A PVS Patient

 A person in a Permanent Vegetative State (PVS) has suffered trauma to the parts of the brain that govern higher brain functions but not to those parts of the brain and nervous system that govern basic biological functions.  The person cannot think, is not conscious and is not aware of her surroundings. However, the person still breathes, circulates blood and digests food and will continue to live as long as they are fed and hydrated with a feeding tube.  That state is considered permanent because it is virtually impossible for the person to regain the higher brain functioning.  The person, however, is not considered “brain dead.” 

 

Suppose that a famous professional athlete Dora has had severe brain trauma as a result of a car accident and is in a permanent vegetative state. 

 

Is the athlete Dora who won several National Championships in her sport that same person as the PVS patent Dora? 

Reincarnation?

 In his 2005 book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker of the University of Virginia presents an overview of more than 40 years of  research into children's reports of past-life memories. He argues that the cases give evidence for the reincarnation. 

For example, a young child (called Sam in the study) born a few months after his grandfather’s death reported at the age of 3 as his father changed his diaper, that he remembered changing his father’s diaper.  A few years later he recognized himself in old photos of his grandfather he had never seen and recalled the murder of his grandfather’s sister even though the boy had no knowledge of these events. 

 

Is Sam the same person as his grandfather? 

Beam Me Up, Scotty: the Case of Teletransportation

 In the television series Star Trek, humans use a teletransportation device called a “transporter” to conveniently and quickly travel from a spaceship to the planet’s surface or even to travel long distances across the surface of planets.  The transporter works by mapping the atomic structure of a human and sending that information to a distant location.  At the distant location the transporter reads the information and reconstructs the human atom by atom.  The person at the new location has all the memories and psychological traits of the original human.  The original human’s body, however, has been permanently disassembled. 

 

Is the person who enter the transporter at the first location (let’s say Cleveland) the same as the person who exits the second location (let’s say San Franciso, the location of Star Fleet Academy)? 

The Case of Grant and Fiona

 The 2006 film Away from Her related the story of a retired couple, Grant and Fiona.  Fiona is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and, as her condition worsens, she eventually decides to enter a nursing home.  The facility has a policy that requires each new resident to have no visitors for a period of 30 days to adjust to their new life.   After the period of adjustment is over, Grant visits his wife.  However, she has forgotten her husband and instead has focused her attentions on Aubrey, a mute man she has met at the facility.  

 

Is Fiona the same person in the facility who has forgotten most memories of her past life as the women who was happily married to Grant for all those years? 

The Brave Officer Paradox

 The philosopher Thomas Reid had this objection to Locke’s view of personal identity: 

There is another consequence of this doctrine, which follows no less necessarily, though Mr. Locke probably did not see it. It is, that a man may be, and at the same time not be, the person that did a particular action. Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life; suppose, also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that, when made a general, he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging.  

These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr. Locke’s doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But the general’s consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging; therefore, according to Mr. Locke’s doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, and at the same time is not, the same person with him who was flogged at school. 

 

What is the problem for the memory view?   Is  this problem decisive or is there any way to fix the problem (and adapt the memory view)? 

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

 The 2017 film The Three Christs of Ypsilanti tells the story of a psychiatrist at a mental hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan in the 1950’s.   Three patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia claim to be Jesus Christ.  One of the patients, known as Joseph, claims to remember events from the life of Jesus, including his execution by crucifixion.  

 

If Joseph claim to remember events such as the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes and Wedding Feast at Cana, according to the memory view, isn’t Joesph the same person as Jesus Christ?  Is this a problem?  If so, is this problem decisive or is there any way to fix the problem (and adapt the memory view)?