So imagine you were involved in a car crash and you were severely injured and now you're at the hospital. To what extent could you consider yourself the same person you were before the accident?
Let me give you some situations.
You lost a leg, and now you're replacing the leg with a prosthetic terminator-like limb. Yes, most would consider you the same person. The only thing that's missing is a physical apparatus of your body. Even if you were to lose everything except for your head (assuming you could still sustain life) one might even be so bold to suggest you are still the same person.
But what happens when things go awry in the brain?
Retrograde and anterograde amnesia are possible outcomes that are both fascinating yet perturbing. Does one lose the essence of themselves having undergone this trauma? Can you really say that someone with retrograde amnesia is really the same person as you knew before? Again many would probably agree that as long as the personality is intact, yes; that is, under the justification that it is not necessarily always the person that makes up who he/she is, but the memories of those around him/her. Plus, the personality is still intact.
But what happens when things go missing in the brain?
Assume in order to live after having undergone severe head trauma, doctors needed to save your life by replacing 10% of your brain with synthetic neural networks. This means your brain is 10% machine and 90% still you. Those who justified that people having undergone retrograde amnesia are still the same person because of the memories existent among one's dearest, now will have to redefine the essence of existence. Can you really say after having undergone a 10% replacement of the brain, you are still yourself? Now, I want you to consider that this is a philosophical question, not a technical one. One could argue that the brain is compartmentialized and thus physically replacing 10% could lead to a complete transformation of one's personality. However, I'm asking you, what if only 10% of the personality was transformed? 90% is still you. Some might ask, indeed, as long as the majority of you is still you, you are still you.
However, what happens when you cross the half point mark, making it 49/51?
Now you are not the majority of yourself, but rather the minority of a synthetic entity. So can you really say you still exist? If no, then what is going on at 50/50?
My point is, this identity of one's existence is a blurred gradient. It's often frustrating trying to define borders in answer to this question. I've tried to think about it myself, but I couldn't come up with an answer. What do you guys thing?
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Am I who I am as defined by those around me? Or am I myself because I am an individual entity with my own soul (from a theological perspective) or thought process (scientific)?
Everybody changes. Your parents watch you grow up, your friends come and go, you never stay the same. Your old friends may say, "You've changed."
It could be due to a brain trauma. Like if you got hit in the head. That would be brain trauma. Or head trauma.
But even if 10% of your brain goes missing, or replaced by machines like in the Matrix where they have that cool hotplugging thing in the back of their neck, from your own perspective you are still yourself. You may feel different sometimes, like if you got hit in the head you might be dizzy, but you still think of yourself as you since that's where your thoughts/emotions/etc. are originating from.
So in conclusion, everyone should get head trauma.
HEAD TRAUMA FOR CHANGE '08
Another interesting question is this.
What if there exists a machine that can duplicate every single molecule in your body, and create a living, breathing duplicate of you.
They have all your memories from childhood and they look and think just like you.
So is that thing "you?"
Another question I like to think about. One day, I think we will have A.I. Real, intelligent, thinking machines. Machines that can learn to love and that can learn to develop personality idiosyncrasies and that can feel anger, anguish, joy, worry, and everything. Machines that can even lie in order to protect a loved one.
So just like it's against the law to commit animal brutality, do you think it would be against the law to commit brutality against machines imbued with "souls?"
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is a novel by Philip K. Dick questioning what it means to be human (the film Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford and directed by Ridley Scott is loosely based on this book). In this dystopian future, androids who are not under the "control" of human masters are hunted down and terminated by bounty hunters known as (you guessed it) blade runners.
Now, these androids are completely synthetic, from brains to organs to limbs - yet they have memories, dreams, friends, and most of all a desire to live. Does that make them human, though they were not born through a woman's womb, starting out as a union of human sperm and ova?
It's hard to say what makes one "human", let alone pinpoint exactly what one's individual identity really is. Are we defined by our own memories? Other people's memories/impressions/perspectives of us?
George Orwell's Nineteen Eight-Four also raises up these kinds of questions as well. How does anyone even know one exists? The totalitarian government of Oceania controls the existence of its populace. No one exists without Big Brother's permission. If you become invalid in the government's eyes, all references to you are erased and you yourself are taken away, as if you never existed in the first place. That's a really simplified version of what 1984 is about, but I don't feel like going into all the detail. The point is, a man's existence in 1984 is not valid without governmental papers, without a bureaucratic backing of "memory". So can we be defined by our own papers and official identification? Is that proof that we were ever here on Earth?
Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) implies that when one wonders about his own existence, it is proof that he exists because there is an individual "I" involved. Does thought then define our existence?
Obviously, this is a subject that's been dealt with by men and women since ages past. I've yet to come to a conclusion about this. I just know of many different questions raised by the problem of individual existence. I encourage people to read things like "Nineteen Eighty-Four" or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". It certainly gives food for thought.
wow, choe, this is sick! I'm gonna have to say i like it better, but any way you can make the top a little thicker?
what are you talking about? what is sick? no hice nada
joey's talking about the new layout.
