¶1All right, welcome to Reason and Rationality, a summer program where high school students learn about philosophy, politics, economics, ethics, and much more. Besides, through lively, cordial discussion. Uh we're here for the 2026 program at Princeton, and we're having a discussion style debate. The topic of the debate is what makes you the same person over time. So, we're debating personal identity.
¶2If we have totally different memories and beliefs and desires from when we were little, how can we be the same person? And if we're made of completely different cells from those that made us up when we were young, in virtue of what are we the same people? Or generally, under what conditions is person A the same person as person B? So, a bit of preliminaries before we start the debate. Don't assume that any of us actually hold the views and defend the arguments that we're going to be defending.
¶3we sort of collectively agreed to assign ourselves to defend certain views. So don't assume that these represent our actual views. Um and before we jump in, let's introduce our panelists. So we'll start with famous Amos. >> Hi, I'm Amos Wallen.
¶4I'm a master student at Oxford and I will be defending animalism, which is the common sense correct view that we are animals. >> Hi, I'm Sophia. I am Sophia Wyatt. I am a first year PhD student in philosophy at the University of Chicago and I will also be defending animalism. >> I'm Noah McKay.
¶5I'm a PhD student at Princeton University in philosophy and I'll be defending the soul theory which says that A is the same person as B just in case A and B have the same soul. I'm Joe Schmid. I am also a PhD student at Princeton University and I will also be defending the soul theory. I'm Flo Bakus. Um I am a PhD student in philosophy at Harvard and I will be defending the psychological continuity view of personal identity which says that you're the same person as you were for instance yesterday.
¶6Uh because you have like a very similar set of memories. Uh you can intend something yesterday and then therefore do it today. And there are all sorts of these psychological connections that make you the same person. >> And I'm Saga Route. I'm also a PhD student at university and I'll be defending nihilism which is the view that there is no fact of the matter as to which are the same people over time um because there aren't any people.
¶7>> Okay. So um let's start with the analysts. Okay. So listen, none of you say that I am an immaterial soul, uh, or that I'm some sort of psychologically continuous series of apparent memories, personality traits, etc., or even that I'm nothing at all. Um, but listen, when I look into the mirror, I don't see an immaterial soul, and I don't see a psychologically continuous series of whatever.
¶8Um, but what I see in the mirror is me. >> Don't you disagree that when you look into a mirror, what you see is yourself? I've done this and make it impossible for me to look into the mirror. So for for those of us who can bring themselves to look >> for for those among us who can bring themselves to look into the mirror, I submit that what they see is themselves. But Gore they what do they see?
¶9They see an organism, an animal. I see myself, Sophia, a human being reflected back at me. Same same thing. [laughter] You know, if I if I were to punch punch Noah here. Sorry, that was kind of hard.
¶10[laughter] I didn't punch an immaterial soul. I didn't punch a psychologically continuous series of memories and so on. Um, I punched Noah. And what I punched when I punched Noah was an organism, an animal. This human being right here.
¶11Um, let me have let me add one more thing. Um, um, so like my mom has a picture of like me, like an ultrasound picture of me when I was just like a baby in the womb, like a like a fetus. Um, like that whatever it is, that sort of tadpole looking series of smudges. Uh, I don't know. You know, that's not I don't know if that's psychologically continuous of me.
¶12I mean, I don't remember what it was like to be that. Um, I don't even know if that thing had a soul or not. I mean, it was really sort of tiny and fuzzy. Um, but I think that's a picture of me. I mean, I look at that and I'd say, "Yeah, that was me when I was, you know, in my mom's womb." Uh, I think that's because, you know, it's the same animal.
¶13That that thing there is the same animal as this thing right here. So, I mean, common sense just shows that what makes me me is that I am this animal. >> I think we should all agree. >> So, I have a worry about this common sense argument for animalism. My worry is that at best it shows that we are partly organisms or partly animals.
¶14So, suppose that I'm walking down Nassau Street here in Princeton and I see the Firestone Library. Well, it would be true to say I saw Princeton University, but really what I saw was part of Princeton University or if you like, I saw Princeton University by seeing a part of Princeton University. And similarly, if I get really angry and I punch the passenger side door of my car, it would be true to say I punched my car, but really what I punched was a part of my car. Or if you like, I punched my car by punching a part of it. And so I think maybe although it's true to say that when I look in the mirror I see myself and when I look in the mirror what I'm seeing is an animal.
¶15That's just because I am partly an animal. I'm seeing myself by seeing the animal part of myself. But maybe there's something more to me than just the animal that I see in the mirror. >> Um yeah. Should I give a response or should I give a subsequent argument for animalism?
¶16Whichever you want. >> We think that response just refuts your first argument. >> Well, okay. So, I mean, obviously not, right? So, okay, look, Ricky, if you co-opt the most plausible parts of our view that when you look in the mirror, you are literally seeing yourself, then, you know, sure, you get a point.
¶17But if you're then going to add, you know, some ideologically complicated stuff on top of that, then I'm just going to think we get we get uh the same amount of bang for bang for a cheaper buck, right? So, we're we're just going to say, look, um, we we both accommodate common sense, but you do it by just layering a bunch of stuff onto your theory, whereas on our theory, we just we just get the way things seem, right? Like, I'm looking at the animal in mirror, I'm looking at me, and that's all I have to say. Okay. So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying, look, when I look in the mirror, I see myself.
¶18What's the simplest theory that delivers that conclusion? Yeah, it's that I just am the animal in the mirror. Okay. Do you agree with that? And so do you agree that the argument counts in favor of our view?
¶19>> I agree it counts a little bit. >> I agree that if we had no re if we had no reasons to go in for the other theories, this maybe should like break the tie. I don't know. It doesn't seem that forceful to me, at least on its own. >> Well, then let me let me give you another one.
¶20Um, so there's a there's a thinking animal in both of our chairs. I'll establish this with a few steps. Okay. So, first there's there's an animal in your chair. The animal is a homo sapien.
¶21Do you agree with that? There's an animal in all of these chairs. Every occupied chair contains an animal, right? Um, if there's a human animal in my chair and I and it's in engaging in a debate, then it's thinking, right? So, the human animal in my chair is thinking.
¶22Do you agree with that? Well, I'm not sure. There's certainly there's certainly someone thinking in your chair, but is it the animal or is it merely the animal? That I'm not sure of. Maybe it's just something that has an animal part.
¶23>> Sure. I mean, look, I think it's sort of pretty common sensical to say that the homo sapien in my chair is thinking, right? Okay. I mean, so like scientists are going to attribute thoughts to animals to explain their behavior. So they're going to point to an animal and they're going to say that animal, you know, pursued a piece of prey because it thought that the prey was going in the opposite direction.
¶24So like it seems pretty plausible to think that um animals are thinking and that human animals are no exception. Um but uh a further thing I want to say is that there's only one thinker in my chat. >> Doesn't that seem like there's only one thinker in my chat? >> There are like a bunch of thinkers or two thinkers in my chat. Um, but if that's right, then it looks like um also like I I'm I'm the thinker, right?
¶25So I'm thinking, so there's only one thinker in my chat. That thinker is a human animal. I'm doing the thinking. I know my chat. And so I am a human animal.
¶26>> Yeah, I'm not so sure about that argument. Um, I mean, for starters, scientists will also say things like, you know, the brain is the thing which does the thinking, right? That's you were just pointing the data linguistic data from what scientists are saying. So if the scientists are saying that the brain does the thinking you yourself can't even accept that because the only thing thinking here is the organism not even the brain. Brains don't do thinking.
