Since its dynamic, and since time is identical to change/motion anyway, brain states, just like states of anything else, are always changing. Re abstractions, we can say things like "Joe was hysterically laughing for 15 minutes," as if an identical state persisted for 15 minutes, but that's an abstraction, it's glossing over details to parse a temporal range of states as "one thing." — Terrapin Station
To which you replied:Can you elaborate on what you mean by a connection which isn't related to identity? Alex 1 and Alex 2 aren't the same person, they're just connected, is that right? Can you explain how that works? ' — CS
First, you need to make sure that you're not conflating "personal identity" with the more general, logical notion of identity. I'm not sure that you're not conflating the two. They're two different ideas.
Anyway, sure, Alex at T1 is causally connected to Alex at T2, they're contiguous, memory is involved, there's a sense of a continuous self involved, and so on. Those are some examples, although by no means is it an exhaustive list, of the connections.' — TS
I don't think you're using causal connection I the sense that I'm using it. I'm talking about causality in what we could call a (direct) "physics sense." — TS
'If you think that identity does not persist over time, then the very idea of personal identity is incoherent' — CS
That's a conflation of two different ideas. — TS
So yes, personal identity is physical. — terrapin
Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life. — Terrapin, quoting a definition he suggests is representative
You seem to have forgotten that yesterday, csalisbury was pressing you on this very point.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by a connection which isn't related to identity? Alex 1 and Alex 2 aren't the same person, they're just connected, is that right? Can you explain how that works? ' — CS — Wayfarer
Strangely, Terrapin's definition of personal identity is entirely different from the definition of personal identity he says should be familiar to anyone with a philosophical background. — csalisbury
Terrapin, we're just asking you to be consistent enough to make discussion possible. — csalisbury
So if an identical brain state, of someone who is alive, developed somewhere else in the universe, or at a different time. That same person would experience that brain state, wherever it is, like a continuity of consciousness? — Punshhh
But the OP is asking about whether someone is alive, brain states are besides the point. The point is in reference to the state of being alive. I agree that a person does not have an identical brain state as one they had in the past(although in an infinite universe, it is inevitable that it would happen somewhere else). But they do have life, they are alive as they were in the past. So the OP is asking about either being alive, or not being alive, brain states are irrelevant to this.As a nominalist, I don't believe that an identical brain state in someone else, or in the same person at a different time, is possible.
Haha, yet one of the sources I quoted was the SEP.
Terrapin's definition of personal identity is entirely different from the definition of personal identity he says should be familiar to anyone with a philosophical background. — csalisbury
Terrapin's definition of personal identity is entirely different from the definition of personal identity he says should be familiar to anyone with a philosophical background. — csalisbury
I did type what I have in mind — csalisbury
I literally don't understand why you would respond with the fact that you quoted the SEP. — csalisbury
Ok, right, so you think that I was suggesting your quote came from a bad non-philosophical source. That's what I assumed you thought.Does the SEP have any relationship to philosophy? Or is it "enitrely different" than received views in philosophy?
Does the SEP have any relationship to philosophy?
Yes, the SEP has a relationship to philosophy. — csalisbury
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