Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ayman Sousa
2015
The arguments:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
P2
If the human being is composed of body (including the brain) and mind (feelings,
thoughts and beliefs, and memories), it is hard to see that any of these resist change.
My body is changing both in form and content, all its cells are replaced by new ones
in a few years. My feelings are always changing, my thoughts and beliefs can change,
and my memories can be lost. If every part making up the human being is changed,
he's not the same in any respect. A self is supposed to be permanent, persistent
through time, therefore a self cannot exist.
The soul: It may be argued that the soul is unchanging. I don't have arguments
against this claim other than the ones mentioned in general arguments (I).
Subjective experience: Suppose you were able to interact with various human
beings coming from 50 years into the future, one of them is the future you. It is very
plausible to suppose that you will not be able to identify yourself, either by
appearances or with any amount of discussion with those persons. Shouldn't there be a
"trademark" -a self- that you could identify?
P2
It is logically possible for scientific advance to be able in the future to scan your body
and recreate (atom-by-atom) a human being identical to you. That would include your
mind (beliefs, memories, etc.). Wouldn't that be another you? It is true that these two
"you"s will diverge in personality and memories given their different circumstances,
but at least for a second a duplicate was possible to create. And since a self is unique,
no duplicates should be possible to make, therefore a self cannot exist.
The soul: It may be argued that they are identical persons with different souls.
But this raises the problem of: Where exactly is the point of contact between the
material and the immaterial? For example most people believe that if you take out
their brain and put it in another body, their self (or in this case, their soul), will go
with the brain. So, let's take this thought experiment to the extreme. If it were possible
to take out just the chemical particles responsible for memories (and beliefs, etc) in
their same order and configuration from the brain to another brain. I'd guess most
people will agree their soul will go with the particles responsible for their memories
and not with the piece of meat called the brain. Now, if it were possible to rearrange
particles in another brain, in the same configuration as the old one. I think again that
most people will agree that the soul goes with the configuration not the actual
chemical particles. So, now we have the point of contact between the soul and the
body in something very abstract: the configuration or order of the particles
responsible for memories. That configuration can be applied to different brains.
Which one is in contact with the original soul?
Subjective experience: Imagine you were told by doctors, that you have a
terminal heart disease, which will kill you in a few days, and you must have an
operation immediately, but unluckily it has 10% success probability. And you agree.
It turns out that in fact the disease can't be cured, the doctors instead were to scan and
copy you (atom-by-atom) into the adjacent room, only without heart disease this time,
and reduce the original body to ashes. For all you know, you will wake up in the next
room, extremely happy that the operation was successful.
P2
C1
P3
P4
C2
First, let's differentiate between two types of freedom, physical freedom and
metaphysical freedom. The first is that you are able to execute whatever thought
comes to your mind, your body is not restrained (with chains for example), that is:
your thoughts are the cause of your bodily actions. The latter is a subject to a branch
of philosophy called metaphysics. If we have metaphysical free will, we are able to
determine our thoughts in the first place, which I think is impossible. The laws of
nature makes it possible -in theory-, with enough knowledge, to predict how every
atom in the natural world is going to behave, years in advance. Since human beings
are part of the natural world, their brain states and behavior -which are after all
determined by the behavior of the atoms in their brains- can be determined. A self
must have -metaphysical- free will, therefore a self cannot exist. It is sometimes
argued that the advances in the field of quantum physics show that some events don't
have causes. If that is true, which I highly doubt, it would create a random or chaotic
universe, still no place for free will.
The soul: It may be argued that the soul, being immaterial, is outside of the
chain of cause and effect, and therefore can have free choice. To check this view, let's
imagine the following. Imagine a soul without a body or brain, an abstract being, and
therefore with no emotions and desires. It may be true that such a soul may possess
genuine free will, but it is hard to see how -without desires- will such a soul prefer
any action to another. It does not feel hunger, pain, love, or hatred, then why should it
do anything at all? What are the motives? No motives, no actions.
Subjective experience: Try to guess what the next though that pops into your
mind is, I guess you will fail. Of course, we can have thoughts about thoughts. But,
there is always a level of thinking that just happens to us, for no apparent choice on
our part.
V- The argument from the ultimately real:
P1
P2
substance is one that does not depend for its existence on other substances, its
existence cannot be explained in terms of other substances, it is what the world is
ultimately made of. On the other side, a conventionally real substance is one that can
be reduced to other substances, and to spacial or temporal relations between those
substances, but it is a way of convention or mutual agreement to have a name
assigned for them that proves to be practically useful. In the language of modern
science, quarks possess ultimate reality. Every larger object or being does not possess
such ultimate reality, but it is nonetheless useful to have a name or concept for it.
Example: Does the thing which the word "Australia" refer to has ultimate reality? No,
because "Australia" is nothing more than the sum of the people inhabiting it, and its
existence can always be explained in terms of their existence. Does a car really (or
ultimately) exist? A car is nothing more than its parts, with specific spacial relations
between them. Applying this way of thinking to the existence of selves: selves are
wholes made of body parts, beliefs and memories, etc, therefore they do not possess
ultimate reality, but it is -practically- useful to have a concept of the self to refer to
this sum of organs, beliefs and memories strongly associated with each other in space
and time.
The soul: It may be argued that the soul is not reducible to parts, and therefore
possesses ultimate reality. I don't have arguments against this claim other than the
ones mentioned in general arguments (I).