Does the self persist through time?

[Sarkus]

Memories make poor evidence of persistent selfhood.

I'm not saying they give evidence of persistent selfhood.
If anything they provide the individual with a sense of self that can at best only be assumed - and Occam would sort out the rest.
But Occam indicates rationality, not proof.
i.e. memories enable us to conclude rationally that we are the same person - that our own "I" persists.

Whether our own self persists - we have to define clearly what we mean/refer to by "self" as there's possibly some fuzziness about what is being considered.
Sure, personality, the way we operate and store our memories etc might change - i.e. what I would see as the clothes our "self" wears. But throughout there is still the sense of "I" or "self".

 

[Gustav]

Are you arguing from personal incredulity?

no. why would i?
see no one has explained satisfactorily how a neural network can develop a consciousness with apparent free will apart from offering the usual arguments based on complexity of design

furthermore there appear to be nothing even analogous in the sciences that come close to demonstrating how such circuits can be built to demonstrate the type of sentience evinced in animals.

at the very least give me a workable hypotheses

No, I find nothing unusual about it.

i suppose then you are in a position to educate me with some hard facts rather than some promissory materialism and perhaps an appeal to...credulity, yes?

 

[Raithere]

you obviously think you are in fucking kindergarten talking down to some punk ass kid

No. But I do think you're taking an impersonal comment in a philosophical discussion rather personally.

I simply believe that we have a tendency to make rather more out of the phenomena of consciousness and self than they are due. (Don't worry, I'm not singling you out. I have this tendency too.) Assigning it a special status because it's difficult to determine what is occurring from within the process. I find the arguments that minds have special properties that other things don't possess mostly unconvincing and unnecessary.

~Raithere

 

[Raithere]

i suppose then you are in a position to educate me with some hard facts rather than some promissory materialism and perhaps an appeal to...credulity, yes?

As opposed to what? The speculation of some magical form of nonphysical substance that occurs only in the brain (or body or wherever it has its existent non-existence) of certain objects on a mundane planet in an average solar system?

~Raithere

 

[Sarkus]

no. why would i?

Well, your comment smacked of incredulity, and given that you offered nothing to support your claim of incompatibility than the apparent incredulity - I had to ask.

see no one has explained satisfactorily how a neural network can develop a consciousness with apparent free will apart from offering the usual arguments based on complexity of design

Ah - so you're one of the "not yet demonstrated = impossible" brigade?

furthermore there appear to be nothing even analogous in the sciences that come close to demonstrating how such circuits can be built to demonstrate the type of sentience evinced in animals.

Which animals in particular would convince you? Ants? Birds? Small mammals? Humans?

at the very least give me a workable hypotheses

For what?
All you have so far done is say words to the effect of "this is incompatible" - without actually explaining anything other than expressing your incredulity.
Please detail the issue you have, as I asked, and then perhaps we can have that discussion. But presently you are looking for me to guess the issues you have with it.

i suppose then you are in a position to educate me with some hard facts rather than some promissory materialism and perhaps an appeal to...credulity, yes?

Again - please state the nature of the issues you have with the compatability instead of just expressing your incredulity.

 

[Gustav]

I find the arguments that minds have special properties that other things don't possess mostly unconvincing and unnecessary.

~Raithere

i assert no such thing
i however feel the same way when you guys assert that a physical system will magically produce mental events given sufficient complexity

i mean where are the precedents for such a claim?

 

[parmalee]

I simply believe that we have a tendency to make rather more out of the phenomena of consciousness and self than they are due. (Don't worry, I'm not singling you out. I have this tendency too.) Assigning it a special status because it's difficult to determine what is occurring from within the process. I find the arguments that minds have special properties that other things don't possess mostly unconvincing and unnecessary.

~Raithere

for me this is problematic because it seems to be interminably self-referential, in the same way that defining "self" as phenomenal experience* is:

an emergent property of the processes of the brain (and the body, insofar as the body effects the processes (and vice versa), and everything else insofar as everything else effects the body (and vice versa))--but what is a "property"? an aspect (or property) of the processes of the brain (and the... which retains it's "identity," regardless of...


