude that we are mostly the same due to our psychological continuity. In addition to the teletransportation and cell replacement examples, Parfit brings up another situation concerned with split-brain patients based more on scientific evidence than theoretical conception, to strengthen his argument for Bundle Theory. He believes that these cases refute the Ego Theorist’s criteria for personal identity, that there is one unified stream of consciousness having multiple experiences at one