Philosophy has had this discussion for millions of years now. But, I did not read the author that was assigned for class on this topic. Therefore what those philosophers said is completely useless to me. So, introducing the philosophy of Joey Hsu and partly his professor Baron Reed:
This problem must be tackled from two perspectives. One is from the self (when do i start considering myself somebody else?) and when using the self to consider others (when did he/she become a different person). So I come from both possible situations.
The self is easy. We always consider ourselves to be us. Our actions determine consequences and those actions and consequences influence our identity. Therefore, we see ourselves as the aggregate sum of all of our choices. We like to think of this as free-will, where we are able to determine who we become. Some might argue that "o, a man hit me with a snow-shoveler in a drunk shoveling accident. I now have half a leg and no arms, how did i choose to be this way?" Well, it was your decisions that led you to be in that place to be hit. Your decisions to look left instead of the right from which the shoveler came. So as our decisions mingle with the seemingly random reactions they bring about, we determine ourselves. This is important because this is what separates YOU from other people. Your consciousness can only fully determine determine the changes upon the being that YOU are given at birth. You may be a factor in the beings of others, but you cannot control who they become as perfectly as yourself. So, in essence, whatever your consciousness controls, whether it be an android body or that of a college student, that is YOU. So from this perspective, "YOU" can go through infinite change, but if it's the same consciousness behind body and mind, then you will think of that as you.
ex: Do we see ourselves as the same person 10 years ago?
Every cell in our body has been changed, so physically we are completely different. Size, shape, friends, interests...they are all different, yet our brain and soul tells us that we are the same person as that lil 2nd grader...just with changes made to it.
Others: Now we can move to when somebody else is different. I would first like to point out an example given by Baron Reed (his opinions are no where else in this): Achilles goes out venturing in the "Titanic" during the Illiad (modern-day rewrite). He comes back and he wants to sell his ship. Now this ship is both reliable and has history attached to it. After all, this ship took him everywhere and will be remembered in the future. Now, there are a few rotting boards, Achilles takes t hem off and replaces them with new planks. Is it the same boat? Most would say yes. What if he were to replace more planks? What is the line where the ship is no longer the sasme (similar to choe's 50% example)? The problem is, there is nothing special about that piece of wood that changes the ship from 51% different from only 50% different. What if instead of wood, the ship were rebuilt with steel? Same ship?
Now, many people find it easier to say if a ship is the same or not. But the key is to not that there is no difference from the 3rd piece taken off a ship compared to the 4th or 5th...no matter how many planks the ship is made of. The only true arguments have been made about the 1st and the last piece. However, I don't agree that this is even essential to the answer.
The ship has "essential" qualities. The qualities for which something was created. A candle is made to be lit. When it has been lit and heated, it BECOMES "Wax". Nobody thinks of the wax as a candle anymore. It just used to be one. Now what about humans? Depends on how you see a person. If you see the essential trait of a person to be the fact that she is your mom, well then gosh darn, you seem to be stuck with her. I don't see anything that will change that attribute of hers. Now, if you hear of a baseball legend and know of him only for baseball, well then that is his essence to you. If he becomes a hockey player, his essence changes from baseball legend...to overall talented athlete. I'd say he's a "different" person to you, unless you viewed him as an overall talented person before. I know this sounds weird, and it's hard to determine what essential traits are, but i think this is the right direction.
What if this argument is just a bunch of semantics and wording? What does it matter if a ship is still that ship after pieces of it have been replaced?
Maybe the cognitive dissonance arises because our language is not capable of describing what that ship has become, or what we have become when we're 50% replaced by machine.
Maybe there's no problem with reality or self or anything.
Maybe the problem is that the range our language is just too limited. It's like using Roman numerals to describe "pi" or "e". It can't be done.
If our language had a word for the self+other robotic entity mix, all our problems would be solved.
mmm... imma say (without thinking too hard) someone is still someone if they have the ability to acknowledge themselves as the same person. Hopefully that makes sense.
You cant really define a person by the people around him or her. Theres a huge amount of subjectiveness in it. Like if a kid who is really outgoing changes to a huge emo kid who sleeps all day... the mother mite consider him or her different.
In contrast, the person him or herself would be prolly the only objective perspective in the situation. After 10% of the brain being replaced, does the person think that he/she is the same person?
If i had this surgery and had 51% of my brain replaced, and I can still say that I am Andrew Kim. I would consider myself to be the same person. Even if I do not remember anyone else or if I act differently.
*WARNING MY RELIGIOUS BLURB*
Basically... if my soul can acknowledge that I have a soul... then I am the same person.
thanks guys, a lot of your comments are very insightful.
and special thanks to joey for his insight for essential traits. It's also an interesting idea that the individual is more defined by the pathway in which one travels rather than the actual manifestation of the consciousness. Or i guess to put it plainly, more like the curve than the point.
however, i'd like to know why must it be the essential traits that make up oneself? how can you define something to be essential if such a term is relative. for example, to me my mom's essential trait would be her habit of nagging me to eat all the time. however, to my dad, it might be her fidelity. These are both essential trails, but only essential to an associated individual.
in any case, i've thought about the idea that the individual is not different when altered in the present state, but rather the individual is defined by the overall pathway one takes. any additional thoughts/criticisms?
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