just don't understand why aliens from distant planets want my used appliances and furniture. They could at least offer to trade something -- maybe their old orgazmatron couch, or some nice floor covering? — BC

Aliens are huge thrift store shoppers. They like a good deal and love knick knacks. The clutter in their space ships looks like a grandma's house.

Atheists believe in UFOs because they don't believe in God. Theists don't need to believe in UFOs because they believe in God. — Leontiskos

I think my reasons set out to 180 directly above makes more sense, but I'm interested in why you think an atheist would need there to be UFOs to impart meaning on their lives and why you think theists would lose something if they accepted that UFOs existed.

My view is that there aren't aliens because I've never seen one in the zoo. If you can show me one, I'll change my mind. It's sort of like bigfoot. I'll believe in it when it walks through my backyard,.

Just as atheists are less likely than religious people to "believe in" angels & ghosts. As you're well aware, we (confabulatory metacognitive) h. sapiens are quite often (virally) delusional. — 180 Proof

UFOs and bigfoot could exist under our current concept of physics and scientific reality. Gods and angels, not so much. Many theists subscribe to Creationist accounts, and most such literature makes no reference to otherworldly creatures, except for those who reside up high or down low and have supernatural powers.

I think that's probably why atheists can better accept UFOs and fundamentalists cannot.

"UFOs" = angels & ghosts :roll: — 180 Proof

I wondered about that, but this article says religious people are less likely to believe in UFOs than are atheists.

https://religionnews.com/2021/08/23/for-atheists-the-idea-of-aliens-seems-real-religious-people-doubt-it/

Shoot them down and wait to see who sues you. Problem solved. — Leontiskos

Where do you get a surface to air missle?

It is hard to wade through all this, but given the framework I provided of context, evidence, and sources, how should one evaluate claims? — schopenhauer1

I don't view this through an epistimological lens, as if suggesting the meaning of "truth" has shifted or that there is some paradigm shift where we now accept non-scientific perspectives when deciphering what is true or not.

I view this through a political lens, as in who is saying it, why they're saying it, and what power they wish to gain through saying it.

It's a strange turn of events, but the right today represents a counterculture perspective in some regards. They no longer believe in traditional institutions. They reject what the government tells them as all being propoganda. They reject consensus scientific view as being designed for a malicious purpose. Vaccines are designed solely for profit and population control, climate science is designed to offer support for Robin Hoods to control wealth, the FBI is designed to eliminate freedoms, and theories get thrown around about how the entirety of Washington is a massive pedophelia ring. Universities are viewed as powerful mechanisms of control and manipulation of the average citizen, bringing about a 180 degree change from the day when the universities viewed themselves as the speaker for the average citizen.

The UFO thing is consistent with all of this. It's another instance of someone or something having taken over society in some surreptitious way, with a final plan to take the hard earned belongings and freedoms from average Americans. It's all the result of distrust and paranoia.

The problem is that the distrust and paranoia has been earned. It's not that the right is rational in its response, but it's not that the left has maintained a moral high ground either. Do what you want, say what you want, try to get what you want, and if you get caught, be more clever the next time.

Meanwhile, drones fly over NJ and no one is entitled to an explanation.

Any ideas, thoughts, observations, theories? — schopenhauer1

Someone must know what they are or they'd have been shot down by now. So far, they've not done anything interesting.

My feeling is we work so hard to maintain the right to be armed in this country, you'd think we'd be more excited to finally have a menacing target to shoot at.

Lastly, is it just me, or is there some truly unfortunate, bitter irony in holding faith and hope in prayer when unanswered prayer results in an increase in skeptical atheism and/or agnosticism? … Nevertheless, the following poem is for the growing number of people for whom there’s nothing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, or any other day of the year. — FrankGSterleJr

How do you know the prayer was unanswered as opposed to the answer having been no?

As to the OP, you should be thankful for nothing to the extent that what you haven't received is part of your bounty as well.

so be it. — Mikie

Then it is.

Obviously that was extrajudicial, but at the same time, perhaps it is good that powerful people are reminded every once in a while that there a limits to how far one can push innocent people. — Tzeentch

You're arguing that this instance of first degree murder was perhaps good?

