15:40
Perry's "Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality" 3/5
Jason Bowers
Overview
This video explores John Perry's "Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality," focusing on the second night's discussion. It delves into arguments against the idea that persons are solely physical bodies, using thought experiments like waking up and Kafka's "Metamorphosis." The dialogue then shifts to Miller's proposal for personal identity based on memory, and Wyrob's critical response highlighting the distinction between seeming to remember and actually remembering, which leads to a circular definition problem. The section concludes with the introduction of Cohen's potential solution to this circularity.
How was this?
Save this permanently with flashcards, quizzes, and AI chat
Chapters
- Miller argues that persons are not identical to their physical bodies.
- The 'wake-up argument' suggests that we know who we are upon waking without needing to check our physical body.
- Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' illustrates that a person (Gregor Samsa) can be conceived as existing in a different body (a giant insect), implying persons are not just bodies.
- Both arguments rely on the conceivability of being the same person with a different body.
These arguments challenge the intuitive idea that our identity is solely tied to our physical form, opening the door for alternative theories of personal identity.
Waking up in the morning and knowing who you are (e.g., 'I'm Jason Bowers') even before opening your eyes or seeing your body.
- Miller proposes that personal identity over time is based on the ability to remember past experiences.
- If person Y at a later time can remember the experiences of person X at an earlier time, then Y and X are the same person.
- This memory criterion suggests continuity of consciousness and memory connects different stages of a single person's life.
- Philosophers like John Locke have previously defended similar memory-based theories of identity.
This proposal offers a concrete mechanism for understanding how we persist through time, shifting the focus from the physical body to psychological continuity.
Watching a game on TV, turning it off, and then turning it back on to see the continuation of the same game, analogous to how memories connect different moments of a person's life.
- Wyrob points out a critical flaw: the difference between merely seeming to remember and actually remembering.
- Hypnosis can create false memories, making someone believe they experienced something they didn't.
- An individual believing they are Napoleon Bonaparte, with 'memories' of Waterloo, doesn't make them Napoleon.
- Miller's memory criterion only works if the memory connection is genuine, not just a false impression.
This distinction is crucial because it highlights that a mere subjective feeling of memory is insufficient for establishing true personal identity over time.
A hypnotist implanting a false memory of setting fire to a neighborhood, leading the person to 'remember' the act, but not actually making them the perpetrator if it never happened.
- Wyrob presses Miller on how to distinguish real memory from false memory.
- Miller concedes that to 'actually remember' an experience, the person must be the same person who had the experience.
- This creates a circular definition: identity is defined by actual memory, and actual memory is defined by identity.
- The problem is how to establish that a post-death consciousness (if one exists) is genuinely Wyrob's, not just a being that 'seems' to remember her life.
This circularity reveals a fundamental challenge in Miller's memory-based theory, suggesting it might not provide an independent criterion for personal identity.
If a new person appears after Wyrob's death and claims to remember her life, how can we prove they *actually* remember it (and are thus Wyrob) versus merely *seeming* to remember it (and thus not being Wyrob)?
Key takeaways
- Personal identity might not be solely dependent on the physical body.
- The ability to remember past experiences is a strong candidate for a criterion of personal identity.
- A key challenge for memory-based identity theories is distinguishing genuine memory from false or implanted memories.
- Circular definitions, where A is defined in terms of B and B is defined in terms of A, are problematic in philosophical arguments.
- Thought experiments are powerful tools for exploring complex philosophical concepts like personal identity.
- The conceivability of a scenario (like Gregor Samsa's transformation) can suggest its logical possibility.
Key terms
Personal IdentityPhysical BodyWake-up ArgumentMetamorphosisMemory-Based CriterionPersonal Identity over TimeActual MemorySeeming MemoryCircular DefinitionJohn Locke
Test your understanding
- What is the core idea behind Miller's 'wake-up argument' against identifying persons with their bodies?
- How does Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' serve as an example in the argument about personal identity and bodies?
- What is Miller's proposed memory-based criterion for personal identity?
- Why does Wyrob argue that Miller's memory criterion leads to a circular definition?
- What is the crucial distinction Wyrob makes between 'seeming to remember' and 'actually remembering'?