¶27So you yourself also have to make certain reision linguistically revisionary moves when it comes to what the scientists have to say. Maybe you have to make some kind of distinction between okay listen there's like one thing which is like the fundamental or non-derivative thinker here. There's one thing which like it's not thinking in virtue of anything else thinking and that is just the organism say that's you but maybe there's something which in a derivative sense can be said to be thinking because it's like the part of the organism which sort of facilitates those operations uh and that's the brain but once you make that sort of move you make a distinction between under thinking and derivative thinking or fundamental thinking and non-fundamental thinking then the soul theorists can do the exact same thing we can also deliver the common sensical verdict that scientists are right when they say that the organism right there is thinking. We can say that it's just that they're thinking in a non they're thinking in a non-fundamental or derivative sense and the fundamental thinker is either the soul or maybe the body soul composite depending on how you take the soul theory. >> So I could do that.
¶28I could do the same kind of linguistic finagling that you're going to have to do in response to some of our bits of linguistic evidence, right? um where you sort of you move from a sort of common sense reading of of what is said to a less common sensical reading of what it said which still sort of gist-wise preserves the truth value. Um but I I want to do something else. I want to deny that strictly strictly speaking my brain thinks. I also want to deny that um my my stomach strictly speaking digests.
¶29I want to say that the organism digests and so this is just a loose way of speaking and it isn't true. Uh, and moreover, I want to deny that I even have a brain. I want to deny that there are any body parts. And [snorts] what I want to defend is a view that Peter Bannon wagon calls organicism according to which there are only partless simples and living organisms. >> What is what do you mean by that?
¶30Yeah. >> So, sorry. A partless object and organism. And so by a partless subject I just mean like whatever what is whatever's at the fundamental layer of physics that has no proper parts. Assume there is such a thing and stipulatively let's call such such a thing an atom.
¶31I'm going to say there are those things. And so when I'm looking by computer all I'm seeing is a scramble of atoms arranged computer wise. There's no computer. Um but I think that there are organisms biological organisms like trees and shrubs and human beings. Uh and uh but you know strictly speaking none of them are wearing any clothes because there are no clothes.
¶32Um when you pull an apple off a tree it stops existing because it seems to be part of an organism to u and strictly speaking in fact the apple never exists. So that that's the view I want to appeal to to get out of the the thinking brain response. There is no brain. But >> that that view is going to definitely I mean this just an automatic challenge which is you're going to have to tell me what the difference is between you and your clothes because surely you're also Adams arranged some your clothes are Adams arranged clothes wise and then I'm also looking right now at some atoms arranged amos wise but somehow I'm sorry somehow the atoms arranged amoswise are going to make a new object but the clothes arranged close-wise are not going to make a new object. Why would that be true?
¶33>> Well, I think I have really good evidence for thinking that there are at least human organisms. So, I exist. I think I can be cartesianly certain that I exist. Um, but I can't be similarly certain that there are these material objects. And I think I can give sort of powerful arguments that there are no objects from um from vagueness, for example, which we can get into maybe in dialogue with your arguments.
¶34Um and I think uh the only the only plausible view that gets it to be the case that we exist um is the organicist view on which there are more generally are organisms. So the only composite objects are organisms and then there are simple nothing else. >> I have a question. >> Yeah. Is clad exist?
¶35>> No. >> Oh well I've got you >> if you have a direct response. >> It is a direct response. Yes. Yes.
¶36I mean, I've got a direct response to that, which is like, you know, initially you were appealing and motivating your argument to these very common sensical verdicts, like, oh yeah, there are like organisms in these chairs. That seems right, but now you're denying that I have hands. Here's a hand. Here's a hand. Look, it's a hand.
¶37>> It's a hand. >> Is there another? >> Here's a nose. Here's a nose. You are denying those.
¶38So, just as if we accepted your argument, we should go along with these common sense school verdicts about whether or not there is an organism there. But it seems intolerably arbitrary and I think just unacceptable to accept that there are organisms there, but there aren't like hands here and there isn't a nose here. Like you're just running a running a muck on like all the uh linguistic evidence and the intuitive evidence, but yeah, that's precisely what you appeal to to motivate your organicism or sorry your animalism. >> I I think we both agree that sometimes you can start from common sense and philosophy and get to some pretty crazy places. And I think this is just one instance of that.
¶39But I think that everyone on this panel is going to have to do that tonight as we'll see in the rebuttals. >> But not when the very common sensible thing rebutts itself and undermines itself because you were Anyway, >> um I have a question. What about conjoined twins? Like it seems like if a baby or two babies, I would want to say is born and you have only like one uh what what do you call this? >> Torso.
¶40>> Torso. You only have one torso >> but two heads. It seems like we should have like two people. Like if these guys are my friends and we're going to a restaurant, they should get two votes. Um but it would seem like, you know, if I'm born with an extra arm or something and still just one person.
¶41Um but suddenly if I'm born with like two heads, I count as two people. You know, it it seems like the brain isn't that special in Oregon and so that should count as one organism and so one person. So I want to grant actually that the conclusion of your argument is correct that conjoined twins are a single animal or at least there are metaphysically possible cases of conjoined twins that are a single animal and that there's one psychologically divided person here and I think I can motivate that by appeal to other cases in which you know possibly there are just a single psychologically divided people so you know genuine split brain cases where it would make sense you know maybe to give sort of morally different treatment to the two different personalities that result. So, uh if if the two um split hemispheres want to be called by different names, I think it would be morally appropriate to call them by different names. Um and you know, the voting is a separate thing.
¶42But I think maybe the conjoined twin case is just a counter example to the principle that one person should have one vote. Uh sometimes one person should should have more than one vote for the same for the same kinds of normative reasons that one person should at different times be called different names. Um, and so I want to say look there are there are paradigm cases of genuinely psychologically divided persons who are one person and I want to say that Dophilus can join twins can join twins with two functioning brains are just cases like that. If there aren't any other direct thoughts on animalism I think I'd like to make my case for the psychological connectedness field. [snorts] Um, I mean, you know, just to say one thing about animalism specifically, I'm still like really worried about stuff like brain transplant cases.
¶43So, if I get an organ transplant, like I don't know, I'm dying of kidney failure and then Joe gives me a kidney because he's such a great dude. Um, but you didn't already give your kidney away, did you? >> Only only to you. uh then you know it's like I'm still the same organism just like how removing like one of my fingernails doesn't make me no longer the same organism. Um, but again, if like the brain is just another organ like a kidney, it seems like if me and Joe get a brain transplant, they put his brain in my body and my brain in his body, you know, the animalist it seems like, is going to have to say we're two different or sorry, the person inhabiting this body will be still Flo and then the person inhabiting that body will still be Joe.
¶44But my brain's going to be in Joe's body like, "Oh my gosh, I have all Flo's memories. I want to do all the things that Flo wanted to do." And you know, I'll just it'll be like just waking up and my body looks different. And it seems like in in a case like that, it would be really weird if we said, you know, you know, no, now this being still owns Flo's car and so on. Um, so that's my thoughts on animalism in particular. Additionally, I think I I really like the psychological connectedness view just because it really seems to capture the appearances very well and it doesn't go very far beyond the appearances.