Is it possible other health insurance executives in the industry might reevaluate their companies' denials of coverage policies in light of the murder? If one thinks that every denial of coverage could result in one's murder, wouldn't that be an incentive to reduce those denials a bit? — RogueAI

Considering someone is immoral enough to kill someone else for only having allegedly denied a valid insurance claim, it is entirely possible that someone else will exercise the poor judgment to modify his claims processing based upon fear of murder. That is, sure, someone might make a bad decision. It happens all the time.

To the actual possibility that claims handling will be impacted by some murdering thug, that's pretty doubtful. The driver of corporations is profits and if claims payments are going to be increased, premiums will as well. What you make is the case for stricter police enforcement and greater protection of corporate decision makers if you actually believe decisions are now going to be made literally at gunpoint.

This idea of villifying corporations to the extent you actually believe the murder of their leaders is understandable and should give pause to reconsideration of current policy is a considerable part of the reason the left saw the election results they did. You can't expect to hold any moral high ground if you're going to insinuate that murder is an acceptable response to a health insurance denial and then somehow condemn the relative child's play of infractions committed by those across the political aisle.

That anyone has any hesitation to fully condemn the shooter and to refuse to use his actions to promote any outstanding agenda reveals someone just terribly misguided without any moral compass.

This is just to say that if rising heathcare premiums and increased healthcare denials lead to more murders, we don't need reduced premiums and higher claims approvals. We need more police and more jail cells. Whatever you might think of jails and law enforcement, consider yourself in the tiny minority if you think first degree murderers should be granted leniency.

The issue isn’t with the CEO, it’s with the corrupt, immoral, profit-over-people system that leads to his existence. — Mikie

The issue is that there was a murder.

The healthcaee crisis is a non-sequiter to that.

The murderer did not address the issue, clarify the issue, or make the world in any way a better place.

We just agreed on something. First sign of the apocalypse.

The doctors refused to provide the care, not him. Why not kill them?

The problem with US healthcare is that insurance is unaffordable for many, not that the claims process for those insured is more burdensome than would exist in a nationalized healthcare system. It's not like nations with national free healthcare approve every procedure and efficiently provide service.

In fact, the reason the US has rejected public healthcare is due to fears of not being able to choose one's own doctors and having their healhcare decisions made by beurocrats.

I refuse to allow a sociopath who committed first degree murder to have any voice or to shape the direction of any conversation regarding anything other than what sentence he deserves, with the objective of silencing him forever.

Let his actions be in vain, for nothing, just so he can die anonymously alone 50+ years later.

Whatever conversation needs to be had about whatever is going on in the world can arise as it would have anyway.

I don't lost sleep over the death of someone so distant, but I don't subtract sympathy based upon Brian Thompson's occupation or standing. That the shooter was also of privilege also doesn't subtract any sympathy by me. My lack of sympathy for the shooter is based upon him being a shooter.

What does infuriate me is any suggestion Brian Thompson deserved the death penalty from a deranged street murderer any more than other random person walking about.

Senator Fetterman said it well:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fetterman-blasts-liberal-magazine-calling-210015478.html

The Nihilsum embodies the paradox of freedom, where we confront both the possibility of existence and its inherent nonsense. — mlles

This is the only part of your post that made sense to me. You've identified a supposedly new category and freedom is the only example you've provided that goes into this category.

Libertarian freedom is a complicated notion in that it asserts an uncaused cause and it attributes moral responsibility on that agent that originated the uncaused cause. How such a cause can arise without a cause has no good answer.

But there are many unanswerable philosophical questions, so I'm not sure what distinguishes this one.

For clarity, what other examples other than freedom fall into this category?

I actually do like that it's real and unapologetic, the feeling that it's immutably forged from some formative personal experience and societal rejection that doesnt lend itself to debate. You either embrace wholeheartedly their manifesto, or they have you fuck off. I can trust they believe what they say, which is more than you get from most.

There's something Cool Hand Luke about it you've got to respect.

But since I'm not an accepted member of that tribe (alas, being cuntless), I can only observe their artistic expression from afar. I couldn't actually interact with those gentle souls because I'd be likely be struck by the grenades their military wing would toss at me.

