From: Dan Fabulich (dfabulich@warpmail.net)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 12:05:30 MDT
gts wrote:
> I can agree with that. It makes sense from a pragmatic viewpoint.
> However I am no pragmatist; I must insist that the differences between
> the objects remain real even if we decide they are not relevant to
> whatever purpose we have in mind.
Are the differences between a horse and a horse's head "non-real" when we
say that there's only one thing in the barn? Are the differences between
your whole right hand and your right hand minus a molecule (which is still
a hand) "non-real" when we say that you have just one right hand?
> All I see above are two valid arguments that neither Lee nor I should
> beg the question of identity.
The point came at the end: the fact that our language necessarily has a
context informed by our beliefs and attitudes doesn't imply that
individual beliefs and attitudes are automatically relevant in counting.
The example shows this: by switching contexts, the answer changes, but
within a context, differences of opinion may not be relevant.
> However if for example Lee stated that his personality persists and his
> copy stated that his does not persist then we would have clear evidence
> that Lee is not his copy. This would be so not because either assertion
> is true. It would be so simply because the beliefs conflict.
Conflicting beliefs aren't necessarily relevant... Of course, you've
picked a pretty big change, given what we know about Lee, but despite
that, we still might not find such differences of belief relevant for the
purposes of counting, any more than Lee finds it relevant that the copies
have different locations.
Again, I remind you that most of us don't find even drastic psychological
changes relevant to counting in the case of changes over time. Most of us
are happy to say that there's just one person, even when her opinion
changes over the years as to whether her identity persists over time.
Conflicting beliefs are just one of a variety of tests, some of which may
pass while others fail; we pick and choose what counts for "identity",
which is what makes the whole argument mere semantics.
> Right, it is perfectly obvious. It is also perfectly obvious that two
> individuals who did *not* give the same account of themselves and who
> did *not* offer the same ideas of what is relevant would *not* be the
> same person. And there we have a simple and obvious test for the
> equivalency of identity.
It's simple alright, but if we aren't interested in its results, then we
won't use that test for counting. [We've got to focus merely on *choices*
instead.]
> And as you know it is my contention that given enough time to discuss
> and compare notes, the original and his alleged dupe would eventually
> find some area of disagreement. The disagreement might be large and very
> significant to them or it might be small and insignificant to them, but
> it would be a disagreement nonetheless. That disagreement would be
> evidence of their inequality *even if they agreed it was insignificant
> to them*.
It would prove *some* kind of inequality, but it wouldn't prove that we
should count two people, any more than the inequality of your hand with an
overlapping hand minus a molecule "proves" that you have two right hands.
Everyone admits that there's two thingies in question when we talk about
xoxes, but the question is whether that makes for two different *people*
or not. Slight differences can make for different objects of some kind or
other, but sometimes they just don't count.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:46 MST