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Personal Identity

Closest Continuer

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

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. “Closest Continuer” is another term for the concept “Best Candidate”.
  2. This situation occurs where we have more than one candidate as the continuer of an individual, and we feel we have to make a choice because:
     1. There is only one social or legal role to fill, and
     2. The logic of identity causes a problem.
  3. Consider Locke²’s prince and cobbler or Williams’s body swapping³, but without the swap (ie. where only half the thought experiment is performed, so we have two identical psychologies). If the cobbler’s body is informed by the prince’s mind, then Locke claims that the cobbler is the prince. But if the prince still exists in his own mind as well, there’s a better candidate (says Nozick, for instance in "Nozick (Robert) - Personal Identity Through Time" or "Nozick (Robert) - The Identity of the Self: Introduction"), so the cobbler then isn’t the prince after all – but how (so the objection goes) can the existence of someone depend on the existence of someone else?
  4. A Perdurantist⁴ can accommodate these situations. This is by saying that prior to the point of decision, there were always two person stages co-located (ie. there were always two persons present, they just happened to share all their stages up to that point), and that only following the point of decision can we distinguish them. So, we don’t have to choose who is really the prince – they both are, in the sense that each post-decision spatio-temporal worm forms part of a larger spatio-temporal worm that includes pre-decision princely stages. Logical identity only applies to complete spatio-temporal worms, and there were always two worms sharing stages.
  5. Of course, we might have a convention⁵ that enables us to choose in a principled manner who can fill which role (the prince remains in his palace, the cobbler’s body informed by the prince’s mind retires to a madhouse). Yet (if we adopt the perdurantist view and the psychological criterion⁶) they are both the prince for all that.
  6. My own view used to be that the cobbler (ie. cobbler-body) just undergoes a radical psychological change, and so remains the cobbler all along. But I now think the thought experiment may be underspecified. Given the supervenience⁷ of mind on brain⁸, the superposition of one psychology on another would have radical physical consequences that must destroy the original, and replace it with a clone of the copied brain. But it is a clone, for all that, and not the original. I need to consider more carefully what change⁹, and how rapid a change, a thing can undergo and remain the same thing.

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Nozick (Robert) - Personal Identity Through Time", 1981
  2. "Nozick (Robert) - The Identity of the Self: Introduction", 1981, Read
• For a page of Links¹⁰ to this Note, Click here.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹¹, include the following:-
  • General:
    1. "Blatti (Stephan) - Animalism, Dicephalus, and Borderline Cases", 2007, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Footnote₁₂
    2. "Clark (Tom) - A Notable Theoretical Convergence", External Link
    3. "Clark (Tom) - Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity", No Abstract, External Link
    4. "Garrett (Brian) - Fission", 1998, Footnote₁₃
    5. "Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction", 2010, Annotations, Footnote₁₄
    6. "Hawley (Katherine) - Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts", 2005, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Noonan (Harold) - Against the Closest Continuer Theory", 2003, Annotations
    8. "Nozick (Robert) - The Identity of the Self: Introduction", 1981
    9. "Olson (Eric) - Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach", 1999, Footnote₁₅
    10. "Parfit (Derek) - Nagel's Brain", 1986
    11. "Parfit (Derek) - The Closest Continuer Schema", 1984
    12. "Robert (David) - The Existential Passage Hypothesis", No Abstract, External Link
    13. "Stewart (Wayne) - Uzgalis: Accidentally Opening a Transmigration Window by Nixing the Proper Continuer"
    14. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings: Preface", 1990, Annotations, Footnote₁₆
    15. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", 2010, Annotations, Internal PDF Link, Footnote₁₇
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Baillie (James) - Identity and Survival", 1993, Footnote₁₈
    2. "Bourgeois (Warren) - Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Nozick's Self-Makers", 2003, Read = 5%, Footnote₁₉
    3. "Cerullo (Michael A.) - Uploading and Branching Identity", 2015, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 133%, Footnote₂₀
    4. "Coburn (Robert) - Personal Identity Revisited", 1985, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Garrett (Brian) - A Further Reply to Noonan", 1987, Internal PDF Link, Read = 67%
    6. "Garrett (Brian) - Noonan, 'Best Candidate' Theories and the Ship of Theseus", 1985, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Garrett (Brian) - Personal Identity and Extrinsicness", 1990, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Heller (Mark) - The best candidate approach to diachronic identity", 1987, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Mackie (Penelope) - Identity and Extrinsicness: Reply to Garrett", 1989, Internal PDF Link
    10. "Noonan (Harold) - Reply to Garrett", 1986, Internal PDF Link
    11. "Noonan (Harold) - The Closest Continuer Theory of Identity", 1985
    12. "Noonan (Harold) - The Only X and Y Principle", 1985, Internal PDF Link, Read = 17%
    13. "Noonan (Harold) - The Possibility of Reincarnation", 1990, Internal PDF Link, Read = 100%
    14. "Nozick (Robert) - Personal Identity Through Time", 1981, Footnote₂₁
    15. "Slors (Marc) - The Closest Continuer View Revisited", 2004, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    16. "Valberg (J.J.) - My Future", 2007, Footnote₂₂
• For further papers held on-line of potential interest, follow this Link²³. Total papers = 4.