The Georgia law against incest:

"(a) A person commits the offense of incest when such person engages in sexual intercourse or sodomy, as such term is defined in Code Section 16-6-2, with a person whom he or she knows he or she is related to by blood, by adoption, or by marriage as follows:
(1) Father and child or stepchild;
(2) Mother and child or stepchild;
(3) Siblings of the whole blood or of the half blood or by virtue of adoption;
(4) Grandparent and grandchild of the whole blood or of the half blood or by virtue of adoption;
(5) Aunt and niece or nephew of the whole blood or of the half blood or by virtue of adoption; or
(6) Uncle and niece or nephew of the whole blood or of the half blood or by virtue of adoption.
(b) A person convicted of the offense of incest shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than ten nor more than 30 years; provided, however, that any person convicted of the offense of incest under this subsection with a child under the age of 14 years shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 25 nor more than 50 years. Any person convicted under this Code section of the offense of incest shall, in addition, be subject to the sentencing and punishment provisions of Code Section 17-10-6.2.:"

Note the prohibition against sex with adopted relatives, meaning this is not about eugenics, at least not entirely.

The question ought to be what is the good thing to do and then you could ask why that's the good thing to do, but you wouldn't agree upon what the good thing is to do and then ask why do it.

The "good" thing is the thing you want to do because that's what it means to be good.

The prohibition on incest is a form of eugenics, and that's okay. — Leontiskos

I think it's a proxy against molestation as well. Obviously it's theoretically possible to consent to incest, but it so rarely occurs between two consenting adults that it's used as an identifier something is terribly amiss.

But if you favor eugenics, why limit based upon consanguinity? Why not use more accurate genetic testing?

And I win the argument here for knowing the word "consanguinity."

I knew a guy who claimed that if we don't go over to the Mayan calendar, the world will end. — frank

One day the world will end, and we won't know why it will end until it does end. Until then, the jury is out as to whether the guy you knew is correct.

I know that argument, but that's the stupid argument from logical necessity, like God can be created by syllogism.

My novel contribution to the field of Cartesian analysis that appeared for the first time here argues that God is required in order to avoid to solipsism, an inherently incoherent position. That is, feel free to be an atheist, but your position is incoherent.

Descartes saved us from the unsalvagable pits of eternal and infinite skeptism by reminding us that God would not allow for such. There being no other way out, God becomes the only way for such salvation.

That's my contribution to the field.

So I see Descartes as claiming not faith but knowledge of God's existence -- and this need not even counter faith. Especially at the time scientists and theologians weren't far apart. In a way I'm trying to bring out "the spirit of the times" by focusing on the prima facie meaning to put Descartes in the context of the Enlightenment. — Moliere

If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.

That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.

My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.

I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.

With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.

Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.

This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God.

How does faith get us out of the cogito? — Moliere

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. I was saying faith gets us out of solipsism, which is the net result of the Cartesian method of complete skepticism. The cogito leaves us with just knowing that the single mind of the single doubter is all that exists. To get beyond that, you have to have faith. That's what Descartes indicated by his reliance upon God.

But maybe I didn't fully understand your question.

So, if I have you right, you're making the argument that he's more targeting atheists in saying that if they do not believe in God then this is all they can know, and given that they know more than that, they ought consider believing in God. Sort of like the Secret Atheist, but instead he's dressing it up for the church while talking to his contemporaries too. — Moliere

I just think that what Descartes did was to doubt all basic foundations and then all he had left was knowledge of his self as a doubting thing. That is a solipsitic conclusion. In order to get himself back to where he could have some knowledge of the world and of other minds, he pulled in God and used God to form the foundation for all knowledge of the world.

If you buy into this approach, God becomes necessary in order to avoid solipsism. It doesn't mean God exists. It just means that you cannot know anything without God's existence (except knowing that you exist as a not knowing thing).

Many find Descartes problematic because they believe he has doubted that which no person would actually doubt and that he has created a fabricated quandary and from that Western philosophy has gone down this road of trying to prove that which no person truly doubts. I don't find Descartes problematic at all because I never doubted that the foundation for our beliefs was faith and that without faith you will have nothing but doubt. Perhaps the opposite of doubt is faith.

Do you think anything can be inferred from the cogito, whatsoever — Moliere

A reasonable inference is that God is necessary in order to avoid solipsism.

That seems to be the larger argument he was making.

