dialogue of DOOM
If anyone cares,
Dialogue Concerning Human Identity
Conor: Writing college essays sucks. People keep telling me it’s supposed to convey who I am as a person, but I don’t even know what that means.
Kris: What do you mean?
Conor: What makes a person a person? What makes me who I am? Is it my body, my mind, my soul (if there even is such a thing)?
Kris: I… had always kind of thought of it as all three together.
Conor: Funny, I’m not sure it’s any of them. To be honest, some days I don’t know if I believe I’m even a person at all.
Kris: What makes you say that?
Conor: Well, what reason do I have to believe I am a self? Consciousness could just be a brain process - we might be nothing but biological computers.
Kris: We’re not computers. Just think how much more we are capable of! Humans think, dream and wonder, despair and hope, love and hate, and feel…
Conor: I know, but that doesn’t say anything about the existence of a single, consistent self. Talking about the passionate feelings of humans just proves my point actually, because my argument is that that’s all humans are - a series of different mental states and perceptions. There’s nothing underneath these things, no self. If I stopped being able to perceive and react to the world around me, I’d cease to exist. When I go to sleep at night - the times when I’m not dreaming, but simply in a deep, dreamless slumber, there’s nothing there, no one inside.
Kris: But if there’s no one there, who is doing the perceiving? Who receives the information? By whom are the feelings felt? These are reflexive verbs, Conor - someone has to be there.
Conor: What the words imply in common language doesn’t mean anything, Kris, since language is just a human invention anyway. And I said that at a time when nothing is being perceived, there is no one there. The rest of the time, there seems to be a self, because as you said, something is receiving those perceptions and feelings. That is what consciousness is. But it’s just a brain process. The brain translates the information it receives and, through chemicals, makes you feel certain things.
Kris: Makes “you” feel? Who do you mean by “you” if there’s no one?
Conor: It’s just a figure of speech!
Kris: I don’t know. I don’t think you’re making sense. It seems like a pretty logical assumption to think that you as a self exist - cogito ergo sum, you know?
Conor: I’ll admit that there is a “self” of sorts that perceives and feels, but not a continuous one. The “you” is just your consciousness at that moment, in a certain mental state. But there’s no reason to believe that this has any connection to the “self” that perceived something at an earlier time. The “me” talking to you now is not the “me” from a few years ago, or even an hour ago. And so there is no solid identity of any one person.
Kris: Everyone grows and goes through change. That doesn’t mean they cease to be the same person. In fact, you could think of a person’s different stages as simply different parts of the same person. Physically, you are made up of different parts located in different points in space, right? So why couldn’t you say that a person’s complete identity includes different parts located in different points in time?
Conor: That seems logical, but I still haven’t conceded that all those different stages are sufficiently connected. It’s not like the body, which you can see for yourself that the parts make up a whole.
Kris: But the stages of a person are causally related. Darth Vader is quantitatively identical to Anakin Skywalker, even though he is not qualitatively identical; it’s still the same, single person. Just as, if you have a brown house and you paint it white, it’s still the same house.
Conor: Is it? It seems obvious in your example that it’s the same, but what about if we take it a little further. Say instead of just painting the house, we slowly take every wood panel, tile, shingle, brick - whatever, that makes it up, and replace everything with new materials. Say we replace one piece a day. So on the first day, when all I did was take on shingle and replace it with a new one, it’s the same house, right?
Kris: Yeah.
Conor: But a few years later, every single piece of material that made up the house has been replaced. Nothing is left of the original. It can’t be the same house now.
Kris: Why not? It’s causally related to the original house, therefore it’s quantitatively identical. If your view was correct, we’d have to say that nothing ever existed for longer than an instant - any little change would mean the destruction of an object and the creation of a new one.
Conor: But your view means that when your body rots away and becomes dirt, that dirt is still you because it’s causally related. Think about it: everything is causally related!
Kris: So, by my logic, everything is quantitatively identical to everything… It seems like you have to draw the line somewhere, with either view. They don’t make sense if you carry them to their extremes. And it seems like that line will always be arbitrary. Maybe it’s not as clear-cut as we’re making it out to be.
Conor: Here’s an even less clear-cut example: what if we take all those pieces from the original house, and make a duplicate of the original using those pieces? Which house would you say is quantitatively identical?
Kris: You know, I still say it’s the one in the same spot that is causally related. It shares its roots with the original. Like you said, the new house is just a duplicate.
Conor: But wait, you’re saying the newly constructed house isn’t causally related to the original? It came from the same materials; surely it shares a common root!
Kris: I… guess so. But it’s not as close a relation.
