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Apr. 13th, 2008 08:57 pmToday I want to talk about personal identity.
Or rather, I want to talk about how much I don't want to talk about personal identity. See, we're talking about personal identity in my philosophy class right now, and I just ... I have so much negative interest in the subject. I could not care less about the definition of a person, or if you're still a person when you're asleep, or if the mind and body are separate.
However, the reason I wanted to talk about it is because there's this theory that your consciousness is what makes up your identity, rather than your physical appearance, and there's this example that goes with it that ... well, okay, I didn't really understand it, but it's something like, if someone steals your horse, and then later you find it, the only way you know it's your horse is because it looks like your horse, but because you can't access the consciousness of the horse, you can't ever know for sure that it is in fact the same horse. But like, I mean, I know it's a hypothetical example and everything, but I can't get past how dumb it is, because is it really likely someone is going to steal your horse and give it a brain transplant? Well, unless it was stolen by an evil scientist to use for experiments, in which case you have way bigger problems here than stolen livestock. Also, how does any of this help the world?
Or rather, I want to talk about how much I don't want to talk about personal identity. See, we're talking about personal identity in my philosophy class right now, and I just ... I have so much negative interest in the subject. I could not care less about the definition of a person, or if you're still a person when you're asleep, or if the mind and body are separate.
However, the reason I wanted to talk about it is because there's this theory that your consciousness is what makes up your identity, rather than your physical appearance, and there's this example that goes with it that ... well, okay, I didn't really understand it, but it's something like, if someone steals your horse, and then later you find it, the only way you know it's your horse is because it looks like your horse, but because you can't access the consciousness of the horse, you can't ever know for sure that it is in fact the same horse. But like, I mean, I know it's a hypothetical example and everything, but I can't get past how dumb it is, because is it really likely someone is going to steal your horse and give it a brain transplant? Well, unless it was stolen by an evil scientist to use for experiments, in which case you have way bigger problems here than stolen livestock. Also, how does any of this help the world?