¶45So, I want to show you or tell you guys a story. Um, this really really happened. So, I had to get a surgery once. Um, very minor, but I was like pretty scared because being a philosopher like kind of messes you up. So, I was worried like, "Oh my gosh, what if I go under anesthesia, I'm totally not conscious, and then somebody wakes up in this body and it's actually like a different person and the original me just like died." Um, so, you know, I I kind of had that worry, but I knew it was like kind of ridiculous.
¶46So I I still went on with the surgery. So then I go in, they, you know, start pumping drugs into my my body and so on. And then the next instant I wake up, I'm like obviously this is what it was going to feel like. Uh like what else could have happened? Like at one moment I'm about to go to sleep and at the next moment I I have a feeling of remembering the things that just happened.
¶47Um and that's sufficient to make me feel like I'm me. Now a lot of people talk about the sort of teleporters from Star Trek. Um you know so what they do is they sort of like disassemble all your atoms and so on and then rebuild them or different atoms really somewhere else. And people are saying or people are saying >> many people are saying >> the animalists say the animalist >> um many people are saying that [laughter] >> guys still broke keep People say that that just kills you and creates a duplicate, but you know, it would be exactly like the case where I wake up from surgery. I would just appear there and I would have all of the feelings and all of the seemings that I have when I go to sleep and wake up the next day.
¶48And it's really it really seems like what's what we're basing our views of personal identity on is that I really feel like this feeling or this feeling that I'm a persisting person that I'm the same person that I was yesterday. And so I just want to say you know yeah having that sort of feeling and the other relevant psychological connections such as similar memories um you know similar intentions a similar personality and so on that just is what makes you you. And now I recognize there might be cases where this um theory gets into trouble um and gives weird verdicts such as the split brain cases, you know, like let's say we split your brain in half and both remain functional. I put them in two different bodies. Um and then there are these like two beings with like all your memories and and all of that.
¶49I would just say, you know, yeah, there's no fact of the matter as to which one is really you. They both have an equal claim to be you. The only reason we treat there as being like these persisting selves that just are absolutely identical or not is because it works as a good approximation in our everyday life. >> I mean, >> you're from the filthy animalist [laughter] as a going back to your transporter case. Mhm.
¶50>> Something that someone might think is I'm sure you've all considered the scenario where so you step into the transporter and uh the way it works is it dissolves you. It like gets dissolves all your atoms on the spot and reconstitutes with new atoms in the exact same arrangement. you in a different in a different location or something that appears identical to you um and has all the same memories. So, it's as if you vanished from one spot and reappeared in another spot. Um but in fact, what's happening is that in one spot you're destroyed and then in another spot you're recreated or at least so we might think.
¶51And we can imagine that you step into the transporter and it says 3 2 1 transporting and then nothing happens. the transporter has malfunctioned. It failed to dissolve you in your original location, but it did not fail to reconstitute you in the other location. Um, so now what happens? There's two versions of you, you might think.
¶52Uh you're still standing there, the original transporter. And then there's another creature, one that at least for one moment has all the same memories as you. Uh psychologically continuous with your past selves before you stepped into the transporter. Uh but I mean look, I mean clearly these are two different people. You know, you're going to walk out of the transporter.
¶53They're going to walk out of the transporter. I think common sense tells us that these are two different individuals even though for at least one moment they were psychologically continuous. They had a they had an identical history. Uh yeah. Uh and I mean I think the explanation for that is that we have two different animals.
¶54>> Well, so there's something called the 5-second rule >> to to Yeah, you have that one to shoot the original. Uh, no. More seriously, I I just think this is like the split brain case, and you really do have a case where um you have two people and they both have an equal claim to being you, and there's no fact of the matter. Neither of them is more you than the other. So, here's a potential problem with that solution, if you want to call it a solution.
¶55It seems like identity is intrinsic. That is to say, which person I am doesn't depend on what's going on outside of me. In order to know that I'm Noah, I don't need to check on what you all are doing or what's going on in Japan, for example. But here's something that seems right. Suppose that instead of taking the two hemispheres of my brain, splitting them apart and putting them in two different bodies, you just destroyed one hemisphere and then transplanted the other.
¶56So only one hemisphere of my brain is still around. It seems like I would be the person or I would be uh my body would be the one with the remaining hemisphere in it. So there would be a determinate fact of the matter about which person I was if we destroyed one hemisphere and transplanted one hemisphere. But if there would be a fact of the matter in that case and there wouldn't be a fact of the matter in the case where both hemispheres get transplanted. Think about what that means.
¶57That means that let's say you know >> lefty righty >> there's from your perspective hang on there's righty and lefty so righty gets my right hemisphere lefty gets my left hemisphere we agree that if my left hemisphere was destroyed then I would be righty but Flo thinks that if both hemispheres get transplanted then there's no fact of the matter about whether I'm righty or whether I'm lefty. That implies that righty's identity, who righty is depends on whether lefty exists. Right? If lefty does exist, then there's no fact of the matter about whether righty is me. But if lefty doesn't exist, then there is a fact of the matter about who if lefty doesn't exist, there is a fact of the matter about who righty is and righty is me.
¶58So that makes Wrighty's identity exttrinsic. Uh who Righty is depends on what's going out going on outside of his boundaries. And that just seems like that's not how identity should work. I have a response. >> I'm just going to give a little defense of your Pew or of something like it.
¶59I think >> you like my response. Okay. Sorry to do your response. >> So I I I agree with you that identity is intrinsic. Um, and I think that's entirely compatible with my view because I think it is at least among physical objects over time vacuously true.
¶60>> That is to say, I don't think there is any fact of the matter ever strictly speaking about numerical identity of um with regards to physical objects across times and I have a reason for that. Um, and when we say numerical identity, I just mean that that's generally what philosophers as opposed to qualitative identity, two things having like the same properties. But numerical identity means two things are just like the same thing. If you clone me, then there's one sense in which that's the same person, like they have all my properties. Um, and another sense in which we're numerically distinct because we're just two different people.
¶61So just to explain that terminology. Um, so you know, I think that, you know, you can see two electrons, one here and one here at this time, and then in a second, you might see another electron like right here and right here, but there's no fact of the matter as to which electron is which. Um, and in fact, I I think we actually get this uh result from a straightforward reading of the science. Now, of course, somebody can deny that the straightforward metaphysical reading um you would get from a scientific theory is the correct one. There's a lot of debate with special relativity about that.
¶62But you know in fact interestingly let's say that I have two electrons um and each of them can be in one of two states or let's say two photons so that we don't have to deal with poly exclusion um and each of them can be in one of two states. If you think that the two photons are distinguishable then there's four possibilities. You could have a a ab a ba and bb. If you think they're indistinguishable, like there's you can swap them around without changing any actual facts about reality, then you're going to think there's only three different possibilities. A a BB and then 1 A 1 B.
¶63And no fact the matter as to which is which. Now, as it turns out, the number of possible states that your configuration could have um it factors into the empirical predictions that a theory will give. And when we look at the empirical predictions and see what actually happens, we see that um things are acting as if there are only three possibilities. So I think uh there's at least really good priaci reason to think that when it comes to electrons, there's no fact of the matter as to identities across time. We just have electrons in these locations, then these locations, then these locations, and that's all the facts.
¶64Now, the reason we sort of want to say that um the version of me that doesn't get destroyed by the teleansporter is the one from before or like the one that's still on the ship and not the one who ended up on the planet teleported away is be thankful that one is made out of the same matter. But this is uh entirely consistent with the view that um no that um the person still on the ship is made of different matter or I really should say there's no fact of the matter. All the only facts of the matter there are is that there are particles arranged this way at this time and then this other way at this other time. Um and so if I think that like among electrons there's no facts about numerical identity across time, I'm also going to say the same about other physical objects like chairs and people. flow.