Conor: Hmm. Well, now lets remember that people are just like the house. Your atoms have been entirely replaced over the years from the ones that composed you when you were an infant.
Kris: I don’t think it matters; I’m the same person. There is psychological continuity: all the thoughts and feelings and perceptions I’ve had were reactions to each other, moving along in a logical, causally related chain - not like the random collection of unconnected perceptions you were describing as people before. People have their own, constant identities, regardless of the matter that makes them up because the same mind has been there, looking out, all along.
Conor: So it’s the mind that defines identity?
Kris: Yeah, I think so.
Conor: Alright, now let me see what you make of this scenario. There’s this mad scientist who takes you and some other random guy off the street and forces you to take part in his experiment. He leads you to two doors leading to two rooms. The person who goes through the door on the left gets tortured and the person who goes through the door on the right gets a cake. So you want to go in the right door, right? But, before going in, the scientist is going to wipe both your minds, then upload your psychological make up onto the other guy’s brain, and vice versa. Which door do you choose?
Kris: The left one. My body will be tortured, but I won’t be aware of it and will have no memory of it. I’ll just remember eating cake.
Conor: Ok. Now let’s say the scientist decides he is going to torture you, but that before he does, he’s going to make you get amnesia and completely forget who you are. Then he will make you believe you’re someone else. You’ll have someone else’s memories. So does it matter if he tortures you?
Kris: Yes. I’ll just think I’m someone else as it happens, but it will hurt just as much.
Conor: And what if someone else is tortured, but while they are, they happen to think they’re you. Does it matter what happens to that person? (Speaking from a purely self-interested view, that is.)
Kris: No. They’ll think they’re me, but they’re not. Right?
Conor: Interesting that you should say so, considering that you said the exact opposite just moments ago. You see, this is the same scenario that I described before, just from a different point of view.
Kris: I see. How tricky of you. The reason I thought of it differently was because it seemed like if I thought I was that other person, I would be that person, for all intents and purposes. And torture would hurt just as much whether I was me or some other person, if that other person was me. But it’s impossible for me to be another person. Putting another person’s psychological make-up on my brain won’t make me that person. My body yes, but me, no.
Conor: So if your memories and your personality, everything, was over-written by someone else’s mind, and yours wasn’t uploaded anywhere, but simply destroyed, you would be--
Kris: Dead. I’d be gone.
Conor: But I thought you said before that even if someone changes - even if their mind changes, - they are still the same person they began as.
Kris: Yes, but it doesn’t have to do with the body. I didn’t mean to say that any changes could happen mentally and identity would be retained simply because it all took place in the same body. I don’t think that’s true. I meant that the identity would be the same because the mental changes were natural developments, again, causally related and traceable to the same beginning. The case of the psyche being over-written is different; that is an external cause.
Conor: So if the reverse happened, your mind was uploaded somewhere else, but your body destroyed, then it wouldn’t matter?
Kris: I think so. The mind is in a different place, but it’s the same mind and thus, still me.
Conor: It doesn’t matter what body it’s in? What if someone made a copy of you, including all of your memories. Then there your mind would be in two bodies. Which one is you you?
Kris: …Both, I guess. I can conceive of two halves of my brain being separated, and working independently, as two consciousnesses, and then being rejoined, all the while being both me.
Conor: But it’s different. Each consciousness has its own body and could have entirely different experiences, and there would be no rejoining.
Kris: Maybe that would mean it was two minds, but one person.
Conor: Are you calling identical twins one person? If we went and found a pair of identical twins to talk to, I’m not sure that they’d agree with you on that.
Kris; You’re right. Then I guess, the new one isn’t me at all. It’s just a duplicate.
Conor: Then, if I destroyed the original you, the body that you started in, would you be dead?
Kris: I… guess I would be.
Conor: That’s not what you said before.
Kris: I’m so confused.
Conor: Now you know how I feel. The only comfort is that the chances that we’ll ever actually need to make sense of these scenarios are pretty slim.
Kris: Why are you doing this to me? I thought you were working on your college essay!
Conor: Yeah. But I didn’t know what to write because I don’t know who I am, remember?
Kris: You could write about this.
Conor: What, explain to them the paradoxes of identity? Perhaps…
Kris: Actually, on second thought, don’t. They’d probably hate you.
Conor: Probably.
THE END
That was the best conclusion I could come up with.
I mean, the God dialogue didn't exactly have a conclusion either, but that was more because I just wanted to be fair and say that it's an unprovable argument. I thought it'd be kind of arrogant to have the atheist go "OMG YOU'RE RIGHT I'M CONVERTING!" So they agreed to disagree. But at least they both had made some good points and you could decide which side you were on.