Well, given that Sartre is talking about radical doubt as being given to us only through time reference (something like Kant's intuitions I feel) there is nothing other to hang experience off of is there?

'Rely' is probably the sticky word here. Sartre likes to make words less like words. — I like sushi

I understood Sartre here to mean (and I don't think he was terribly clear) that doubt must occur in the past, present, and future for it to be real doubt. So, if I doubt a pen is in front of me, I have to doubt all that I previously knew of pens, the current pen I see, and the future pen that I have grown accustomed to seeing over time. I can't just say I question the pen's existence in the here and now and that be the radical and complete doubt Descartes is looking for.

On the Kant intuition issue, I don't think Sartre was suggesting that we must doubt time if we want to be radical skeptics. I think he was saying we must doubt an object in all phases of time: past, present, and future. The pen never was, is not, and never will be. I don't think he's suggesting we doubt our Kantian intuitions. In fact, all the Kant is committed to saying about time is that we think there is time, which doesn't give any external reality to it. That is, a radical skeptic would not be required to say there is time, but would only say he thinks there is time, which is consistent with solipsism.

So the question: Must the cogito rely upon a notion of the past and future in order for its doubt to make sense?

If so then it seems the skeptic must at least admit of knowledge of time. And so cannot be universally skeptical. If we know about time then just how could there be an Evil Demon behind the appearances? Is it outside of time? If so then the cogito has nothing to do with it, as per the argument. — Moliere

I think it's correct to assume that we cannot understand the world without reference to time, and so the Cogito must be understood within the context of time.

However, that does not mean that the Cogito proves that time exists, nor does it suggest that Descartes failed in his attempt to be infinitely skeptical by assuming the existence of time. It only means that an understanding of the world is impossible without placing events within time.

This approach I'm arguing is consistent with Kant's view that time does not necessarily exist outside humans because it is a form of intuition necessary for our perception of reality, but not an inherent property of the world itself.

To truly win a war requires permanent occupation. We can destroy a government and devastate an economy, but unless we're prepared to colonize and occupy, all we can do is destroy and allow it to rebuild under a new set of leadership.

France colonized Vietnam and held it until Japan took it over until they lost it to Hiroshima, and then the US didn't want it to go Comminist so the whole wrangling in their politics that was supposed to end with allowing the Vietnamese to democratically choose their course. More US meddling and then war, but the point is the US never wanted to take over Vietnam. They just wanted them to do as they were told. Had the US wanted to annex it for statehood, that'd be a different story, but even then, colonies are hard to hold. The British Empire couldn't hold and neither could the USSR.

As to the difference between the material conditional and informal notions of the conditional, that point has been gone over and over and over. If there is something more you want to say about, no one is stopping you. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Why are you telling me that no one is stopping me?

And I gave you information about modus ponens, consistency and arguments too, to clear things up for you after your confused comment about them. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Thank you for reminiscing, but that's not what my last post was about.

I've said it maybe fifty times in this forum: Ordinary formal logic with its material conditional does not pertain to all contexts. But that is not a basis that one should not say how ordinary formal logic handles a question and not a basis that one should not explain ordinary formal logic to people who are talking about it without knowing about it. — TonesInDeepFreeze

This is not responsive to anything I've said. I know you want to keep saying over and over what formal logic dictates, but my post was referring to how ordinary language handled conditionals and how that was distinct from formal language. I didn't suggest we should jettison formal logic or that it lacked value because it was distinct from the ordinary way we speak.

For a foreigner like me, it is complicated to understand America's core values. Following your views and posts, it seems that an American core value is gun freedom; also, you are against censorship, but you would avoid having a LGTBIQ flag in your classroom; then, you claim that it is essential to have different beliefs, but some of you label as 'Communist' the working model of Mondragón (Spain) for not being capitalist enough. 

A core value... complicated, mate.

For me, it is to have a strong national healthcare system. So, to you is carrying a M-16 in your big polluting Ford truck. — javi2541997

I'm not sure what you mean by "core value." Gun ownership is a 2nd Amendment right and free speach is a 1st Amendment right, so those could be classified as core values. The 1st Amendment doesn't guarantee the right to teachers to fly whatever flag or post whatever poster in their classroom they want, so I don't see the hypocrisy there. Government buildings can have designated purposes, and it's not clear why it would be appropriate to have an LGBT flag hanging in the classrom or why it'd be appropriate to fly a right wing oriented flag.

