Discussion - Personal Identity


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Thinkers and Drinkers. Going to switch it up and try Stodgy Brewing Company this week. I keep forgetting, but I’ll try to put a small (Space Force) flag on the table so you know where to go. The topic is Personal Identity. Some questions to ponder before the meeting are:
1.What is a person?
2. Are you the same person you were 5 years ago?
3. What causes a person to retain his or her identity over time?
4. If we accept the memory view of personal identity—that is you are your memories—do you cease to be the same person if you have amnesia? If you recovered your memories a year late, after having amnesia, do you regain your personhood or is there a new person formed during that time that overrides it?
5. Is personal identity cumulative? That is do you become more of a person over time, or does your 10-year-old self have the same claim to being you that, for instance, your 60-year-old self has?
6. If personhood comes and goes, such as in Alzheimer’s, do you cease to be a person when disoriented?
7. Do you have obligations to your past self? Say you could travel back in time and prevent some terrible trauma from happening, should you do so, even though the resultant chain of events will cause the person you are to cease to exist?
8. Do you have obligations to your future self, even some distant future self?
9. Say there is a transporter accident, like in Star Trek, and 2 copies of you materialize. Which one is you?
10. Would you take a free paid trip to Paris that involved your particles being scrambled for a millisecond and rematerialized perfectly the same at the desired location?

Discussion - Personal Identity