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Personal Identity

Fusion

(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. Like Fission², though to a lesser degree, Fusion is important in the philosophy of identity – especially of personal identity – in that it provides many Thought Experiments³ (TEs), and some real-life examples, that test out the various theories.
  2. We need to consider the merger of the two psychologies⁴: Parfit thinks we might like to inherit some of the better characteristics⁵ of our partner, as in a marriage – but the creation of a single consciousness⁶ from two seems difficult to conceive of (much more so than the creation of two consciousnesses from one, as in fission⁷). Do we end up with a single first-person perspective⁸, or with two? This needs to be related to multiple personality disorder⁹.
  3. Also, consider Parfit¹⁰’s seasonal people that alternately fission¹¹ and fuse. How conceivable are these TEs¹²?
  4. We also need to consider physical as well as psychological fusions, as in the case of the dicephalus¹³ and brain transplants¹⁴. These are in any case easier to imagine – or to think we can imagine – and apply to real and hypothetical cases.
  5. A non-pathological case of fusion – also discussed under Pregnancy¹⁵ and Chimera¹⁶ – is that of the very early fusion of non-identical twin¹⁷ embryos¹⁸. Then, the adult may contain cells with different genotypes, which would normally have ended up as two individuals¹⁹. Things get slightly odd when the twins²⁰ were of different sexes as the organs can develop from one or the other (or both). There’s also the normal case where ‘foreign’ cells (mostly red blood cells) wander across the placenta and end up in the body of either the mother or the fetus²¹. All this is covered in "Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life", pp. 81-5.

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  Further Remarks:
  1. There may be some overlap between this note and those on Mereology²², and Constitution²³, which deal with the fusion of parts into a whole.

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life", 2020, Book, Read
• For a Page of Links²⁴ to this Note, Click here. There are a lot of links, and I’ve not investigated them yet.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read²⁵, include the following:-
  • General:
    1. "Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life", 2020, Book
    2. "Hawley (Katherine) - Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts", 2005, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Hudson (Hud) - On Constitution and All-Fusions", 2000, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Lowe (E.J.) - Identity Over Time and Change Of Composition", 2002
    3. "McGrath (Matthew) - Four-Dimensionalism and the Puzzles of Coincidence", 2007, Footnote₂₆
    4. "McInerney (Peter K.) - Conceptions of Persons and Persons through Time", 2000, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Miller (Kristie) - Issues of Composition", 2007
    6. "Ord (Toby) - Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity", Undated, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 40%
    7. "Tanksley (Charley) - The Mereological Constancy Of Masses", 2010, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Composition As Identity", 1994, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Wright (John) - Personal Identity, Fission and Time Travel", 2006, Annotations, Internal PDF Link, Read = 108%

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.
• This is mostly a place-holder²⁷.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 26:

• This looks like an important paper, which rejects the “proofs” of 4D based on the “coincidence” TEs.

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Table of the Previous 9 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	3509	Fusion
15/05/2022 13:19:12	3182	Fusion
01/10/2021 13:17:46	2990	Fusion
12/02/2021 15:44:38	2145	Fusion
25/09/2020 20:15:22	1734	Fusion
15/02/2018 22:00:29	2934	Fusion
18/12/2010 19:58:05	859	Fusion
26/11/2007 23:25:26	763	Fusion
12/08/2007 10:17:46	658	Fusion

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Fusion	Thought Experiments

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Brain Transplants	Chimera	Consciousness	Constitution
Dicephalus	Embryo	Fetuses	First-Person Perspective	Fission
Individual	Mereology	Multiple Personality Disorder	Note Links Explanation	Parfit
Plug Note Apologia	Pregnancy	Properties	Psychology	Thought Experiments
Twinning	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Blackburn - Has Kant Refuted Parfit?	Brain	Brain State Transfer	Change	Dicephalus, 2, 3, 4, 5
Olson - What Are We? Animals	Parfit	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3	Pregnancy	Research - Proposal
Teletransportation	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9	Thesis - Current Stance	Transplants	Twinning, 2	Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Anscombe (G.E.M.)	Were You a Zygote?	Paper		Yes
Blackburn (Simon)	Has Kant Refuted Parfit?	Paper
Briggs (Rachael) & Nolan (Daniel)	Utility Monsters for the Fission Age	Paper	2
Buchanan (Rachael)	The battle to separate Safa and Marwa	Paper		Yes
DiFrisco (James) & Mossio (Matteo)	Diachronic Identity in Complex Life Cycles: An Organizational Perspective	Paper
Gillett (Grant)	Brain Bisection and Personal Identity	Paper
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Introduction: The Philosophic Enterprise	Paper		Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Personal Growth	Paper
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper		Yes
Ord (Toby)	Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity	Paper
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain State Transfer	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Change	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Dicephalus	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Parfit	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Pregnancy	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Teletransportation	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Transplants	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Twinning	Paper	2	Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Balashov (Yuri)	Time, Fission, Fusion: An Argument against the Block Universe with Endurance	Paper - By Subtopic	Manuscrito: Revista Internacional de Filosofia, Campinas (Brazil): Vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 109-143, Jan - Mar 2017	3%
Ball (Philip)	How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life	Book - Cited	Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life	Yes
Boccardi (Emiliano), Ed.	Manuscrito vol. 40 no.1: The Passage of Time and its Enemies: An Introduction to Time and Reality - II	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Boccardi (Emiliano), Ed. - Manuscrito vol. 40 no.1: The Passage of Time and its Enemies: An Introduction to Time and Reality - II	6%
DiGiovanna (James)	Fission, Fusion, and the Real World	Paper - By Subtopic	Academia.edu	14%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek	52%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Personal Growth	Paper - By Subtopic	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek, Chapter 5	20%
Hawley (Katherine)	Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts	Paper - Cited	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming, issue dated November 2005)	Yes
Hudson (Hud)	On Constitution and All-Fusions	Paper - Cited	Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 81 Issue 3, Sep2000, p237, 10p	No
Miller (Kristie)	Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time	4%
Miller (Kristie)	Issues of Composition	Paper - By Subtopic	Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity, Chapter 4	No
Ord (Toby)	Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity	Paper - By Subtopic	Website	40%
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Fusion	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2024

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