America is a capitalist country, which makes it less Marxist than other countries, which I guess is just true. I don't know how much time Americans spend thinking and commenting upon the working model of Spain, but, to the extent it is more communistic than the US, that would likely not be something many Americans would want to emulate.

The US does have strong national healthcare. Your concern is over affordability and accessibility. That is not a Constitutional issue in the US, but it is true that a very large number of people do not want a government controlled healthcare system in the US.

The M-16? Sure, we all walk around with fully automatic rifles. As to the attack on the Ford truck, you've not just ridiculed the rednecks you envision bouncing around on the back roads with their rebel flags, but also the union workers who built those vehicles who @T Clark just lamented were leaving the Democratic party for this very reason.

If everyone who thinks differently than you is forced to listen to lectures about how stupid they are, then they'll stand behind Trump and laugh as he gives them the middle finger. And that's precisely what he represents.

Another suggestion would be to allow the Democrat voters the power to choose their own candidate. Obama won because he pushed Hillary aside by actually being popular. Personality matters. Just affixing a (D) at the end of someone's name isn't going to assure them votes. The Republican process is a free for all, which is making it ironically a much more democratic process.

We might correct them, "well, actually ~Q." "Your reasoning is spot on and logical, it just happens to be that ~P, so while your reasoning is valid, the argument you presented is unsound." — NotAristotle

Yes, there is a difference between an unsound argument that arises from an incorrect fact as opposed to one that arises from a contradiction.

- If I go to the store, I will buy milk, I went to the store, so I bought milk. That's true, unless I forgot to buy milk.

- If I go to the store, I will not have gone to the store, I went to the store, so I didn't go to the store. That statement is never true regardless of what I do. The reason it's never true is because "If I go to the store, I will not have gone to the store" is logically equivalent to "I did not go to the store."

In your case, you DO have the memories. — AmadeusD

I'm really not following. I'm not just trying to be difficult. Why do you lose memories when you teleport and why do you posit that I have a continuous memory from birth to now? You're distinguishing your example from mine, and I don't see how teleporting erases memory and I don't see why moving slowly through life preserves it.

I thought teleporting challenged identity because it was not possible to show what of the same matter existed from Point A to Point B. Everything disappeared and went away and then popped back. I get how that causes an indentity problem.

But if I go from Point A to Point B over 50 years and not a single same cell or single same memory exists from age 1 to age 50, then don't I have the same identity problem as you noted in the teleporting?

And then how isn't all this Ship of Theseus problems?

What is going on here is not a pedantic mismatch between English and some esoteric academic exercise. Rather, there are ambiguities in the English use of "If... then...", "...or..." and various other terms that we must settle in order to examine the structure of our utterances in detail. — Banno

I consider the logical conditional a performative, as exists in an algorithmic way.

Consider, "If X = 4, then Y = 7." That is , if we set X at 4 then Y is set at 7. We could not program if we could not make such statements. If P then Q results in the occurence of Q when P is the case necessarily. I consider this an analytic operation and consistent with computer logic in programming (as far as I know about programming).

I consider the linguistic conditional not an indication of what is or what will be, but a hypothetical counterfactual that does not indicate, but hypothosizes. Because it does not indicate, we don't speak in the indicative mood, but in the subjunctive, as in what we wish, hope, or hypothesize about.

As in: "If I were President, I would lower taxes." This is not represented as P -> T. That would overstate the meaning of my speculative statement. Note the "were," not "was." This is a counterfactual (it hypothethesizes an antecedent that did not occur), not a logical conditional.

"If I was President, I lowered taxes" makes more sense as a formal conditional.

If I was President, I lowered taxes
I was President
ergo I lowered taxes

But not:

If I were President, I would lower taxes
I were President
ergo I would lower taxes

What does it mean that I were President versus I was President? I think the meaning is critical in changing from the formal indicative conditional to the non-formal linguistic subjunctive conditional.

My thoughts at least.