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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-holder²⁴.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 12:

• When considering duplication issues with double-hemispherectomy & transplant, “closest continuer” resolutions to the problem (amongst other suggestions) are rejected.

Footnote 13:

• The “closest continuer” theory as a solution to the “split brain” fission puzzle is considered in Sections 3 & 4.

Footnote 14:

• Brief discussion of Hershenov’s claim that Zimmerman’s “Falling Elevator” model of physical resurrection is effectively a “closest continuer” theory.

Footnote 15:

• Olson’s rejection of “closest continuer” solutions to the double-hemispherectomy & transplant problem (for the psychological view).
• His objection isn’t to the incoherence of the “closest continuer” as such, but that the hemispheres might be equipollent, leading to no “closest continuer”.

Footnote 16:

• The rejection of “closest continuer” theories is the 10th of Van Inwagen’s presuppositions.
• Decisions of persistence are intrinsic. No outside facts – such as the existence of a better candidate – can affect whether something has persisted.

Footnote 17:

• Zimmerman discusses the “closest continuer” theory extensively in a reply to Hasker.
• It seems that the “Falling Elevator” model of resurrection requires both acceptance of the “closest continuer” theory and the rejection of the “only X and Y” principle.

Footnote 18:

• Consideration of “closest continuer” theories in Section 2.

Footnote 19:

• Description and elaboration of Nozick’s “closest continuer” theory, followed by …
• Its application to duplication puzzle-cases.

Footnote 20:

• Rejects the “closest continuer” theory as a solution to the problem posed by putative uploadings of human brains to computers.

Footnote 21:

• This is the relevant extract from "Nozick (Robert) - The Identity of the Self: Introduction".

Footnote 22:

• The “closest continuer” theory is discussed in Section 4.

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Table of the Previous 10 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	6378	Closest Continuer
01/05/2022 18:20:10	5997	Closest Continuer
09/02/2021 00:40:19	5794	Closest Continuer
08/06/2019 10:26:24	5460	Closest Continuer
24/04/2018 11:16:48	6709	Closest Continuer
10/04/2017 23:38:24	5766	Closest Continuer
21/08/2009 21:44:38	2462	Closest Continuer
21/08/2009 21:40:19	2405	Closest Continuer
26/11/2007 23:25:26	1631	Closest Continuer
12/08/2007 10:17:46	1626	Closest Continuer

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Closest Continuer	Logic of Identity

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Brain State Transfer	Change	Convention	Locke
Note Links Explanation	Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle	Perdurantism	Physicalism	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage
Plug Note Apologia	Psychological Criterion	Supervenience	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

