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Personal Identity

Psychological Continuity - Forward

(Text as at 15/06/2020 18:28:48)

(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; see later for the distinction – and it’s relevance to this case – between endurantism and perdurantism⁴), I’m put into a duplicating machine₅, but something goes wrong and my body is destroyed by the duplication⁶ process, though my duplicate⁷ wakes up perfectly happily. Then, it seems to me, I⁸ would never wake up, and would have no experience beyond entry to the duplicating machine. I would have no forward psychological continuity.
• However, my duplicate⁹ does have backward psychological continuity. Any duplicate¹⁰ of me, looking backward, would consider himself to be “me”, having my memories¹¹, abilities, plans and so forth, and a body looking just like mine. But, would I¹² ever wake up as the duplicate¹³? My intuition on the endurantist account, as I have said, is that I would not, though I suspect that on the perdurantist¹⁴ account, this might be seen as a case of intended fission¹⁵ in which I was intended to wake up twice, provided we consider that the right sort of causality¹⁶ is in place.
• The above considerations raise issues similar to those in closest continuer¹⁷ accounts of personal identity, and the Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle¹⁸. How can what happens to someone else affect whether (so to speak) I am me? How could the “right sort of causality” have anything to do with how I experience things?
• Fission is, in any case, hard to imagine happening to oneself. Just what does it mean to “wake up twice”? I dare say one could get one’s head(s) around it. The two selves would then be distinct individuals, with distinct consciousnesses, but with a shared past. On the perdurantist account, we were always distinct, but co-located with everything in common.
• Let’s consider forward psychological continuity in everyday life. What ensures forward continuity of consciousness¹⁹ 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 the one that went to sleep in my bed. The reason I believe this is for external reasons: duplication²⁰ is not physically possible (or at least practical), and in any case I have no reason to believe it happened to me last night. Other people assure me that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.
• This seems a very important issue to me, and I need to make more of it. For example, in teletransportation²¹ thought experiment²², it seems to me₂₃ 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 person²⁴, but a new human being²⁵ who wakes up.
• This is the sort of question that the Logical Positivists would denounce as meaningless, as no empirical evidence can decide it.
• Andy Clark, in "Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence) - Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality", raises the question about what ensures psychological continuity – more or less than in the case of Teletransportation – in the case of dreamless sleep, or (hypothetically) being frozen and then thawed out. We might ask what it is in the normal waking case. Maybe the whole thing is related to the arrow of time²⁶ or in the distinctions between forward-looking psychological properties – desires and intentions yet to be satisfied or acted upon, and memories of what has already taken place.
• Producing a reading list on this topic is difficult as the distinction – to my knowledge – isn’t usually made. There’s a huge overlap with the general literature of psychological continuity and connectedness and that on Teletransportation. For these, see:-
  → Psychological Continuity²⁷,
  → Teletransportation²⁸.
• So, the above caveats aside, works on this topic that I’ve actually read²⁹, include the following:-
  1. "Blackburn (Simon) - Has Kant Refuted Parfit?", Blackburn
  2. "Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence) - Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality", Clark & Kuhn
  3. "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue", Dainton
  4. "Ehring (Douglas) - Personal Identity and Time Travel", Ehring
  5. "Lockwood (Michael) - When Does a Life Begin?", Lockwood
  6. "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death", Olson
  7. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Immortality", Shoemaker
  8. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern", Shoemaker
  9. "Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules) - What Does It Mean to Be Me?", Smith
• A further reading list might start with:-
  1. TBA: I’ll add items to the list as they arise.
• This is mostly a place-holder³⁰.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 5:

• I don’t think this is a tendentious term.
• The intended use of the machine is to produce an exact copy without destroying the original.
• So, this isn’t the same as Dennett’s “Telecloning” machine in "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction", where the destruction of the original is intended, yet (despite the label) the machine is used as a means of transport.

Footnote 23:

• I want to make this more than just an Intuition, one that many – but by no means all – philosophers share.
• See "Bourget (David) & Chalmers (David) - The PhilPapers Surveys: What Do Philosophers Believe?".

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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 5 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
14/07/2019 18:05:46	2327	Psychological Continuity - Forward
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
15/06/2020 18:28:48	Psychological Continuity - Forward	Psychological Continuity

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Summary of Note Links from this Page

Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Causality	Closest Continuer	Consciousness	Duplication
Endurantism	Fission	Human Beings	I	Intuition
Memory	Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle	Perdurantism	Persistence	Person
Plug Note Apologia	Psychological Continuity	Teletransportation	Thought Experiments	Time
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	Psychology	Research - Proposal	Status: Personal Identity (2020 - June), 2	Status: Priority Task List (2020: September)
Status: Summary (2020 - June)	Teletransportation, 2	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
Dainton (Barry)	The Phenomenal Self: Appendix - Reductionism	Paper
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 - Psychology	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Teletransportation	Paper	2	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 - Cited	Dancy - Reading Parfit, 1997, Chapter 9	67%
Bourget (David) & Chalmers (David)	The PhilPapers Surveys: What Do Philosophers Believe?	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Studies: Vol. 170, No. 3 (September 2014), pp. 465-500	Yes
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 19 August, 2019	Yes
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	10%
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue	Paper - Cited	Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit, Prologue	Yes
Dancy (Jonathan), Ed.	Reading Parfit	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	25%
Dennett (Daniel)	The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction	Paper - Cited	Hofstadter & Dennett - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul	60%
Ehring (Douglas)	Personal Identity and Time Travel	Paper - Cited	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 - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	95%
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: C-F	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	41%
Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds.	The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	20%
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper - Cited	Lockwood - Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, 1987	Yes
Lockwood (Michael), Ed.	Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	43%
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper - Cited	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper - Cited	Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, 2009, Chapter 1	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern	Paper - Cited	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 - Cited	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, 2020
2. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2020

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