¶65Now I'm starting to think you're just going to come to my side and be a nihilist because the psychological connectedness relation um is going to hold its rata are going to be these physical objects that you've just given a great argument for why they don't actually persist across time. And so there is no fact of the matter. And when we originally, you know, said what this debate was going to be about, we were going to say what makes you the same person over time. And you've told us that it's having the same memories, so to speak, having some kind of continuity, but now it seems like these are not actually going to be the same memories, right? I mean, it's not going to be uh what is it that's going to make them the same memories or what is it that's going to make it so that it's the same intention that is intended one day and then is executed on the next day.
¶66If in fact um the whole material constitution in virtue of which there are memories and there are intentions and so on is just a different material object or rather it's just a thing where there's no fact of the matter as to whether it is the same or not. >> Great. So I think this uh this gets into an important distinction about sort of like eliminativism versus reductionism. Eliminativism is when you say a certain kind of thing doesn't exist. Reductionism is when you say a certain kind of thing is explained in more fundamental terms.
¶67So what I would want to say is that in ordinary cases um we come up with our concepts under the assumption that certain regularities hold. So for example, we assume that um things are going to appear normal and you know we're not going to get a duplicate flow in one second that's going to make us question personal identity. um rather we live in a world where people are more complicated than electrons. And so it's going to be really hard to have two indistinguishable composits of um particles that are people shaped. And so in general, I think it's a true fact that um and this kind of makes me go back on what I said to Noah dramatically uh >> because then I say identity isn't um intrinsic, which it isn't.
¶68Um, yeah. So, what I want to say is that under normal circumstances, um, there is a fact about me being the same person as baby flow. Um, but it's just that if these weird things happen where there are like duplicates and stuff, then the concepts no longer apply. Real quickly then, another way of reading what you just said is normal circumstances is just what we call the circumstances under which our heruristics that we use for applying concepts. um get to work.
¶69Uh but the concepts that doesn't exactly tell us what the semantic range of the concepts are. And the fact that there are places where the heristics breaks down precisely is what shows us that that the heristics work a lot of the time isn't just going to tell you what the contours of the concept are. Um, but then once I get this like really interesting set of reasons that makes it seem like I couldn't be the kind of thing that would exist at multiple times or where there could be a fact of the matter as to whether this thing at a later time is me or not in these weird cases. And then the explanation for why that's true in the weird cases has a lot in common with what's going on even in the normal cases. The fact that nevertheless I can apply these heruristics in the normal cases stops seeming like a reason to actually take the concept as seriously.
¶70We can keep it we can keep taking it as practically seriously in the normal cases, but it then starts to feel like a reason to not take it as metaphysically seriously even in the normal cases. I also have a concern. I add on to that. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Okay.
¶71Uh well, I mean, just to add on to that, I mean, it almost sounds like you're adopting maybe a more conventionalist view about personal identity where um whether or not person A is the same person as person B who exists later on, that's sort of a matter of convention or just how we apply our concepts. But I worry that these conventionalist views just have like really implausible consequences. So, you know, suppose I've got this uh super painful surgery that I don't want to go through and it's going to leave me debilitated for quite some time afterwards. And maybe it's just going to leave me debilitated for quite some time uh after my uh after I actually go through with it. But unfortunately, by my lights, uh I'm not allowed to kind of end my life right now.
¶72I'm just going to have to go through with it. But I prefer not to go through with it. So, I go around and I start convincing people to use their concepts differently. Like, guys, just come on. IA can't refer to this thing as me afterwards.
¶73Like please just change the extension of your concepts. Like just just start using these terms differently like Joe. Just don't call this thing Joe. Under this conventionist view, if I succeeded in convincing enough people to change their linguistic practices in that way, I actually wouldn't survive the surgery. But if I fail in that, then I I would survive the surgery and I'd live a pretty terrible life that I don't want to live.
¶74And I say that that's really implausible. You can't get out of a surgery by convincing people to change their linguistic practices. Yeah. So I I have to say two things about this. Um like one of them is kind of just linguistic and the other is more practical.
¶75Um so I think the way conventions So now I know you're mindful of this distinction and and I'll say stuff that makes sense later, but I don't want to say that a person is just whatever people conventionally regard as a person because I want to say that if we started using the conventions differently, we'd actually be using a different concept. like if we started using the word door to refer to windows um you know that that we would just be referring to windows in a different way. Um and so I think that so I I am something of a conventionalist here. I think that the actual concept of personal identity is the one picked out by the conventions that we in fact have. Um but specifically by the ones we in fact have.
¶76If we decide to change the conventions then then the concept I'm speaking of personal identity right now would be you know the conventions that we added yesterday pick out by the conventions we had yesterday and then now on the practical question as to whether you would like benefit or you know feel motivated to ask people to use a different convention I think one of the very important things that singles out our concept of personal identity is what we care about I don't want to die I want to exist tomorrow it seems like there's some state of affairs that just is what I care about when I care about persisting through time and people adopting a different convention uh is you know maybe they're going to start using the concept person star or personal identity star but it's still going to remain unless I get a brain surgery to change my desires it's still going to remain that I care about um you know for example with not dying I don't want to be like psychologically continuous with the person or sorry uh I got tumbled up Um, yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's still going to remain unless I somehow change my desires that what I care about is not being psychologically continuous according to the original conventions with the person in extreme pain after after the condition. Um, and then I just won't be using personal identity to refer to that concept anymore. But it will under normal circumstances remain my desire that um the original convention doesn't connect me to the one in pain.
¶77>> I have a clarifying question about everything that just happened. >> Okay. >> Because I had a little bit of trouble following. So if we rewind, I offered an objection to your stance about split brain cases. My objection was personal identity is intrinsic.
¶78Which person I am doesn't depend on what's going on outside of me. And so it can't be true that whether righty is me depends on whether lefty exists. But it seems like your view implies that whether righty is me does depend on whether lefty exists. You seem to respond by saying actually yes technically personal identity is intrinsic but as you put it that's only vacuously true >> because there isn't really any identity across time. That's what the physics tells us.
¶79So, I understand that part. Um, tell me if what I'm about to say is totally confused. Also, if it's not, I would also like to know that. Um, suppose that really there isn't any numerical identity over time. So, whenever there are two times, there are two things, right?
¶80There can't be one thing that exists at more than one time. Well, then why can't I say fine then personal identity just isn't numerical identity. Uh you can have two things that are one person. One person but two things and personal identity. Even if numerical identity is only vacuously intrinsic, personal identity is intrinsic and non-vacuously so.
¶81I mean, basically what I'm saying is you said a bunch of stuff about numerical identity, but I wasn't necessarily talking about numerical identity. I was just talking about personal identity. And if I just say those are different, then it seems like all the stuff I said before still applies. It's still true that which person you are shouldn't depend on who else exists and where. >> Yeah.
¶82So that was not confused. Um. >> Yes. >> So what I had in mind and maybe I was wrong about this, >> but um at least in my mind it seemed like the force of the intuition that uh personal identity is is intrinsic um sort of came from the idea that it's like a kind of numerical identity. >> Oh.