* the phenomenal experience of the phenomenal experience of the ... of said entity.

 

[Doreen]

I'm not saying they give evidence of persistent selfhood.
If anything they provide the individual with a sense of self that can at best only be assumed - and Occam would sort out the rest.
But Occam indicates rationality, not proof.
i.e. memories enable us to conclude rationally that we are the same person - that our own "I" persists.

Whether our own self persists - we have to define clearly what we mean/refer to by "self" as there's possibly some fuzziness about what is being considered.
Sure, personality, the way we operate and store our memories etc might change - i.e. what I would see as the clothes our "self" wears. But throughout there is still the sense of "I" or "self".

I think the best way to put it is not a clear definition, but rather more like a kind of promise.

Will it be me who experiences my birthday party in twenty years or will it simply be a matter of tradition and habit that we refer to this person as 'the same'.

I really can see little room for an empirical materialist to think the consciousness will be the same one. Since there are no immaterial things and all the material has changed -not to mention the volume, nerve connections, behaviors, levels of various hormones and other chemicals in the blood, lymph, cells, opinions, memories, etc. - there is no reason to assume or even think it is the same experiencer, the same consciousness.

As you say above the personality is the clothes the self wears. Well, this changes and so does the body in the clothes.

What is this self made of that persists?

 

[Doreen]

for that matter, i don't see why the "self" would be simply the brain and the body. like wallace stevens, i am fairly confident in asserting that "i was the world in which i walked." and i mean that quite literally.

Good point!
Which raises the issue of internal relations. Does it make any difference to identity if all our relations change? It certainly feels like it does, but generally if the changes are slow enough, we tend not to go into shock. But if we look back 20 years, many if not most of the ways we relate to the world have changed - and yet it is the same 'I'. This means we are taking the stance that relations are external to identity.

 

[Doreen]

It's somewhat arbitrary but because that's where the pattern resides, it's the part that's necessary. You could change or eliminate the body and still have the same, persistent self.

Not in people's experience, which is what a lot of this is coming down to so far, ironically from empirical materialists. Would you be the same person without your genitals? But then there are subtler issues...if you adrenal glands started acting differently radical changes in your sense of self could take place - and you would seem a different person to others.

But I agree that it's not a closed system, body and mind affect each other. Of course that's somewhat arbitrary as well because the body affects the world and the world the body, why stop at the skin?

I agree, why stop at the skin, which raises even more challenges to the persistent self since our relations and interactions change radically - generally at least. See my post above on the issue of internal relations.

 

[takethewarhome]

I said


Thinking said....
Because I could make two copies. Are they both the first CD? We are talking about identity through time. The first CD and its copy can both exist at the same time. Or I can smash the first CD. It seems to me the copy is not the first CD. It is, in fact, a copy.

Which is what empiricism would indicate we are, after a time.

I notice also that you are being very selective in what you respond to on this issue and remaining silent on most of it. I put in some effort on the issue, but will stop very soon.

Where are you attempting to go with all of this?

 

[Dub_]

given this, it would seem that self as "phenomenal experience," with no mention of the conscious aspect, would suffice given what is usually intended by "conscious."

What, in your view, is usually intended by "conscious"? I was under the impression that consciousness referred to, well, phenomenal experience. Leaving the "conscious aspect" out of that doesn't make sense to me.

i suppose w. steven's reformulated as "i was (my experience) of the world in which i walked" would capture this, but then, properly considered, this would become an interminably self-referential phrasing: what is my/mine? what is proper to me, i.e. my experience--"i was my experience of my experience of my experience of...the world in which i walked."

I don't see how this leads to an infinite regress. As you say, what is mine is what is a property of my experience... is there any reason why it shouldn't end right there? What requires us to take that next step?

but is one's phenomenal experience necessarily defined by the limits of one's own nervous system? even here, the expression "one's own" becomes problematic: if by "one" is intended "the phenomenal experience of said entity," then "one's own" becomes "what is proper to (or, property of) said entity's experience." it seems then that it can never be said, of a conscious (is self-awareness essential?) entity, that something (whether it be a "thing" or an "experience") is proper to, or property of this entity--but only to the experience of...

