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Practical Philosophy, Monday
Monday, July 11th, 2016 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endsthegameIt was a fairly chipper Ender who met the students outside on the lawn today. He'd spent the weekend back on Naboo with the Valentines, and had only heard about what had happened this morning.
"So, I hear many of you might have had something of an experience last weekend," he said. "It's happened before - a weekend where everyone's minds were wiped. Memories erased, we all get reset to zero. In a sense, at least; it seems to erase memories related to our identity, but rarely touches our skills." He picked a bottle of water up off the ground. "What remains of us when our experiences are erased?" he asked.
He took a sip of his water.
"The great philosophers spent a lot of time talking about matters of personal identity," he said. "Some philosophers denote identity simply as bodily existence: you are who you are as long as you are your physical self. Of course, that brings issues of its own with it, whether it be because of the natural process of aging, or because the island turned you into another sex. Are you still yourself, when your genitals are different? I would say yes, but it's a matter of debate."
He set the bottle back down. "The second theory is that identity is a product of mental substance; that one's mind is separate from one's body, and that it is where our personhood lives. In that case, can those people you were last weekend truly be called you? They are, after all, just your skills, set in your body. They do not have the sum of your experiences, and therefor don't think like you. But they do have your skills, and so part of your mind. Could you just disassociate yourself from what your body did last weekend? Or is it more troubling?"
He eyed each student in turn. "Of course, John Locke went a step further and defined mental substance as being one's consciousness, in which case the answer is rather more clear-cut, I feel. 'If Socrates and the present mayor of Queenborough agree, they are the same person: if the same Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person.'"
"But there are many other theories. One presupposes that one's self is really one's intuition: after all, when your mind is wiped, and someone then proceeds to torture you, you'll still feel fear and apprehension, because you can intuit that torture isn't something you want happening to you. Other theories suppose that consistency is key, that every part of you that I've just mentioned must remain in a certain alignment for you to be you. And so on, and so forth."
He smiled, tapping his finger against the bottle. "But that's enough for Philosophy 101," he said. "How do you feel about it? Were you yourself last weekend? Should your actions then have consequences now? How do you define yourself, as an identity?"
"So, I hear many of you might have had something of an experience last weekend," he said. "It's happened before - a weekend where everyone's minds were wiped. Memories erased, we all get reset to zero. In a sense, at least; it seems to erase memories related to our identity, but rarely touches our skills." He picked a bottle of water up off the ground. "What remains of us when our experiences are erased?" he asked.
He took a sip of his water.
"The great philosophers spent a lot of time talking about matters of personal identity," he said. "Some philosophers denote identity simply as bodily existence: you are who you are as long as you are your physical self. Of course, that brings issues of its own with it, whether it be because of the natural process of aging, or because the island turned you into another sex. Are you still yourself, when your genitals are different? I would say yes, but it's a matter of debate."
He set the bottle back down. "The second theory is that identity is a product of mental substance; that one's mind is separate from one's body, and that it is where our personhood lives. In that case, can those people you were last weekend truly be called you? They are, after all, just your skills, set in your body. They do not have the sum of your experiences, and therefor don't think like you. But they do have your skills, and so part of your mind. Could you just disassociate yourself from what your body did last weekend? Or is it more troubling?"
He eyed each student in turn. "Of course, John Locke went a step further and defined mental substance as being one's consciousness, in which case the answer is rather more clear-cut, I feel. 'If Socrates and the present mayor of Queenborough agree, they are the same person: if the same Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person.'"
"But there are many other theories. One presupposes that one's self is really one's intuition: after all, when your mind is wiped, and someone then proceeds to torture you, you'll still feel fear and apprehension, because you can intuit that torture isn't something you want happening to you. Other theories suppose that consistency is key, that every part of you that I've just mentioned must remain in a certain alignment for you to be you. And so on, and so forth."
He smiled, tapping his finger against the bottle. "But that's enough for Philosophy 101," he said. "How do you feel about it? Were you yourself last weekend? Should your actions then have consequences now? How do you define yourself, as an identity?"
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