¶83So, you know, because if it's some like really complicated version of um and you know, so it's sort of like I'm already accepting this cost in saying that personal identity isn't numeric and accepting a cost and then it seems like the the non-intrness just comes with that. Um yeah. So it seems like for example um in other so like in the electron case for example if I have two electrons like really really far apart >> then we might say that they're distinguishable like especially if they're too far apart and in this window of time that like you know light speed communication wouldn't be able to go between them. >> Right. Right.
¶84Um, but then it seems like if the electrons get closer, then that we get into the no fact of the matter territory. >> That's >> Yeah. And then, you know, so so then it seems like whether we're willing to call something the same electron uh is not going to be intrinsic. >> Uh, okay. That's that's a really interesting point.
¶85I'll have to think more about that. >> Can I say something about this, Noah? Um unless is there more on this exchange than that ones saying we should fizz all that. Okay. Yeah.
¶86I mean it sounds like if we want to take this view where personal identity is the type of thing that can make it so that a person is two things or more than two things where the different things exist at different times. Um then I think and someone might worry. I wouldn't worry. I'm fine with it. That this is going to make Fers like Amos' laptop where Amos has told us that there's good reasons for thinking and maybe we can get into some of those reasons Amos that strictly speaking there aren't laptops.
¶87And the reason why it's going to do that is because it's going to make persons composite. It's not going to make them composite in space uh where a thing has a bunch of its a thing is many things where each of those things is at a different location in space. It's going to make them composits in time where a thing a person is a bunch of things each of which is at a different time. But I think that a lot of the reasons to think that strictly speaking there aren't composite objects in space. Some of those reasons are are going to apply equally well to thinking that there aren't actually composite things strictly speaking in time either.
¶88Um for example, here's one reason to think that there aren't strictly speaking composits in space. take any arbitrary thing that seems like a composite and it seems like there would have to be a miracle so to speak uh for it to exist in the case where we remove one of its most simple parts like amos will call those atoms remove one of its atoms one at a time we might ask okay when is it no longer there when have I gotten rid of the object or let's say we want to build something an atom at a time. We ask when have I built that composite object but there is no one atom at which we would have made it the case that that object is there and it doesn't seem like it can be vague whether there's like existence claims about what there is don't seem like the kind of things that should be vague. I don't maybe you disagree with that but it seems weird to me if whether an object is is exists or not is vague but um if we think then that nevertheless there is some you know fact of the matter it's not going to be vague there'll be some finite number of atoms that once we have that number of atoms then there is a table there um that somehow like a miracle is going to have to occur where just at the right number of atoms even though we'd have no it's not like we would suddenly realize, oh, now we've added the last atom that makes our concept table apply. Even though that wouldn't happen at any particular single difference of an atom.
¶89U nevertheless, a miracle would occur at a particular atom and it would be a table or take away an atom and it wouldn't be a table anymore. And that just sounds really implausible. But then if you think about it, the temporal case, you can do the exact same thing. So call these you know little um things that make up the person each of exists at a different time a temporal part. So how many if I like imagine the object that has all of your temporal parts and then I start taking away parts.
¶90Um have I immediately made a new person when I just took away one? Well, that doesn't seem right because you want to say that even before you had the temporal part that you just gained this very moment, you still existed when you just had all the parts you had before that too. Um, so it can't be that I can just take away one, but if I take away enough of them, you would want to say that's not you anymore, I imagine. U maybe, but which ones? How many can I take away?
¶91It kind of seems like there would have to be a miracle that would have to occur of the same kind of the table and that would be really implausible and that the same considerations counting against thinking that strictly speaking there are tables will start to count against their strictly speaking being persons once we admit that persons are composite uh in any sort of relevant sense where we can apply these kind of considerations. >> Okay. I think maybe we should we should move on to some arguments for the soul view. But I just want to make one last remark about this. It sounds like what you basically just did was you gave an argument for thinking that if flow is right about whether things persist over time, then your view nihilism that there are no people follows.
¶92That's right. And that's what I think. >> Okay. Interesting. So maybe Flo will have something to say about that later.
¶93But we want to Yeah, sure. So we had another view on the table. So we've been defending throughout this discussion the soul theory which of course says that person A is the same person as person B just in case they have the same soul. Now I think that the soul theory just satisfies all the you know intuitively plausible constraints that theories of personal identity should satisfy. And one that I do want to return to is this one about there being a determinate objective fact of the matter about whether or not some person later on is the same person as some person earlier on.
¶94Uh for precisely the reasons that Ser was giving. I do think it should always be a determinant fact of the matter about whether you exist. You know it can't be indeterminate or vague or fuzzy whether something is in reality. Like either something exists or it doesn't. There's no like in between like some fuzzy spooky kind of indeterminate existence like no what are you talking about that's implausible.
¶95Uh but consider the split brain case that Flo introduced. Right? So imagine future neuroscientists they're going to perform an experiment. They're going to split your brain perfectly in half. The same number of atoms.
¶96Suppose they determine this the same number of atoms are going to be in the right half and the left half. They then take those two abs apart. They relocate them in two different eagerly awaiting bodies. Uh [laughter] they're freaking they So you take the the the right hemisphere, you take the left hemisphere, you put those in eagerly awaiting bodies, sort of fitting receptacles that can then go on and live their lives. Both of the resulting people, and they're very closely people are going to wake up and claim to be you.
¶97They're going to have your apparent memories. They're going to be like, "Hey, this is Joe or whatever, whatever your name is." But of course, I claim they can't both be you. I mean, like, one of them could die while the other lives. And it seems really implausible to say that, you know, you could be both dead and alive or nothing like that [snorts] or you could both die and survive. You know, what if they get in like a a shootout or something like it's just really really implausible.
¶98So, it does seem like there could be a fact there should be a fact of the matter about which one is you, if either. But importantly, there's nothing about brains or organisms, I don't think, or even psychological continuity that could determine where you go. There aren't any physical facts that could fix which way you go. As Flo put it earlier, both of the hemispheres, both of the resulting organisms, they have an equal claim to be you. By contrast, on the soul theory, where you go is determined by which brain continues to harbor your soul.
¶99So, the soul theory has a perfectly natural explanation of what could fix which one is in fact you. if either. But other theories aren't able to deliver that verdict that there is an objective fact to the matter about which one if either is you. And of course, you know, I don't claim to have an answer about like which cerebral hemisphere like would actually in fact harbor your soul. But you know that that's not a problem for our view.
¶100You know, there are just sometimes things which we can't know in principle. So I guess I'm curious what you maybe Flo or maybe what the animalists think about this argument. Basically the soul theory captures unlike other theories, it captures this intuitively plausible criterion or deseratum for a theory of personal identity, namely that personal identity is an objective determinate fact. I have a question. Um, do you think it's met that it's met or like conceivable that there could be a world um in which you know there's just a bunch of particles?
¶101Those are the only things. Um, and then I don't know, maybe we want to say that like we can't have consciousness if there's just physical properties. So maybe we'll say property dualism is true in this world. Uh is it metaphys possible that we have a world in which we just have particles uh those particles make up organisms like human beings and they're conscious? >> Those particles make up organisms and the organisms themselves are conscious.
¶102>> Yeah, that seems at the very least conceivable. >> Okay. Um, and then you know, so maybe all these concerns apply in this world that there's going to be weird vagueness, but it it seems as though as far as like the empirical evidence goes, like how my consciousness seems to me and how my personal identity seems to me, both of both of these hypotheses would give like the exact same predictions for for my observations and like how things seem to me. >> Okay. So, you're basically offering a debunking style story for my intuitions.