It just gives us the extremely uncomfortable conclusion that (for example) in a situation of teletransportation, you die. You don't come to in place 2. You simply die. Someone new, with your same memories, exists in place 2. — AmadeusD

Why do I have to use teleportation? Why can't I just say I existed as a baby at Time 1, Location 1 and now I'm at Time 1,000 at Location 1,000? This creates the same situation. I have nothing in common with myself across all those times and locations, not even a consistency of memory. Do I die and get reborn every time I shed my old body for my new one?

You don't have to interrupt the time/space continuim to create these questions. I still think they're just Ship of Theseus problems dealing with identity.

There would be two people who each identify as being Michael, and we would identify one as being the original and the other as being a copy (and they would perhaps identify themselves the same way). — Michael

Are you identifying the brain as Michael, or just the contents of that brain? If I download a pdf to your computer, why does the original RAM where the pdf was stored matter in terms of pdf identity? Does it matter if I cut and paste the pdf or if I copy and paste the pdf in terms of where the true pdf is?

When Frank reads my post and you read my post, which post is the original that is being read?

I'd say the program is the code regardless of where it's stored in terms of identifying the program.

The brain in the jar is you if it contains your thoughts, which is why a vegetative brain is no different than you arm. Your essence isn't the brain. It's what the brain happens to be storing, which means you could be you in someone else's brain or on a USB drive.

What we then need to do is itemize all your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and whatever else is stored in that hard drive and then zap them dead one at a time. Once you stop being you, we can then know what essential thought made you you once and for all. But we're talking about internal feeling now, not brains. The brain is just vehicle with a person behind the wheel in your example, but not the person itself, right?

Any position which entails a) I am the person with a body, b) I am not the person in the jar, or c) I am both the person with a body and the person in the jar is wrong. — Michael

If you were in a vegetative state on a table and your brain was removed to the jar, there'd be no distinction between the you on the table and the you in the jar. That is, there is a position that entails you are the person with the body, you are the person in the jar, and you are the person in the body and the jar. If you say you are not both on the table and in the jar, then which one is you?

The reason we get this result is because you are equating the brain to the contents of the brain, namely the memories and the phenomenal state of consciousness. That is, you are positing your memories and consciousness as your essence, and so when I remove those things from the brain, the body tissue and brain tissue become equal under an essence analysis.

But that creates even more complexities because even if those memories and the feeling of personal identity linked to your being Michael were to corrupt, we'd still say you were Michael. That is, if we took your brain out and put in the jar and that made you think you were someone else, we'd still assert yourself to be you because you had the same brain. But who is the person on the table?

And then suppose we could download your brain contents to another brain such that it replicated the mental contents of the first one and gave that other entity the exact feeling of Michaelness you have? Would we have two Michaels? What if the download from Michael 1 to Michael 2 was an actual transfer such that Michael 1 was empty of thoughts once Michael 2 was filled up? Who would be Micheal then?

I would re-write your statement to be: If I am my brain, then "Any position which entails a) I am the person with a body, b) I am not the person in the jar, or c) I am both the person with a body and the person in the jar is wrong."

We then just have to find situations where the antecdent is not satisfied or at least calls it into question.

I think that if we take any one part of the Ship of Theseus and replace it with a new part then it's still the Ship of Theseus, but that if we "replace" my head (and brain) with a new head (and brain) then it's no longer me, it's someone else. I'm the disembodied head living in a jar like in Futurama. There certainly can't be two of me, which would seem to follow from NOS4A2's position. — Michael

I don't know. I think you can play with these analogies to come up with anything, which is why essentialism is hard to maintain in any form. If you awoke with all your memories in Jane's body, you'd say you were you now in Jane's body even if your brain matter were entirely different. You also say you're you today even though you share no atom in common with your childhood self. If you lost all your memories when you were 10 years old and now had all new memories at 30 years of age, you'd still say you've maintained identity over time even though you share neither memories or cells with your former self.

If you took boards off the Ship of Theseus and rebuilt a new ship with those boards slowly (as you also replaced boards on your original ship), you could argue you've simply moved the ship piece by piece, and you could also argue that the other ship remained the Ship of Theseus because it maintained the same design and functionality over time. That is, you'd end up with two Ships of Theseus.

I'm not denying the significance of brains and memories in how they define identity, but there's always a counterexample that can be found to whatever definition you arrive at.