Exdurantism	Johnston - Human Beings	Olson - Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Olson - What Are We? The Question, 2	Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle
PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3, 4, 5	Psychological Continuity - Forward	Reduplication Objections	Replication	Research - Proposal
Status: Personal Identity (2025 - March)	Status: Priority Task List (2025 - May)	Status: Summary (2025 - March)	Teletransportation	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)
Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments), 2, 3, 4	Thesis - Current Stance	Thesis - Personal Identity, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Twinning	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?
Baillie (James)	Identity and Survival	Paper
Blatti (Stephan)	Animalism, Dicephalus, and Borderline Cases	Paper		Yes
Bourgeois (Warren)	Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Nozick's Self-Makers	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5
Cerullo (Michael A.)	Uploading and Branching Identity	Paper
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper	2	Yes
Coburn (Robert)	Personal Identity Revisited	Paper
Garrett (Brian)	Fission	Paper	2	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Noonan, 'Best Candidate' Theories and the Ship of Theseus	Paper
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Extrinsicness	Paper	2, 3, 4
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Book	2	Yes
Gasser (Georg)	Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper	2	Yes
Hawley (Katherine)	Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts	Paper	2	Yes
Heller (Mark)	The best candidate approach to diachronic identity	Paper
Hudson (Hud)	I am Not an Animal!	Paper
Johnston (Mark)	Human Beings	Paper		Yes
Mellor (D.H.)	Real Time II: Introduction	Paper		Yes
Noonan (Harold)	Reply to Garrett	Paper	2, 3, 4
Noonan (Harold)	The Only X and Y Principle	Paper
Noonan (Harold)	The Possibility of Reincarnation	Paper	2
Noonan (Harold)	Wiggins, Artifact Identity and 'Best Candidate' Theories	Paper	2, 3
Nozick (Robert)	Personal Identity Through Time	Paper
Olson (Eric)	Animalism and the Remnant-Person Problem	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Is Psychology Relevant To Personal Identity?	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? The Question	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Nagel's Brain	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	The Closest Continuer Schema	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Yes
Robinson (John)	Personal Identity and Survival	Paper
Sheldrake (Rupert)	A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation	Book
Sheldrake (Rupert)	The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind	Book
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper		Yes
Shoemaker (Sydney)	Persons and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Exdurantism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Continuity - Forward	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Reduplication Objections	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Replication	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Teletransportation	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Twinning	Paper		Yes
Valberg (J.J.)	My Future	Paper
Van Inwagen (Peter)	Material Beings: Preface	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Zimmerman (Dean)	Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25	Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Baillie (James)	Identity and Survival	Paper - Cited	Baillie (James) - Problems in Personal Identity, 1993, Chapter 2	No
Baillie (James)	Problems in Personal Identity	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	45%
Blatti (Stephan)	Animalism, Dicephalus, and Borderline Cases	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Psychology 20 (2007): 595–608	Yes
Bourgeois (Warren)	Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Nozick's Self-Makers	Paper - Cited	Bourgeois - Persons: What Philosophers Say about You, 2003, Chapter 12	5%
Bourgeois (Warren)	Persons: What Philosophers Say about You	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	15%
Cerullo (Michael A.)	Uploading and Branching Identity	Paper - Cited	Minds & Machines (2015) 25:17–36	78%
Clark (Tom)	A Notable Theoretical Convergence	Paper - Cited	Naturalism.org.	Yes
Clark (Tom)	Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity	Paper - Cited	Naturalism.org.	Yes
Coburn (Robert)	Personal Identity Revisited	Paper - By Subtopic	Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 15.3, Sept. 1985, pp. 379-404	No
Garrett (Brian)	A Further Reply to Noonan	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 47, 1987, pp. 204-207	No
Garrett (Brian)	Fission	Paper - Cited	Garrett - Personal Identity and Self-consciousness, 1998, Chapter 4	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Noonan, 'Best Candidate' Theories and the Ship of Theseus	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 45, 1985, 212-215	No
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Extrinsicness	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophical Studies 59, pp. 177-194, 1990	No
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Gasser (Georg), Ed.	Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	96%
Hawley (Katherine)	Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming, issue dated November 2005)	Yes
Heller (Mark)	The best candidate approach to diachronic identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 65, Number 4, December 1987, pp. 434-451(18)	No
MacIntosh (J.J.)	Reincarnation, Closest Continuers, and The Three Card Trick: A Reply To Noonan And Daniels	Paper - By Subtopic	Religious Studies, Vol. 28, pp. 235-251. 1992	13%
Noonan (Harold)	Against the Closest Continuer Theory	Paper - By Subtopic	Noonan - Personal Identity, 2003, Chapter 12	Yes
Noonan (Harold)	Personal Identity	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Noonan (Harold) - Personal Identity	Yes
Noonan (Harold)	Reply to Garrett	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 46, 1986, pp. 205-211	No
Noonan (Harold)	The Closest Continuer Theory of Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Inquiry 28, pp. 195-229, 1985	No
Noonan (Harold)	The Only X and Y Principle	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 45, 1985, 79-83	17%
Noonan (Harold)	The Possibility of Reincarnation	Paper - By Subtopic	Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 483-491	56%
Noonan (Harold)	Wiggins, Artifact Identity and 'Best Candidate' Theories	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 45, 1985, 4-8	17%
Nozick (Robert)	Personal Identity Through Time	Paper - Cited	Nozick - Philosophical Explanations - Metaphysics; The Identity of the Self; Chapter 1.I	No
Nozick (Robert)	Philosophical Explanations	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	2%
Nozick (Robert)	The Identity of the Self: Introduction	Paper - Cited	Nozick - Philosophical Explanations - Metaphysics; Chapter 1	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Nagel's Brain	Paper - Cited	Parfit - Reasons and Persons, Appendix D	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Reasons and Persons	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Reasons and Persons	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	The Closest Continuer Schema	Paper - By Subtopic	Parfit - Reasons and Persons, Appendix E	Yes
Robert (David)	The Existential Passage Hypothesis	Paper - By Subtopic	PhilArchive, July 14, 2018 (Updated Dec. 20, 2020)	Yes
Slors (Marc)	The Closest Continuer View Revisited	Paper - By Subtopic	Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (3):387-402 (2004)	7%
Stewart (Wayne)	Uzgalis: Accidentally Opening a Transmigration Window by Nixing the Proper Continuer	Paper - By Subtopic	Reddit, 2019	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Closest Continuer	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Valberg (J.J.)	Dream, Death, and the Self	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Valberg (J.J.) - Dream, Death, and the Self	1%
Valberg (J.J.)	My Future	Paper - By Subtopic	Valberg (J.J.) - Dream, Death, and the Self, 2007, Chapter 22	No
Zimmerman (Dean)	Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited	Paper - Cited	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes

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