¶103Maybe I don't know if it counts as debunking, but yeah, if you want to say it. Yeah, I I'm just saying that like both of both hypotheses predict the same observations with like equal probability. Yeah, but I I I guess I worry that that doesn't actually like defeat or remove the evidential force or a value of an intuition, right? Because like there are alternative hypotheses which for instance equally well predict that you know I would have just these sensory experiences of you know people sitting in an audience arranged in exactly this sort of way but according to which there aren't in fact people in the audience arranged in that sort of way. Various skeptical hypotheses like that I'm a brain of or that I'm dreaming or that there's an evil demon who's feeding me sense impressions.
¶104These are alternative hypotheses that equally well predict that I would have this experience. But I still think that the fact that it seems to me that there are people out there gives me justification for accepting that there are in fact people out there. So I still think that I could rely on these intuitions and they have evidential force even if there's an alternative explanation for why I'd have the intuition that equally well predicts it. >> Yeah. So, I think the thing I would want to say about those cases, like, oh, I'm being deceived by an evil demon is that I think it seems like a simpler and more natural and just like more probable world uh before we look at the evidence, you know, that there isn't like a conspiracy to give me like weird observations.
¶105And so, I would chalk it up to having, you know, what the basians call that you'll learn about tomorrow. um a lower prior that is prior probability how likely you think something is before evidence in the demon world uh than in a world where things straightforwardly are as they appear. So would you say similarly you just have like a lower prior in in the you know particles world than in the souls world? Yeah because I mean there that it's a kind of delusion that these people are under and these people are under in this case you know they think that they exist. They think that there are these the same people persisting over time concerning which there's an objective fact of the matter but plausibly that's not the case in this world.
¶106So it's a kind of skeptical world you might think just as you know there are worlds in which conceivably you know the beings in question don't in fact have free will but it seems to them that they free will and they seem to be able to control their actions and whatnot. I just think like we should have a higher prior for you know things being the way that they seem. Okay. Based >> I guess my prayers are broken. >> Indeed.
¶107Well, that's what happens when you take the psycho the psychological coyote Kool-Aid. I mean I mean we do have another argument for Okay, I've got another argument for dualism that's very different or sorry the soul theory. The soul theory. Yes. Which is also sometimes called dualism.
¶108I'm actually going to start with one of the premises of Amos's argument for animalism. There's only one thing thinking in my chair. So, it sounds like we agree about that. I also want to concede that the thinker in my chair has physical parts. So he is at least partly composed of atoms.
¶109Let's say I remove one of this is tying together lots of motifs from earlier in the conversation. Let's say that we remove one of the atoms that composes me the thinker and ask what about the remaining atoms all the atoms minus that one do those atoms also compose something? Well, it seems like they do. How do I know that? Well, because if I lost that atom from the tip of my finger, the remaining atoms would compose me, right?
¶110I could lose that atom. But if all of the atoms minus that one could compose something, then it seems like they do they do compose something, right? Now, it's not me, right? Because there's a difference between me and this very slightly smaller thing, right? For one, it's very slightly smaller, right?
¶111It's very slightly less massive. It's just like me in every way except it doesn't have that atom. Okay, but now there's a problem. Is that thing a thinker? Well, it's physically exactly like me in every way that's relevant to whether it's a thinker, right?
¶112It's not like that one atom in my fingertip that enables me to think. So, if there really is something other than me in this chair that's made of all the atoms minus that one atom in my fingertip, that if I'm thinking, it's also thinking. But now there are two thinkers in my chair. Okay, but that seems ridiculous. And I'm not even going to argue for that premise because it seems like it's a point of agreement, although I do have arguments for it.
¶113So, how do we get out of this problem? Well, here's one way we could get out of the problem. We can just deny that there is a thing made of all the atoms minus one of my atom. Right? That was the assumption.
¶114uh that if I took one atom away, all the remaining atoms compose some other thing, right? Um we don't necessarily have to say that we can say where I am in my chair, there are lots of pluralities of particles. There's the plurality of the particles that actually compose me. Then there's the plurality made up of all those atoms minus one. Then there's another plurality made up of all those atoms minus two and so on.
¶115Right? There are lots of different groups or collections or sets of particles. Um and we could get out of this problem if we could maintain that only one of those collections of particles composes something. Only one of them does and it's the one that composes me. Right?
¶116So let's say that let's say that although there are lots of pluralities of particles here exactly one of them no more and no fewer composes a person. Okay that solves the original problem. Now we can say okay there's only one thinker in your chair not two or three or four or however many. But if we're going to say that only one collection of particles composes something, we can ask why. Like why is it that those particles compose something but not them except for one or except for two, except for three, right?
¶117Why is what's special about that one collection of particles that makes it the only one that composes a thing? Well, here's an answer. Uh, well, actually, first, the answer can't be something physical, right? Because as we talked about earlier, those collections of particles are physically almost exactly the same, right? The only difference is one collection includes this atom and the other collection doesn't include this atom.
¶118And it doesn't seem like that's a relevant difference, right? including or not including an atom. That doesn't make a difference to whether some atoms compose something. So there's not a physical explanation for why this collection, the one that composes me, is the only collection that composes something. But if there's not a physical explanation, there must be a non-physical explanation.
¶119What's the non physical explanation? I say that collection is the only one that's insold. There's a saying uh that the medieval philosophers were fond of that the soul is the principle of unity of the body. The soul is the thing that makes the parts of the body compose a further thing. And that's what I want to say.
¶120The reason that there's only one composite thing here is because there's only one soul here. So I think we can get from the idea there's only one thinker in my chair to the conclusion that I have a soul. And if I have a soul then maybe my identity goes with it. What makes me the same person across time is that the particles that compose the person here are held together are unified by the same soul. that holds together or unifies the particles that compose the person over here.
¶121One last one last note I'll make about my view. This view that the soul is what holds the organism together. Um it actually solves a problem that Flo raised earlier, right? Flo is saying look even the particles themselves don't persist over time. If you have two times then you have two different particles.
¶122Well, as far as I know, the physicists have not proven that souls can't persist over time. So, what I can say is at every time there's a new collection of particles, but it's the same soul holding them together at each time. And so even though at every time there are some new particles, they're still the same person because at every time there's the same soul holding a different collection of particles together. So uh not only does my view say explain why there's only one thinker in this chair, you also can't refute it with physics. And so I think this is just the ultimate view of personal identity.
¶123>> Correct. Go ahead. Yeah. >> Just saying the LC hasn't detected any souls. None's kidding.
¶124Um, >> how many chairs are you sitting on? >> Strictly speaking, >> yeah, none. >> Okay, that Yeah, that defeats my objection. >> So, h how many how many plants are in a ponted plants on a window sill? Uh I think it's just one.
¶125No, it's just it's just one. >> Okay. Oh. Oh. So that the plant has a soul as well.
¶126>> Yeah. >> Well, so I don't think the plant has a soul. >> Yeah. >> Because a soul is uh the principle of unity of a person of a human being. Now I think that there might be things other than humans that also have principles of unity.
¶127I think plants that's like a plausible example of something that has a principle of unity. But I'm not going to say it has a soul because the plant's not a person. Um maybe I mean the way that the medieval philosophers would put it is the soul has a substantial form. Uh there's a form that provides its unity and that makes it a substance that makes it a plant. Yeah.
