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Personal Identity

Psychological Continuity - Forward

(Text as at 14/07/2019 18:05:46)

(For earlier versions of this Note, see the table at the end)

Plug Note¹

• I think there’s a conceptual difference between:-
  1. Forward psychological continuity, and
  2. Backward psychological continuity.
• Imagine the case where (on an endurantist² account of persistence³), I’m put into a duplicating machine, but something goes wrong and my body is destroyed by the duplication process, though my duplicate wakes up perfectly happily. Then, it seems to me, I would never wake up, and would have no experience beyond entry to the duplicating machine. I have no forward psychological continuity. But my duplicate⁴ does have backward psychological continuity.
• Any duplicate of me, looking backward, would consider himself to be “me”, having my memories⁵, abilities, plans and so forth, and a body looking just like mine. But, would I ever wake up as the duplicate? My intuition on the endurantist account, as I have said, is that I would not, though I suspect that on the perdurantist⁶ account, this might be seen as a case of fission⁷ in which I might wake up twice, provided we consider that the right sort of causality⁸ is in place.
• But, what gives forward continuity of consciousness⁹ in the normal case of sleep and temporary unconsciousness? I cannot know “from the inside” that when I awake I’m the same human being as went to sleep in my bed. The reason I believe this is for external reasons: duplication is not physically possible (or at least practical), and in any case I have no reason to believe it happened to me last night.
• This seems a very important issue to me, and I need to make more of it. For example, in teletransportation¹⁰ thought experiment¹¹, it seems to me that a new person wakes up, but I don’t, nor do I experience anything, though the new person claims to be me. Incidentally, it’s not just a new person¹², but a new human being¹³.
• This is the sort of question that the Logical Positivists would denounce as meaningless, as no empirical evidence can decide it.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹⁴, include the following:-
  1. TBA.
• A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
  1. TBA.
• This is mostly a place-holder¹⁵. Currently, just see the categorised reading-list.

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Printable Versions:

• Follow (this link) for level 0 (with reading list), and
• Follow (this link) for level 0.

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Table of the Previous 4 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
05/02/2018 20:02:24	3627	Psychological Continuity - Forward
18/12/2010 19:58:05	1982	Psychological Continuity - Forward
26/11/2007 23:25:26	1986	Psychological Continuity - Forward
12/08/2007 10:17:46	951	Psychological Continuity - Forward

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
14/07/2019 18:05:46	Psychological Continuity - Forward	Psychological Continuity

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Summary of Note Links from this Page

Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Causality	Consciousness	Duplication	Endurantism
Fission	Human Beings	Memory	Perdurantism	Persistence
Person	Plug Note Apologia	Teletransportation	Thought Experiments	Works Read - Explanation

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

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Summary of Note Links to this Page

Blackburn - Has Kant Refuted Parfit?	Continuity	Olson - Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Personal Identity and Moral Action. T1	Psychological Continuity
Psychological Criterion	Research - Proposal	Status: Personal Identity (2019 - September)	Status: Priority Task List (2019: October)	Status: Summary (2019 - September)
Teletransportation	Thesis - Current Stance	Unity of the Person

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?
Blackburn (Simon)	Has Kant Refuted Parfit?	Paper
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue	Paper		Yes
Ehring (Douglas)	Personal Identity and Time Travel	Paper		Yes
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave	Paper		Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper		Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern	Paper		Yes
Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules)	What Does It Mean to Be Me?	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Continuity - Forward	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Criterion	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Teletransportation	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Unity of the Person	Paper		Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Blackburn (Simon)	Has Kant Refuted Parfit?	Paper - Referencing	Dancy - Reading Parfit, 1997, Chapter 9	67%
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	10%
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue	Paper - Referencing	Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit, Prologue	Yes
Dancy (Jonathan), Ed.	Reading Parfit	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	23%
Ehring (Douglas)	Personal Identity and Time Travel	Paper - Referencing	Philosophical Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Nov., 1987), pp. 427-433	Yes
Gasser (Georg), Ed.	Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	95%
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper - Referencing	Lockwood - Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, 1987	Yes
Lockwood (Michael), Ed.	Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	43%
Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith)	The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	15%
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper - Referencing	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave	Paper - Referencing	Martin & Augustine - The Myth of an Afterlife, Part 2, Chapter 19, 2015: 409-423	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern	Paper - Referencing	Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, 2009, Chapter 2	Yes
Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules)	What Does It Mean to Be Me?	Paper - Referencing	BBC Website	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Continuity - Forward	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Black: Printable Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2019
2. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2019

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