But this one is just "I'm confused." "Me too." "Oh well."
lol
Dialogue Concerning Human Identity
Conor: Writing college essays sucks. People keep telling me it’s supposed to convey who I am as a person, but I don’t even know what that means.
Kris: What do you mean?
Conor: What makes a person a person? What makes me who I am? Is it my body, my mind, my soul (if there even is such a thing)?
Kris: I… had always kind of thought of it as all three together.
Conor: Funny, I’m not sure it’s any of them. To be honest, some days I don’t know if I believe I’m even a person at all.
Kris: What makes you say that?
Conor: Well, what reason do I have to believe I am a self? Consciousness could just be a brain process - we might be nothing but biological computers.
Kris: We’re not computers. Just think how much more we are capable of! Humans think, dream and wonder, despair and hope, love and hate, and feel…
Conor: I know, but that doesn’t say anything about the existence of a single, consistent self. Talking about the passionate feelings of humans just proves my point actually, because my argument is that that’s all humans are - a series of different mental states and perceptions. There’s nothing underneath these things, no self. If I stopped being able to perceive and react to the world around me, I’d cease to exist. When I go to sleep at night - the times when I’m not dreaming, but simply in a deep, dreamless slumber, there’s nothing there, no one inside.
Kris: But if there’s no one there, who is doing the perceiving? Who receives the information? By whom are the feelings felt? These are reflexive verbs, Conor - someone has to be there.
Conor: What the words imply in common language doesn’t mean anything, Kris, since language is just a human invention anyway. And I said that at a time when nothing is being perceived, there is no one there. The rest of the time, there seems to be a self, because as you said, something is receiving those perceptions and feelings. That is what consciousness is. But it’s just a brain process. The brain translates the information it receives and, through chemicals, makes you feel certain things.
Kris: Makes “you” feel? Who do you mean by “you” if there’s no one?
Conor: It’s just a figure of speech!
Kris: I don’t know. I don’t think you’re making sense. It seems like a pretty logical assumption to think that you as a self exist - cogito ergo sum, you know?
Conor: I’ll admit that there is a “self” of sorts that perceives and feels, but not a continuous one. The “you” is just your consciousness at that moment, in a certain mental state. But there’s no reason to believe that this has any connection to the “self” that perceived something at an earlier time. The “me” talking to you now is not the “me” from a few years ago, or even an hour ago. And so there is no solid identity of any one person.
Kris: Everyone grows and goes through change. That doesn’t mean they cease to be the same person. In fact, you could think of a person’s different stages as simply different parts of the same person. Physically, you are made up of different parts located in different points in space, right? So why couldn’t you say that a person’s complete identity includes different parts located in different points in time?
Conor: That seems logical, but I still haven’t conceded that all those different stages are sufficiently connected. It’s not like the body, which you can see for yourself that the parts make up a whole.
Kris: But the stages of a person are causally related. Darth Vader is quantitatively identical to Anakin Skywalker, even though he is not qualitatively identical; it’s still the same, single person. Just as, if you have a brown house and you paint it white, it’s still the same house.
Conor: Is it? It seems obvious in your example that it’s the same, but what about if we take it a little further. Say instead of just painting the house, we slowly take every wood panel, tile, shingle, brick - whatever, that makes it up, and replace everything with new materials. Say we replace one piece a day. So on the first day, when all I did was take on shingle and replace it with a new one, it’s the same house, right?
Kris: Yeah.
Conor: But a few years later, every single piece of material that made up the house has been replaced. Nothing is left of the original. It can’t be the same house now.
Kris: Why not? It’s causally related to the original house, therefore it’s quantitatively identical. If your view was correct, we’d have to say that nothing ever existed for longer than an instant - any little change would mean the destruction of an object and the creation of a new one.
Conor: But your view means that when your body rots away and becomes dirt, that dirt is still you because it’s causally related. Think about it: everything is causally related!
Kris: So, by my logic, everything is quantitatively identical to everything… It seems like you have to draw the line somewhere, with either view. They don’t make sense if you carry them to their extremes. And it seems like that line will always be arbitrary. Maybe it’s not as clear-cut as we’re making it out to be.
Conor: Here’s an even less clear-cut example: what if we take all those pieces from the original house, and make a duplicate of the original using those pieces? Which house would you say is quantitatively identical?
Kris: You know, I still say it’s the one in the same spot that is causally related. It shares its roots with the original. Like you said, the new house is just a duplicate.
Conor: But wait, you’re saying the newly constructed house isn’t causally related to the original? It came from the same materials; surely it shares a common root!
Kris: I… guess so. But it’s not as close a relation.
Conor: Hmm. Well, now lets remember that people are just like the house. Your atoms have been entirely replaced over the years from the ones that composed you when you were an infant.