¶128But I don't think like I mean for various reasons that maybe it would be complicated to get into. I don't think it's very plausible that chairs have substantial forms the way that plants or people do. But you could have that view. Like if you were just really attached to the idea that there are chairs, then you could say not only are there souls, not only are there substantial forms for plants, but there's also like the form of a chair that provides the the that is the principle of the unity of the chair. >> Yeah.
¶129So it seems like there's an important area of agreement between our views, right? So >> your your kind of physical ontology, your description of what's sort of physically alade that you can bump bump into sounds like it's the same as mine. So it's just partless atoms and then organisms. Would you accept that characterization? >> Well, I don't think it's just partless atoms and organisms.
¶130Unless you mean to include the soul as a constituent of the organism. So if by the organism you mean the particles together with the soul that holds them together, then yes, I would agree with that. >> So it depends on how we carve it I was asking about your physical ontology, your description of of the stuff that you can bump into in the world. Is >> that's right. Are our ontologies exactly the same.
¶131So, >> yes, we we accept that there are humans, but they're not wearing any clothes strictly speaking. >> I don't think our physical ontologies are going to be exactly the same because whereas you want to say that strictly speaking you don't have a brain, I want to say strictly speaking I do have a brain. I think my brain it doesn't have a soul because it's not a person, but I do think it has a substantial form. So I might be willing to grant more physical things than you are, but like I think in most cases we're going to agree about which physical. >> Yeah.
¶132Yeah. But I guess so maybe we could sort of characterize it as we agree that there are physically speaking just partless atoms and biological things. Uh like brains and >> yeah I think uh yeah I mean again like I don't think someone with my view of personal identity would have to say that but let's just grant that for the sake of argument. Yeah. >> Yeah.
¶133Sure. Sweet. I mean I think that's the that's the accumulism done. Maybe there are some other objections. Yeah.
¶134>> Well can I can I uh can I say uh just something about the animalist view? >> Sure. So, uh, you might wonder, look, if we agree on which physical things exist, and I'm just saying there's some extra thing, a soul, then why is my view any better than yours? Because your view just seems simpler. Well, here's what I would say about that.
¶135Uh, you want to say A is the same person as B, just in case A is the same organism as B. But I actually don't think it's any easier to say what it takes for people to persist over time than it is to say or it's no easier sorry. It's no easier to say what it what it takes for organisms to persist over time than it is to say what people uh >> what it is for people >> what it is for people to exist persist over time. Thank you. Sorry.
¶136Um, and so basically I think you're just moving the bump in the rug because if you say, "Well, it's just if they're the same organism, then I can just ask,"Well, what makes them the same organism?" And I think my view gives an answer to that question. What makes them the same? What makes them the same physical thing? Well, it's that they're bound together by the same soul. >> So, let's let Sophia get the last one in this dialectic.
¶137>> Okay. Yeah. >> And then we're going to hear from Saga to give his argument for nihilism. Um I just had a clarifying question that that might be more of a clarifying for uh perhaps there's not very much to clear up here but uh it seems that on your so you're using the word soul but it seems that on your view um there is no possibility for the soul to persist without the body or to exist without the body because the soul is simply the principle of the unity of the material organism. Uh sort of like the we might think of it as like the shape or arrangement of the material organism.
¶138the thing that makes it uh >> arranged in this way. Um just so so the principle of unity of some some body or some collection of atoms can't exist without some body to organize. >> Well, I actually don't agree with that. Although that is something uh you know there were lots of so again the view that I'm defending is one that some medieval philosophers had and there was a lot of disagreement among those philosophers about what the soul was what it means for something to be the principle of unity of a thing. Uh you described one possible view but I don't like that view.
¶139Um, I think that the shape of something or the arrangement of something that's that's a physical thing. And for reasons I described earlier, I don't think that the explanation for why this collection of atoms composes something but the others don't is a physical explanation. So I want to say actually the soul is a non-physical thing. Um, you also said, well, isn't the soul simply the principle of the unity of the body? And I think that's not quite right.
¶140I think the soul is the thing that explains why these atoms compose an organism, but I don't think that's all it is. And I think that it could continue to exist. Um, even if you destroyed my body, there would just be this immaterial thing, a soul. And maybe like you know if the right material came along it would it would unify that material and that material would become a body. But I think that the soul could exist without having any matter to organize.
¶141>> Well much more could be said. I'm sorry but we do have to go on to our final argument for final view. >> Yeah. Thank you chair. Um so it was said earlier when I made the argument about taking away atoms, putting new atoms and how you would compose things and there would be no fact of the matter as to whether you actually get the thing that uh this would make it so that if flow is right actually nihilism would be true.
¶142um explain that nihilism being that there actually aren't the reason there's no fact of the matter uh as to whether person A is the same as person B say if they exist at different times because there just isn't anything that persists between those times to be the same. Um, another way you could put this therefore is that if what we're supposed to be is these things that have continuity over time, then we don't exist. There aren't any of those kind of things that we could be. Um, now when I made that argument before, I think I spoke too quickly when I said that if what Flo is saying is right, then actually I think it's an argument for nihilism once you include my stuff about taking away things, adding things. Well, people call it soiety's paradox because I kind of think while that was right to say, um, maybe what I really want to say is if what any of you say is right, then I can apply the Soriety stuff and we'll get an argument for nihilism.
¶143Um, so let's start by considering something that you just said, Noah, which is that it feels to you like animalism is just moving the bump in the rug. It's not any easier to say what makes this the same organism over time uh as it is to say what makes it the same person over time. You said that as if it is supposed to be easier for me to say what it is for something to be the same soul over time. >> But I'm not sure that it's actually easier for me to say what it is for something to be the same soul over time. I mean, okay, Flo's worries about whether you could even have the same physical objects over time in the first place maybe are not going to apply to souls.
¶144But look, I mean, and I I'll take a break from just to ask you a question really quickly. Do you think your soul changes? Um, does it ever undergo change? I was just thinking about that as you were speaking. So I think it does.
¶145Good. Good. Okay. So, >> but I'm not sure. Well, I certainly undergo change, but on my view, I am not my soul, right?
¶146Uh but that's that other thing I want to go to. So the first time when you introduced the soul view, you told us that on the soul view, it's like it takes on stuff from the animal view because you get to have the animal as a part. And you made it sound like you're a composite of the animal and the soul. But now on this view, it doesn't seem like you're a composite of the animal and soul because it doesn't sound like the soul is one of your parts. It sounds like the soul is this other.
¶147It's like a glue actually. Yeah. It's not one of your parts and it glues all the parts together. That's a good analogy. Yeah.
¶148Um and then it wouldn't actually be one of your parts, >> but then so I have this group of parts that exists right now and then I have this group of parts that exists a second later. Why is it that it's the same glue gluing it together? What's the same about that glue? um is it just like that glue actually doesn't change and it's somehow merely extrinsically related to these parts. So then when those parts from the previous time like go into the past, the glue jumps into the next moment and glues together these new atoms that are in the next moment, but intrinsically it doesn't change at all.
¶149And intrinsically the the parts don't change at all in terms of the glue grabbing onto them, but the glue just grabs onto them. Well, if that's what's happening, I mean, I think that's going to have a bunch of weird implications. So, one weird implication is just that like I mean, there's just going to be like a weird regress kind of worry I'm going to have about whatever is relating the glue to the parts here. >> That this kind of gluing is like itself a relation. But since the glue can jump from ratada to ratada, there's some additional fact about which things it's are getting glued.
