From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Sun Oct 13 2002 - 23:43:19 MDT
As there has been some mention now of the Emlyn Undecidability Principle
(urrmrmrmm), I think I'd better re-explain what I meant. It's a bit more
subtle perhaps than what people might have read at first. I've included my
original message below for reference.
I think it has been taken that I was implying that we can't saying anything
useful about the nature of identity, because there's no way to objectively
measure it. So we can just do any old thing. But that's not quite the
story...
What I propose is that you cannot make an objective statement about what the
experience of identity is, because it is an entirely subjective phenomenon.
We see that there are multiple points of view on identity, from the
materialists who view identity as a lie, to those who say that copies are
identical, through to subjective phenomenalists who support (some might say
reify) conscious identity as supreme, arguing that it cannot be copied by
anything so vulgar as making a physical duplicate (absolute
identificationists???), and then off to the side somewhere to totally
different philosophies who deify rather than reify identity, or those who
purport it has an immortal existence in an afterlife, or those who see it as
the Big Lie (pace Ross) of existence and that the ultimate goal of existence
is to shed the illusion (there is no icecream).
Most of these viewpoints can exist simultaneously because there can be no
objective test. Each of us experiences only his/her own conscious identity
(I assume - more to that later). This is what has been touted as my
viewpoint so far.
But there's more to it, which Damien touched on. I also propose that
whatever an individual truly believes about identity is the truth for that
individual (individual defined as the thing on the inside which is forever
isolated). There is a caveat to this, which is that this is only the case
for those parts of the belief which are truly untestable.
This comes up particularly when talking about xoxing. Materialists don't see
a problem with destructive copying, for instance, because they see xoxes as
equivalent, *even subjectively* one must assume. So, for instance, Lee would
be more than happy to be destructively teleported, because of his beliefs.
Subjective phenomenalists, eg Damien, abhore this idea. They would see it as
suicide followed by construction of a copy who is not them. The original (a
term not even used by some materialists I think) would be dead dead dead.
(fwiw, from a personal position I am still in this camp. Don't shoot shoot
shoot that thing at me!).
And there are probably other consistent positions, but I'll stick with these
two for now.
Interestingly, it matters very much what the individual believes.
Subjectivists are going to be pissed off if you go xoxing them then
discriminating against the original (eg: by destroying them). If you did
this without them knowing, they wouldn't object, but they'd never expect to;
subjectivists would say that the copy would feel as though it were the
original, given no other information. If you just told them that you'd done
it without them knowing, they'd probably do some hurt to you, whether or not
you were telling the truth. This reaction is reasonable; if someone
convinced you that they'd killed your pet and produced evidence, it'd be
fair enough to be angry even if it turned out they were lying about it. No
one appreciates being violated, even if it's only psychological and only for
purposes of experimentation.
Materialists are going to be happy to be destructively copied. Faced with
copies of themselves, materialists would be happy to be destroyed on being
informed that they were surplus, because they'd know that they will live on;
the others are also them.
What these positions have in common is that they are untestable. You can't
construct a test to find out if identity is like materialists say, or like
subjectivists say. Why not? Because it's subjective. A subjective phenomenon
is owned, if you like, by the person that experiences it; no one else gets a
say.
This is not to say that you can't change your mind. A materialist, faced
with the disintegrator ray, might suddenly find that subjectivism has a
certain authentic feel. A subjectivist, on being transported, might find
that the world doesn't seem to have come crashing down around them after
all. A buddhist might decide that he really does want to own all the
icecream.
But the idea that you cannot, from the outside, know the "truth" of
identity, because it is subjective, and therefore not possesed of objective
truth, doesn't absolve you from holding a position yourself about identity.
You still know about you; you still have to decide about teleport booths and
anaesthetics and mad scientists with death rays for yourself. The meta
position isn't either materialism or absolute identity by proxy; it allows
for both, and others, on an individual by individual basis.
Interestingly, those who hold less sophisticated points of view are making a
bolder statement. For instance, the heaven's gate guys held a (subjectively)
testable hypothesis; that the spaceship really will pick them up. What a
gamble! A materialist who decides to be terminated in favour of another copy
just trusts that his viewpoint is correct; the heaven's gate guys expected
to personally be trekking in short order (maybe they are!). Other afterlife
theories are similar. Of course none of these is objectively testable
(although I do wonder if Hubble was pointed in the right direction).
Related to the above, everything I've said is bunk if there really is an
afterlife; in that case, destructive copying is going to do something very
weird. Maybe that's the explanation for hell filling up in "dawn of the
dead" and related movies?
One last serious point, to support this subjective phenomenon thesis. Maybe
materialists don't actually experience identity in the same way that
subjective phenomenalists do? Maybe the schism is rooted in a real
difference, which we can, unfortunately, never measure? Damien, do you
really know if Lee fundamentally groks your references to identity?
Emlyn
(meanwhile solipsism is looking good again; need more lithium?)
-----------------
Original message:
Having been of the same stance as Damien on this one, I've recently changed
my view. I now think all of the vaguely consistent viewpoints are correct.
Basically, I think that whatever you believe is probably how it is for you.
After all, we are talking about subjective phenomena here.
For instance, when those in the xox-is-me camp are replicated, how are they
going to feel about it? The "original" will think "I am me, and so is the
other guy". The copy is going to think "I am me, and so is the other guy".
If one of them is to be disintegrated (say the "original"), then he's going
to be ok about it, because "that guy over there is also 'me'", unless he has
a sudden change of heart. He wont expect to *feel* like "that guy over there
is 'me'" because he "knows" it doesn't work that way.
On the other hand, if you believe that the copy is not you, then, on xoxing,
the original is going to say "See, I'm still here, don't point that thing at
me." The Xox will say "Wow, that feels like I just teleported from that
table to this one, but then it would, wouldn't it? Don't zap that guy, he's
the original. Don't zap me either, I'm valid even if I'm a copy."
I guess I'm saying that identity is constructed by the identified. On the
subject of identity and duplicates, believe what you will and it is so.
Emlyn
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