Personal Identity: The Simple View and Locke's Theory

• The simplest view of people is that they are their bodies and that this fleshy object is me.
• We are not merely embodied, but are simply our bodies.

Challenges to the Simple View

• Death poses a challenge with deaths resulting from total body destruction
• Alfred and Bert people died of disease in bed, and their bodies did not go out of existence at the time; if Alfred and Bert went out of existence at that time, then they are not their bodies
• People who die in bed become dead people at the time of their deaths, like dead cats, and there can be dead people as well as dead cats in a house

Locke's View on Persons

• Locke defines a person is a thinking intelligent being at a time t only if it is thinking at t and consciousness is essential to thinking
• For Locke, a thing is a thinking intelligent being at t only if it is conscious at t; nothing can be both unconscious and a person
• Nothing can be both a person and dreamlessly asleep at any time

Locke's Beliefs about Persons

• Locke believed it possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousnesses at different times
• Locke believed this and stated that they would make different Persons
• Locke may have believed no person is a man, though a man may 'make' a person, and a different person at different times.
• People are ordinary men, women, children, and infants, and a thing can be both a man and unconscious, even a man in a coma
• A thing can even be both a man and dead

Philosophical Views

• Some philosophers may concede people are their bodies, but focus on "persons" instead
• Most philosophers writing on these matters take seriously theories incompatible with the view that people are their bodies
• It is because they take seriously the idea that people are not their bodies

Focus on the Term "Person"

• The word "person" is used as the singular of "people," without philosophical implications

Physical Thesis and Physical Criterion

• Physical Thesis states: People are their bodies.
• The manner of death doesn't prevent adopting this view
• Physical Criterion: x = y if and only if x's body = y's body (where x, y range over people).

Personal Identity vs. Personal Ontology

• Much literature focuses on personal identity, with personal ontology as an afterthought.
• Physical Thesis is about personal ontology and entails Physical Criterion
• The two theses are not equivalent
• It's possible for x = y if and only if x's body = y's body, but x is not identical with x's body
• Accepting Physical Criterion likely leads to accepting Physical Thesis.

Alternative Identity Criteria

• Idenity may take something mental, or psychological, to be the mark of personal identity
• A contemporary philosopher will not accept that people are mental substances on the ground of accepting a psychological identity criterion
• They are not likely to accept a psychological identity criterion because of having accepted that people are mental substances.

Identity Criterion

• When philosophers offer views on personal identity, consider what people are
• If the criterion makes it obscure what people could be, it counts against the criterion and/or it may turn out that there's now saying what people are
• The ontological question is waiting when identity question is on stage

Objection from Locke's Case

• Body objections arise from Locke's case of the prince and the cobbler
• With Brown and Robinson bodies, if Physical Criterion is true, then Robinson ≠ Brown, as Robinson-body ≠ Brown-body, which is correct

Brain Transplant Scenario

• The brain of Brown-body is transplanted into Robinson-body, destroying the rest of Brown-body
• The survivor thinks he is Brown and has Brown's memories, making it intuitive that the survivor = Brown. However, the survivor's body = Robinson-body
• This means Brown has switched bodies, which contradicts the Physical Criterion and Physical Thesis

Addressing Intuitions

• The survivor thinks he is Brown, wants what Brown wanted, etc. In Brown-Case-Two, drugs alter the brain so the survivor thinks he is Robinson
• The only reason to think the survivor is Brown is that his brain was formerly in Brown-body and this isnt of interest from the point of view of the question who the survivor is?

Role of Brain Transplant

• The brain transplant's impact lies in it being the 'carrier of a person's psychology' and in Brown-Case-Two, the transplanted brain does not carry Brown's psychology so as to not make the survivor Brown
• In Brown-Case-Three, they reconfigure the Robinson-body brain with Brown's psychology, destroying all of Brown-body where the survivor thinks he is Brown
• On their view, the impact to the survivor's identity is due to it being the carrier of a persons psychology and brain transplant is sufficient to switch bodies

Alternative Views

• In Brown-Case-Three, transplanting Brown's psychology requires Brown to switch bodies, but transplanting Brown's brain is also necessary
• Transplanting Browns psychology must have been caused by his brain transplant. The brain transplant has on peoples intuitions, really does lie in the fact the the brain is normally, slip-ups apart, the carrier of a person's psychology.

Psychological Criterion for Body-Switching

• The view of transplanting a person's psychology as necessary and sufficient for switching bodies
• Body-switching requires psychology-transplanting be caused by brain transplant
• What is required for body-switching is psychology-transplanting be caused by the transplanting of just any old body-part whose transplants causes psychology-transplanting

Psychological Criterion

• Focus is on the pure psychological criterion in this study

Consequences

• The pure psychological criterion thinks switching is possible and that it has to reject physical criterion which forces them to give cause for why it would be that the survivor is brown in those 2 cases
• It is not the case that there are alterations across time in a person's psychology and that with a there would have been a new person replaced
• If transplanting Brown switches bodies does not occur, therefore there cannot have been any transfer and one cannot simply say what the original body would be it has to match a certain body part

Psychological Criterion (Connectedness)

• 'Psychological Criterion (Connectedness): x = y if and only if there are times t and t' such that y is at t' psychologically connected with x at t'
• Hybridists can accept Psychological Criterion (Connectedness compatibly.
• Bloggs is Blogg's body if and only if there are times t and t' such that Bloggs-body is at t' psychologically connected with Bloggs at t, and couldn't that be true?
• The hybrid views consists of the idea that psychological connectedness is the mark of personal and that people are their body

Implications

• It means rejecting that brown has switches bodies which leads to them accepting and that the survivor's = brown
• Hybrid is that personal identity is marked by physiological connection and that the survivor's body = to the original body
• There is no reason for Brown's real to not be associated with being the survivor and that it just simply depends on the circumstance, not that his personality has changed
• Accepting the metaphysic temporal parts is very important because one cannot deny their real body and who it is is determined on the body and what happens to it which does depend on the metaphysical properties

Defining Co-Personality

• B is co-personality B is psychologically continuous with A which is rough there must be a degree of certainty due to the lack of potential body to be psychologically connected to.
• The original theory has a 4 place relation on time and there is not a solid argument for the need for a new relation

Terminologies of Terminopology

• Terminology has gained in this case a certain simplicity and the terminology can literally and realistically be interpreted in many cases from the surface and what has to be said in context.
• In general, this all has to be taken literally and in terms of this case as those people are not that.

Doubts

• There should not even be the chance of doubts in any part from personal identification instead there should be set reasons.
• In this scenario, a computer-based machine can even produce the same state and thoughts therefore the only view to think correctly would be that some of the thinking is the equivalent

Final Point

• The main and most crucial view is that there need to be set and set facts for something to be deemed personal identity
• Should one even be deemed so if personal identity is not even possible
• I believe that the brain of Brown must be working to have the same mind as Brown therefore those who accept that they must accept that the