Death without Dying

[Eilonnwy]

Well what level of memory loss are you talking about? Complete loss would be imo like you are a newborn again, you have to learn to count, speak, read, write, develop motor skills etc and would end up developing a personality completely different to your previous one - i don't know if this is possible but in the hypothetical it would be the equivalent dying - but then passing your machine over to another personality in much the same way a different OS can be installed on a computer.

I wonder if multi-booting is a metaphor for schizophrenia...

No, you would not have to re-develop motor skills, because they are just that, motor skills. Once you've learned language to speak language and it has become a motor skill, you can't forget to speak, etc... unless you damage the cerebellum.

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My answer to the question is a resounding no. I think people are making a very subtle fallacy of equivocation when they talk about "the self" "dying" as if it were a living entity.

When somebody suffers complete amnesia, we tend to say "Dorine has forgotten who she is" or "Anthony is suffering a seemingly permanent memory loss". We don't say "Dorine is dead. We're currently waiting for a new person to inhabit her body". I think even the materialists are slipping into a slight dualism when they split the body and "mind" in such a way. Humans are dynamic and often change the way they think and act. They aren't dying inside, they're just changing. The biological machine still operates. There is still metabolism, respiration, reproductory capacities; the only difference is the way their brain works.

When somebody loses an arm, we don't say that they're occupying a new body or that they are a different person. Only that their body is changed. Now, if every single atom in this person's body gradually gets replaced and they are left with a whole new body, is it safe to say that their old body "died"? I don't personally think so. It's my contention that a living person is the physical expression of their genetic blueprint. The body isn't "alive", it is the person as a whole. What I mean to say is that regardless of which precise atoms occupy your body and regardless of what precise thoughts occupy your mind, "you", the person, will continue to live on as the physical expression of your genetic blueprint. If Eilonnwy had a crash and turned Jewish after having an operation leaving her with only half of her limbs intact, I'd still know her as Eilonnwy.

Overall, my personal belief is that if I had an accident and lost all of my memories, I wouldn't in any sense die. I would just change. The personality occupying this body would vanish and be replaced, but I wouldn't call it "death" as the personality occupying this body wasn't an independently living entity in the first place.

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Excellent points. Of course I'm working in the framework of myself. The choice of the word death may be imperfect, but it's the best word for it. So what it comes down to is this, I'm Jackie (My real name). I'm an atheist, I remember loving cats and going to conventions. I have specific things in life I enjoy doing, people I love, philisophical beliefs, etc... I get into a car accident, I can't remember that life, and what I enjoy changes. I hate my nickname so I go by my full name Jacqueline. Friends who I used to love annoy me. I don't like cats anymore, can't stand anime, I become a Christian and decide I love fashion and want to become a fashion designer. Jackie, that was an atheist, that loves anime and cats and her friends, is dead at the very least to herself, and it's Jacqueline who is alive and since in the materialist mindset there is no afterlife, just nothing. So as far as Jackie is concerned, there's currently nothing, she is dead, gone forever, just as if her body had completely died. Does this make sense?