Kris: I don’t think it matters; I’m the same person. There is psychological continuity: all the thoughts and feelings and perceptions I’ve had were reactions to each other, moving along in a logical, causally related chain - not like the random collection of unconnected perceptions you were describing as people before. People have their own, constant identities, regardless of the matter that makes them up because the same mind has been there, looking out, all along.
Conor: So it’s the mind that defines identity?
Kris: Yeah, I think so.
Conor: Alright, now let me see what you make of this scenario. There’s this mad scientist who takes you and some other random guy off the street and forces you to take part in his experiment. He leads you to two doors leading to two rooms. The person who goes through the door on the left gets tortured and the person who goes through the door on the right gets a cake. So you want to go in the right door, right? But, before going in, the scientist is going to wipe both your minds, then upload your psychological make up onto the other guy’s brain, and vice versa. Which door do you choose?
Kris: The left one. My body will be tortured, but I won’t be aware of it and will have no memory of it. I’ll just remember eating cake.
Conor: Ok. Now let’s say the scientist decides he is going to torture you, but that before he does, he’s going to make you get amnesia and completely forget who you are. Then he will make you believe you’re someone else. You’ll have someone else’s memories. So does it matter if he tortures you?
Kris: Yes. I’ll just think I’m someone else as it happens, but it will hurt just as much.
Conor: And what if someone else is tortured, but while they are, they happen to think they’re you. Does it matter what happens to that person? (Speaking from a purely self-interested view, that is.)
Kris: No. They’ll think they’re me, but they’re not. Right?
Conor: Interesting that you should say so, considering that you said the exact opposite just moments ago. You see, this is the same scenario that I described before, just from a different point of view.
Kris: I see. How tricky of you. The reason I thought of it differently was because it seemed like if I thought I was that other person, I would be that person, for all intents and purposes. And torture would hurt just as much whether I was me or some other person, if that other person was me. But it’s impossible for me to be another person. Putting another person’s psychological make-up on my brain won’t make me that person. My body yes, but me, no.
Conor: So if your memories and your personality, everything, was over-written by someone else’s mind, and yours wasn’t uploaded anywhere, but simply destroyed, you would be--
Kris: Dead. I’d be gone.
Conor: But I thought you said before that even if someone changes - even if their mind changes, - they are still the same person they began as.
Kris: Yes, but it doesn’t have to do with the body. I didn’t mean to say that any changes could happen mentally and identity would be retained simply because it all took place in the same body. I don’t think that’s true. I meant that the identity would be the same because the mental changes were natural developments, again, causally related and traceable to the same beginning. The case of the psyche being over-written is different; that is an external cause.
Conor: So if the reverse happened, your mind was uploaded somewhere else, but your body destroyed, then it wouldn’t matter?
Kris: I think so. The mind is in a different place, but it’s the same mind and thus, still me.
Conor: It doesn’t matter what body it’s in? What if someone made a copy of you, including all of your memories. Then there your mind would be in two bodies. Which one is you you?
Kris: …Both, I guess. I can conceive of two halves of my brain being separated, and working independently, as two consciousnesses, and then being rejoined, all the while being both me.
Conor: But it’s different. Each consciousness has its own body and could have entirely different experiences, and there would be no rejoining.
Kris: Maybe that would mean it was two minds, but one person.
Conor: Are you calling identical twins one person? If we went and found a pair of identical twins to talk to, I’m not sure that they’d agree with you on that.
Kris; You’re right. Then I guess, the new one isn’t me at all. It’s just a duplicate.
Conor: Then, if I destroyed the original you, the body that you started in, would you be dead?
Kris: I… guess I would be.
Conor: That’s not what you said before.
Kris: I’m so confused.
Conor: Now you know how I feel. The only comfort is that the chances that we’ll ever actually need to make sense of these scenarios are pretty slim.
Kris: Why are you doing this to me? I thought you were working on your college essay!
Conor: Yeah. But I didn’t know what to write because I don’t know who I am, remember?
Kris: You could write about this.
Conor: What, explain to them the paradoxes of identity? Perhaps…
Kris: Actually, on second thought, don’t. They’d probably hate you.
Conor: Probably.
THE END
That was the best conclusion I could come up with.
I mean, the God dialogue didn't exactly have a conclusion either, but that was more because I just wanted to be fair and say that it's an unprovable argument. I thought it'd be kind of arrogant to have the atheist go "OMG YOU'RE RIGHT I'M CONVERTING!" So they agreed to disagree. But at least they both had made some good points and you could decide which side you were on.
But this one is just "I'm confused." "Me too." "Oh well."
lol