¶150And so then we need this extra glue that's like, okay, why is it that the glue is hooked on to these parts, but then and but it's hooked on to these parts. Well, it got unglued by this glue glue from the first set and then glue glued to the next one. I mean, do you kind of see what I'm saying? Like I >> glues the glue to the >> Yeah. What glues to glue?
¶151Exactly. What glues [laughter] the glues to the things that it glues? If it's some new glue, what's going to glue that to the things it glues? You're going to get this kind of Bradley and red. >> It's a really glu.
¶152Yeah. Bruce problem. This is the sort of problem that made like Bradley and other British idealists in the, you know, late 19th century or first part of the 20th century worry about extrinsic relations in general. And you might think that for some intrinsic relations it's not going to be that weird, but for this one it's going to be kind of weird. Or at least I feel like it's kind of weird in this case.
¶153But then it's also going to be weird now that um actually what you said originally that you just get to take on the kind of analyst view uh but you somehow add stuff to it. Um well yeah do you have something else clarifying question for now? >> Yeah. Yeah. Are you like doing card and you think the soul is not extended in or like space?
¶154>> Good question. >> Well, I don't know. I'll just say where I was going. If you think it's not in space and plausibly you could also say it's not in time. Yeah.
¶155>> It's just so it's just a Yeah. And it's gluing gluing you together all your time slices and and particles. Yeah. it. But then what I worry then what I worry is not only is that that's not me and it's not a part of me either.
¶156So it's this thing that isn't me and isn't a part of me but which makes these things somehow me and somehow part of me. Even though when we run all of these cases and whatever, it still just seems like there's not a fact of the matter as to which one would be me and which one wouldn't. And you're just sort of stipulating. I'll solve I'll solve your problem for you. I'm just going to add an object into my ontology that will make that not weird anymore.
¶157What does that object do? Well, it doesn't do anything. It's not in time and it's not like a part of me either. So all it does is it serves this one philosophical function. It in an ad hoc way makes the thing you think is weird like gives me a non-weird answer.
¶158And I'm just not clear that that's the kind of like that that's a good reason to add something into my ontology. Now if you wanted to tell me it was a part of me maybe like the conscious part of me then I would like that. Actually, I like the thought that maybe, for example, for like conceivability reasons, you couldn't get the facts about me that have to do with consciousness just by talking about all of the physical parts of me. But then I want to say that it is one of my parts, the conscious part of me. It's the conscious part of me and it underos change just like my physical parts.
¶159And then while there might not be a physical reason to think that when it underos change, it's actually just a bunch of new numerically identical conscious parts. I think there might just be some like a priori pressure to thinking that it actually you don't get numerical identity even of conscious stuff over time. here's maybe like how you make I mean it kind of seems weird to me at least that um intrinsic properties of a thing that's under like um you know like the properties that a thing has just by being itself but which can change over time are all actually they're not the properties we think they are. They have an extra tag on them a time indexing tag. So like you know my uh soul let's say as in the conscious part of me um it's like you could imagine that just in virtue of being what it is.
¶160It has a bunch of these properties um some of which might be temporary. For example, um if you like pulled the present as my soul as it is presently into a world where there isn't anything else. So you just kept its non- relational properties. Uh there would be some facts about like what's phenomenally manifest to it that could still be true in that world. I mean they wouldn't be veritical because we took away all the other stuff but like there would still be some visual phenomenal manifold like the way things appear.
¶161The way things appear visually. Exactly. Uh but then on your view it's going to actually have to be that those are actually all those properties if they're really going to be properties that my soul just has because of the thing it is then because my soul is able to change over time. It's not actually like the case that this property of oh there's like an expanse of red in my visual phenomenal experience is that property actually there's a little time indexing tagged onto it as well that's like at a certain moment where the moment somehow has some objective position in time it's that property but then at another time if you have that property it's actually a different one it's not the same one because it's the new time indexed one and that way you like my soul can keep having all the same properties over time. All of these properties that it has just by being itself.
¶162It can keep having all the same ones over time. And that just seems really weird. I I think the properties that my that a thing has just by being itself are instantiated atmporally. But if that's what you think, then if the soul changes, it's got to have temporal parts. And my original argument that a thing with parts just actually doesn't strictly speaking exist will then apply to the souls.
¶163So either the soul is weird glue or the soul is my conscious part. If it's weird glue, I'm not sure I want this in my ontology. And if it's my conscious part, then I just don't think it strictly speaking persists over time. And that is why I'm a nihilist. >> This is the final response for the debate and then we will do our closing statements and go to Q&A.
¶164So >> okay. So, I think to fully answer those objections, I would have to write a whole book. But I'll just say a couple quick things that I think might help with the problem. First, must we glue the glue to the things it glues to glue them? Well, I don't think so.
¶165And here's why. Although I think my soul is a part of me in one sense, it's not a part of me in the same sense that my atoms are a part of me. And I think that although there's some explanation required for why these atoms compose something but not all the atoms minus one, I don't think there needs to be a similar explanation for why my soul ensl, but I'm just thinking the relationship between my soul and the atoms it unifies is a different a different one from the relation the atoms stand into each other and so I think we can we can potentially stop the regress regress that way. I realize this is a promisory note. I'm going to have to write that book to give you the pulsetoids but then one other thing I would say earlier you said that if the soul is responsible for consciousness then the soul is going to have to be the conscious part of me.
¶166I'm not sure that's quite right. I think the thing that's conscious is not my soul, it's me. And I'm not conscious because I have a conscious part, the soul. Um, it's just that having a soul enables me to be conscious. So, the soul gives me a certain power, a certain ability that I have.
¶167The soul doesn't have that ability. The soul gives me that ability. And so I can say that I am able to change phenomenally over time. My experiences can change from one moment to the next. Um, and that's because I have a soul because there's an immaterial constituent of me.
¶168But it's not that immaterial constituent itself that's having different experiences over time. Except in the special case where my body gets destroyed and then I just am the non-physical constituent. What happens then? I have no idea. That's the second book I have to write.
¶169So maybe we'll have to leave it there. >> Well, Amos, do you want to give like maybe each of us can give like a three sentence summary of what we argued? >> Yeah, sure. So quick three sentence summary. Uh there is a thinking animal sitting in your chair.
¶170There's only one thinker there. You're sitting in your cat. So you're an animal that thinks. >> Yeah. >> Nice.
¶171Um I think we can just I've argued that we can just bas basically go off of common sense. Common sense tells us that uh you know you are the very creature, the very animal that for example sees itself in the mirror, might see a picture of itself from a time it doesn't remember, um might you know get hit by its codivator. Um and this common sense intuition tells us that we are animals. So I argued that in order to maintain this common sense judgment that there's only one person in my chair, we had to explain how it could be that only one of the collections of particles in my chair composes a person. And I think the best explanation of that is a non-physical explanation is that that's the only collection that is in soul.
¶172And I used the split brain case to argue for the soul theory. I contended that only the soul theory delivers the full range of intuitively plausible constraints on a theory of personal identity. Most notably that personal identity is an objective nonconventional fact. >> Right. Um I argued in favor of the psychological connectedness um that I'm the same person as baby flow because I'm psychologically continuous with baby flow.
¶173Um and I argued on the basis that it sort of uh is parsimmonious and it only appeals to sort of how things seem to us and uses the seemings and the you know various psychologically connected states as the criterion on for personal identity and I argued first that composite objects don't exist and that every way that my fellow panelists want to spin us makes us composite objects so we don't exist. >> Well, thank you