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)?
In the scenario involving the teletransportation device, the question becomes whether you buy the body view vs whether you buy the mind view. Considering the mind view, the person who is reconstructed in San Francisco has the exact same memories as the one who was in Cleveland. By the definition of the mind view, I would say that this entirely makes the two the same person. Person C (Cleveland) and S (San Fran) would be able to recount the same experiences exactly and thus they would have continuity in their memories and minds. However, when the body view is addressed, an issue comes to the forefront. To a degree I think the specificity of the movement of the atoms comes into question. Is it the exact same atoms travelling from C to S and reconstructing the body. In that case, it might be reasonable to say that S actually is the same as C because their bodies are composed of the exact same atoms. They are the same. If it is not the same atoms, but instead a completely new arrangement creating Person S, then it would make more sense to reason that C and S are very much different. I did a bit of further reading on the Derek Parfit version of this question. Parfit elaborates that the teletransportation device actually splits up the atoms in your body and shoots those at the speed of light to the new location. This means that the atoms in S are the same that originally made up C. In this case, you can wholeheartedly buy into the fact that person C and S are the exact same according to both the mind and body view. They obviously have the same continuity of memories, and they actually are made up of the exact same atoms, making them the exact same.
ReplyDeleteIn the case involving the teletransportaion device, the issue of is the person who enters the transporter in Cleveland, person "C" the same as the person who exits the device in San Francisco, person "S," is determined by whether one subscribes to the mind view of identity or the body view of identity. In the case of the body view of identity, logically, person S is not the same as person C because, as the scenario indicates, the original person, person S's body, has been permanently dismembered. The body view of identity states that two people are the same if and only if they share the same bodies. However, in this case, because the bodies are fundamentally different, person S cannot be person C on an atomic level. However, if one considers this problem through the lens of the mind view, person S is indeed the same person as person C because they retained all of the memories and psychological traits of person C. According to the memory view, it is both necessary and sufficient for two people to be the same person if they share the same memories and psychological traits; the case of teletransportation meets this burden. One possible objection to the mind view of identity could be that because the memories of Person S were caused artificially, they are not the same person as Person C. However, the presence of memories is the causation of psychological traits. Thus, if person S has the same memories as person C, their psychological states, and thus the manner of their behavior, will be the same as person C. One more considerable objection to the body view of this case would be that because the atoms are arranged similarly, the differences are unnoctibalbe to the human, and thus the body's functioning would be nearly the same. Though the atoms are not physically the same, the manner in which they are arranged is sufficient to produce the same bodily functions in person S than in-person C.
ReplyDeleteIn the scenario of the Television series Star Trek the question is asked, if an individual entered a transporter, as Person “C” in Cleveland would he be the same person who exits as person “S” in San Francisco. There are two main ways to approach the issue, one being to consider the bodily view and the other the mentalistic approach. If we choose to understand the scenario through the bodily view it would in fact state that he is no longer the same person. Since the scientist was not able to transport the original body exactly as it was before he would not be the same due to the fact that his personal identity would be defined by the one body he received at birth and no longer had. However if we look at the other view it can be seen that he is in fact the same person. Philosopher Bernard William states in The self and The Future, "It is also recognized that "mentalistic" considerations and considerations of bodily continuity are involved in questions of personal identity" bringing in the first-personal perspective which is our memory. Although this man will no longer have the same body he will associate himself with his old memories and psychological character traits that cause him to in turn be the same person. As the description of memory continuity concerns, we don’t have to remember each memory to be the same but if we have a link of memories we are the same person. It is not to say that bodily continuity cannot play a part in personal identity rather that it is not the determining factor whether someone is the same person as they were before solely because they live in the same body or not.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Teletransportation, the response to if the person in Cleveland and San Fransico are the same relies on whether you use the memory view stating that, A and B are the same person over time if and only if A remembers the experiences of B, or the body view stating that, person A is the same as person B if A has the same body/ is the same organism as B. In terms of the memory view, the people are the same person because the person in San Fransico remembers the person in Cleveland’s memories as if they were their own. However when the body view comes into play, it becomes a little more complicated as one has to take into account if the body is truly the same, or if something even very minor changed during the teletransportation. One way to think about this is whether the atoms in each body are organized in the exact same way without any minor changes, or if something maybe different with the stripdown and buildup of the body. If the body is the same, then by the body view, they are the same person, however if something changed in the process then by the body view, they are no longer the same person. Due to the continuity of memories, person A and person B would be the same person in terms of the memory view.
ReplyDeleteA person who enters the transporter in Cleveland will be the same person who exits at Star Fleet Academy because according to the memory view, sameness of body is not necessary for sameness of a person. The memory view claims that, in order to maintain the same identity inside a new being/body, you must have the ability to remember your previous thoughts, feelings, and experiences before the transformation. The philosopher John Lock supports this argument with the example of the prince and the cobbler. In this example, he says that if a prince's consciousness is transferred to a cobbler, the cobbler would be the same man as the prince, and other's would be able to recognize this fact. He claims that it is not the body that makes the man, but the soul and all of his past memories. Philosopher John Perry supports the memory view as well. He claims that "to remember -- or more plausibly to be able to remember -- the thoughts and feelings of a person who was conscious in the past is just what it is to be that person". To support this, he gives the example of the brain transplant. In this situation, two people are in an accident (Julia and Mary). They both die, but Julia's brain survives while only Mary's body survives. A doctor transplants Julia's bran into Mary's body, and since Mary only remembers being Julia, it is determined that Mary is now Julia. The brain transplant argument is that "memory is sufficient for identity and bodily identity is not necessary for it" (Perry 27). The situations of both the brain transplant and the Prince and the Cobbler are both examples of how a person will maintain their identity when there mind is transferred and their body is altered. If these principles are applied to the instance of teleportation, the same argument would be valid. Even if my body is permanently disassembled during teleportation, my memories and psychological traits remain the same, and this is what determines my identity.
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ReplyDeleteIn order to address this question of whether a person in Cleveland is the same person after teletransporting to San Francisco depends on what makes a person, specifically if it is the memory and psychological (mind) view or if it is the body view. The memory view would claim that person A, the person before teletransporting, would be the same person as B, the person after teletransporting, as A and B have all the same memories. In addition to the memory view, Locke's example of the prince and the cobbler also supports the mind view for this scenario because he explains that it is the sameness in memories, psychological traits, and consciousness that makes the prince and the cobbler the same person regardless of their body. Now, the body view, which states that B is the same person as A only if B has the same body as A, gets a bit complicated in this scenario because it could claim that A and B are either the same or different person depending on how one interprets what actually makes the same body. On the one hand, the body view could claim that because A's body had to be coded and reconstructed, B's body is not the same as A's. On the other hand, the body view could also claim that A and B are the same person, because even though A was reconstructed to create B, the exact same atom arrangement from A was used to make B, so B's body would still be the same body as A's.
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