Well this question began to materialize in my head a long time ago, but it became more intense just recently. It started when I read this book, titled "The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher". I advised that you to read this book too. A few of the thought experiments, although not directly related, pose the same question, in a way. One question of which attract a particular attention from me. So the question goes like this: Does our existence continue for as long as our consciousness continues? Or does it all end when our bodies are no longer breathing?
First, I will commence this topic with a thought scenario:
For Stelios, the teletransporter is the only way to travel. Previously, it took months to get from Earth to Mars, confined to a cramped spacecraft with a far from perfect safety record. Stelios's TeletransportExpress changed all that. Now, the trip takes just minutes, and so far it has been 100 percent safe.
However, now he is facing a lawsuit from a disgruntled customer who is claiming that the teletransporter had actually killed him. His argument is simple: the teletransporter works by scanning your brain and body cell by cell, destroying them, beaming the information to Mars and reconstructing you there. Although the person on Mars looks, feels and thinks just like a person who has been sent to sleep and zapped across space, the claimant argues that what actually happens is that you are murdered and replaced by a clone.
To Stelios, this sounds absurd. After all, he has taken the teletransporter trip dozens of times and he doesn't feel dead. Indeed, how can the claimant seriously believe that he has been killed by the process when he is clearly able to take the case to court?
Still, as Stelios entered the teletransporter booth once again and prepared to press the button that would begin to dismantle him, he did, for a second, wonder whether he was about to commit suicide......
Source: Chapter 10 of Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (Oxford University Press, 1984)
So, on what grounds could you consider yourself as being alive? Most people would say that as long our bodies continue to function, we are alive. But if you take this to be true, it means that you must believe that your existence is something physical, not an entity similar to the concept of the ghost in the machine. However, what if for example, my body happen to stop functioning all of a sudden and in the nick of time, the surgeons manage to salvage only one thing, my memory and they transplanted that memory into another body and I wake up again, having all the senses, thoughts and memories that I had before I "died"? Could you say that that person who has awaken with my consciousness is not me but another person? Would you agree that the day I died is the day when someone, somewhere, wake up with my consciousness, memories and personalities and yet that person is me?
Going back to the above scenario, Stelios obviously understands how his machine works but what he didn't get was how being "cloned" every time he used the machine actually matters. Its clear to him that when he walks into the booth he will wake up again in another planet. The part where his body disintegrated does not matter. For as long as he continue to be conscious of his surroundings and existence, he is alive. Ever watch 'The Sixth Day'? If you take it that 'psychological continuity' or 'continuity of consciousness' is what matters, then may I ask you? If there are two clones of the same person who died in a car accident, lets name the person Dick, identical in every aspect and share a similar consciousness. If you agree that it is psychological continuity that matters in deciding whether a person is in existence or not, you must also say that these two are not clones but Dick themselves for they carry with them Dick's consciousness.
So, now we end up with two Dicks and if your stand is that psychological continuity is what matters, then we no longer need to question whether they are Dick or not, or which one is the real Dick because both of them are Dicks. Lets take it further, lets say I decided that I don't like Dick's face so I went and shot him in the face from point blank, using a Desert Eagle Mark XIX chambered with the .357 Magnum (he can't be alive now, can he?). However, I left the other one unscathed because I just feel like it. Now, there is one Dick which I shot and he is dead, the other Dick is still healthy and alive. So, should I say that Dick is both dead and alive? Or should I say that Dick is still alive because his consciousness still continues (remember, I didn't shot the other Dick)? If I say that, how about the other Dick who was obviously alive a while ago?
So, maybe we should just reject the concept of psychological continuity and instead go with the concept of physical preservation. If we take it that preservation of physical self is what matters, then the clone scenario above will be much easier to explain. Based on the concept of physical preservation, Dick was the guy who had died during the car accident. Those clones are not him and so here we can finally have a clear-cut answer. Hang on a moment, there is still doubt about this concept too.
Take a look at another scenario below:
This is not what Ray North had bargained for. As an international master criminal, he prided himself on being able to get the job done. His latest client had demanded that he steal the famous yacht, Theseus, the vessel from which the British newspaper magnate Lucas Grub had thrown himself to his death and which more recently had been the scene of the murder of LA rapper, Daddy Iced Tea.
But here he was in the dry dock where the boat had just finished being repaired, confronted by two seemingly identical yachts. North turned to the security man, who was being held at gun point by one of his cronies.
'If you want to live, you'd better tell me which one of these is the real Theseus,' demanded Ray.
'That kinda depends,' came the nervous reply. 'You see, when we started to repair the ship, we needed to replace lots of parts. Only, we kept all the old parts. But as the work progressed, we ended up replacing virtually everything. When we had finished, some of the guys thought it would be a good idea to use all the old parts to reconstruct another version of the ship. So, that's what we've got. On the left, the Theseus repaired with new parts and on the right, the Theseus restored from old parts.'
'But which one is the genuine Theseus?' demanded Ray. 'I've told you all I know!' screamed the guard, as the crony tightened his grip. Ray scratched his head and started to think about how he could get away with both...................
Source: Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
Same question here, which one is the real Theseus? If Theseus is about its historic value then we could say that Theseus restored from the old parts is the real Theseus but if we talk about the status of ownership, then it will be the repaired Theseus which the owner will have the certificate to sail away with. But what does this have anything to do with the topic of this post?
Well, if we take the concept of physical preservation to be true, then we should say that whatever clones are made from us, they are not us but another being. So, shouldn't the same thing applies for the cells in our body? When our cells go through binary fission, what results from that is not two of the same cells but two different cells. Then, based on the concept of physical preservation, could we say that we are no longer ourselves? As we grow, our cells died and are replaced with new cells, so since these cells are not our old cells but new cells, that means we are no longer ourselves since how much of us is left since the day we were born? But to say that we are dead would be too extreme since we all know that we have memories of our past and are still conscious of our surroundings. We don't feel dead now are we? So, is it psychological continuity that matters when it comes to deciding whether we are still in existence? But how about the Dick's scenario on top? Or could it be that everything is just an illusion? That, however, is another case.............
Yup, we're moving site so sit on tight. You can find my new site under the blogroll. Anyway, the link's here and if you wish to check out my other site its here. In about a week from now, all of the darkemperors series of blogs on blogger would be deleted save for one. The deleted content could be found on the new wordpress blog. And all of them. Why do I move? Simply for convenience. Wordpress offers better organization for blogging which reduces the burden of having to maintain so many blog at once (what I'm currently doing). Be sure to check them out.
