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(September 13, 2009 at 10:53 am)Retorth Wrote: Haha.. Completely understandable...in any case, as you said, there isn't a proper metaphorical sense for the mind to be considered "alive".
And while I'm on the subject, I think this would be a great platform for me to have a quick rant on something me and EVF were discussing a few weeks ago on MSN. You'll soon notice I have a passion for "sense of self".
I think that discussions about the "self" are limited by our use of language. When people use phrases such as "am I my mind? Am I my body?", they're asking "am I, the possessor, one of my possessions?" When a person states "I am my mind" they're basically stating "I am something that belongs to me". It's in the use of the word "my". They're making the mind a possession of their own. But then, who is the possessor? What is the possessor? What is this "I" to which the mind belongs?
I think this little hiccup of semantics is what causes a lot of people to believe in various dualisms. It's as if the human brain is programmed with a sense of self which is ever shifting and impossible to pinpoint. A non-existant, unattached entity that is used to make sense of the world around us. The brain creates an "I" which doesn't actually exist, and judges everything against this "I". So when one says "I am the sum total of my body and my mind", their use of the words "I" and "my" imply an (unidentified) possessor and (identified) possessions, when really it's just the brain's odd hardwiring placing the value "I" outside of everything else. As such, it is easy to say "I am that which trancends my body and mind", because your own use of language implies such a thing to be true.
Perhaps I read too deep. And I don't think I made my point very clear.
Peoples personalities change all the time as does thier level of knowledge. I am no longer as moody as I was or my teens and I know much more and have experienced much more. I am a very different to who I was but I am still the same person. All those experiences are part of what made me who I am now. The only difference in the initial thread question is the speed the change came on.
So same person yes, maybe different in some ways but we cahnge anyway.
To throw something new into the mix lets bring up the old chessnut of teleportation.
An exact copy is made of you, with all the electrons and protons and all that stuff in right place so the memories are the same, all the atoms are in the same place so in every physical way it was the same.
Would it be you.
Discuss.
September 13, 2009 at 11:50 am (This post was last modified: September 13, 2009 at 12:01 pm by Eilonnwy.)
(September 13, 2009 at 1:24 am)theVOID Wrote: 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.
(September 13, 2009 at 10:27 am)LukeMC Wrote:
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.
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?
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin
(September 13, 2009 at 11:50 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: 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?
Absolutely, in the same sense that 8 year old Jackie is probably quite dead, as is 4 year old and 2 year old Jackie. Those personalities had changed and meandered leaving a (23?) year old Jackie with a very different set of traits to her former construct. As with the car accident, the person survives but the personality is lost forever. And like downbeatplum said, the only difference between a car accident and aging is the speed of the change.
Now I wanna put forward a few situations to consider.
When you are drunk, are you the same person?
When you get so drunk that you wake up not remembering last night (memory loss), is the person who experienced those memories "dead"?
Does a person with temporary amnesia suffer a temporary death and slowly come back to life? At which point are they the same person? How many of their memories must they re-acquire to be the same person they were before an accident? I think the line is very ambiguous, but nontheless interesting.
But the Jackie that was 4 is still remembered by the Jackie that is 24, so the 4 year old still exists in a sense.
And when you're drunk you're not a different person, you inhibitions are taken away. A lot of my friends think me being drunk is exactly the same as sober me except I slur my words and fall down a lot. -_^
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin
(September 13, 2009 at 1:08 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: But the Jackie that was 4 is still remembered by the Jackie that is 24, so the 4 year old still exists in a sense.
And when you're drunk you're not a different person, you inhibitions are taken away. A lot of my friends think me being drunk is exactly the same as sober me except I slur my words and fall down a lot. -_^
But a lot of people do a lot of things they otherwise wouldn't. They act completely differently and bare no resemblence to their sober selves. You'd think they had a personality transplant. Perhaps not all, but some.
As for the 4 year old, it's a fair point. There is still that connection to your past.
(September 13, 2009 at 2:00 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: Regardless, it's not permanent and only drug induced, so I don't think it meets the qualifications as what I proposed to be death without dying.
While it's happening it sure looks like a temporary death...
Completely understandable...in any case, as you said, there isn't a proper metaphorical sense for the mind to be considered "alive".
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