Right. Is this a problem for you...?

yeah, i'm a little lost here too--both a logical and intuitive appeal?! for whom? certainly not for me--don't know about the logic, but THAT is certaintly not intuitive to me: the self as a sort of "sum" of qualia?
...
i suppose this is why it does not seem intuitive to me: "i" am not my physical person, but simply "my (my experience of... rather) experience."

To clarify, when I say that it has "intuitive" appeal, I admittedly mean it in a sort of unusual sense. Rather than meaning something like "it seems obvious on the surface," I gave the example of alien hand syndrome to point out that, in order for something like this syndrome to exist at all, people in general must have some sort of implicit, intuitive theory of what self is that is more-or-less in line with what I've explicated. Even if they've never given a moment's thought to what it means to be, once part of their physical body divorces itself from their conscious intentionality, they reject it as part of their self without hesitation. It is in this sense that the present definition of self is "intuitive" -- forgive me for any confusion. My background is in psychology, and when we say that something is intuitive, we typically mean something closer to "commonplace and implicit" (e.g., an intuitive theory of personality).

 

[Raithere]

i assert no such thing
i however feel the same way when you guys assert that a physical system will magically produce mental events given sufficient complexity

i mean where are the precedents for such a claim?

You mean aside from the observation that all such events (or at least the claims thereto) are inexorably bound to physical, biological, systems?

~Raithere

 

[lightgigantic]

You mean aside from the observation that all such events (or at least the claims thereto) are inexorably bound to physical, biological, systems?

~Raithere

What is the scientific precedent for establishing this connection to the physical as inexorable?

 

[Doreen]

Where are you attempting to go with all of this?

Do you mean with what you quoted or with the thread and the issue?

 

[Doreen]

The Frog in the slowly heated up water....

The Frog in the slowly heated up waterdoes not notice the important threshold that is crossed.....

I think this relates directly to the issue. We change, generally very slowly, over time. So it seems like continuity, while it is not. During this time all the matter in our bodies changes, in addition to changes in pattern within this new matter.

Perhaps this is part of the reason we sleep, so that this slow transformation is even harder to notice.

Those of us who have gone through trauma know, however, that even on an experiential level, changes can take place so rapidly that identity issues come to the fore directly. These can be tested as there are physical corollaries in changes in organs – the adrenal glands, the brain – changes in hormone levels, changes in behavior and responses to stimuli, to such a degree that in the period of a few hours a person can radically change to where the person before the rape, torture, deaths, calamity is hard to identify with
And can continue to be so for the rest of that person’s life.

In these situations the water is raised to boiling fast enough for the frog to notice, but the frog is not allowed to jump out of the water. IOW there is a lid.

Positive experiences can do this too, though generally not quite so forcefully.

Ockam’s Razor, if agreed upon as a decent way to approach our assumptions, would suggest as a starting point we do not assume there is some incorporeal ‘thing’ that persists. Thus the experiencer at 10 is not the same experiencer as the one at 40.

Secondly, we have huge emotional responses to the idea of the persistent self not being the case. Even so we often notice we feel like different people or refer to ourselves as not the same person, even without having gone through traumatic experiences where we are more likely to think in those terms.

In a sense we had a big empirical questions of the existence of a being OUT THERE. Once it comes to the one, in here, people who did not balk, suddenly balk.

 

[takethewarhome]

Do you mean with what you quoted or with the thread and the issue?

All of it.

 

[Doreen]

All of it.

Where am I attempting to go with all of this? Attempting in italics. You know I think it would be better if you made a statement instead of asking me. I have written quite a bit in this thread. I think you have at least a couple of points. Why not just bring them in?

 

[takethewarhome]

Where am I attempting to go with all of this? Attempting in italics. You know I think it would be better if you made a statement instead of asking me. I have written quite a bit in this thread. I think you have at least a couple of points. Why not just bring them in?

Eh, why not.

 

[Doreen]

So what are those points?