X-Message-Number: 3781 Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 01:33:35 +1030 From: Nexus User floeber <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading I enjoyed reading Steven B. Harris' contribution re identity and quantum states. I would like to reflect on some of Steven's inferences from this changing natureof brain-states and so of behaviour. Is iT enough for one to claim to be "the same person" or is it up to society to decide if identity has been preseved despite change? I suggest that it depends upon the purpose for which identity needs to be established AND who wishes to establish it. I would like to reflect on some of Steven's inferences from this changing nature of brain-states and so of behaviour. Is iT enough for one to claim to be "the same person" or is it up to society to decide if identity has been preseved despite change? I suggest that it depends upon the purpose for which identity needs to be established AND who wishes to establish it. As Steven Harris observed there are sometimes differences between the claim of an individual to be the "same" individual and legal claims concerning the individual's identity, such as when identity needs to be established for the sake of rightful inheritance. We might also say of a person that they are "not the same person" and in this sense we mean that something IS the same, but something that we consider to be a significant, or even crucial, quality of that person is now altered or absent. The claim of society serves a multitude of various and even conflicting purposes. To accept legal definitions of identity is to accept incoherence. For example, the legal status for individuals undergoing gender reassignment vary depending upon legal jurisdictions and for different purposes. A person may therefore be one gender in relation to marriage laws and another in relation to nationality, and their legally defined gender may differ as they cross territorial boundaries. But the person IS the same person regardless of location. In this case it is easy to see that legally defined identity is internally inconsistent and that in speaking about legal identity we need to ask "Why do we want a definition, what do we want to use it for, and why do we "need" it?" A legal definition of identity seves a specific purpose and its use should be limited to the context in which it exists and for which it was defined: A legal definition cannot help us to understand our "existetial" ! identity or even to define the identity of others for the purposes of personal recognition. The claim of society serves a multitude of various and even conflicting purposes. To accept legal definitions of identity is to accept incoherence. For example, the legal status for individuals undergoing gender reassignment vary depending upon legal jurisdictions and for different purposes. A person may therefore be one gender in relation to marriage laws and another in relation to nationality, and their legally defined gender may differ as they cross territorial boundaries. But the person IS the same person regardless of location. In this case it is easy to see that legally defined identity is internally inconsistent and that in speaking about legal identity we need to ask "Why do we want a definition, what do we want to use it for, and why do we "need" it?" A legal definition of identity seves a specific purpose and its use should be limited to the context in which it exists and for which it was defined: A legal definition cannot help us to understand our "existetial" ! identity or even to define the identity of others for the purposes of personal recognition. It would be interesting to hear Steven Harris' views on "false memory syndrome". If a person is given a "false memory",(and in the context of the highly selective nature of memory it would be difficult to define a "true" memory) say through hypnotic suggestion - intetionally - and that person claims to be the "same" person, despite holding beliefs about themselves that HAVE changed, then are they the same person. In other words, as orwell said: "He who controls the past controls the future" ("1984"-I THINK that's correct, if my memory serves me).And if this is the "same" person to themselves , are they still hte same person to themselves if it is suggested to them that they are someone else. I suggest that they would claim, at least in the absence of contradictory evidence, that their identity had survived intact . In relation to cryogenics isn't it our own belief in the survival of our identity that we would regard as important POST cryogenic suspension? Only pre- cryo! genic suspension would we adopt the perspective of an objective observer - Iwould want to know if *I* would survive. My criterion of success NOW would include , crucially, the continuity of myself as a person who remembers having BEEN me. Perhaps this perspective avoids the problem of continuation of idetity( or rather "preservation" of identity) despite inevitable change. After all, any defginition of PERSONAL (i.e. "living" )identity that did not include and allow for change would be deficient. Essetial to understanding ourseves AS people is that we DO change: We are not discussing inanimate identity or quantum identity when we speak of personal identity -although these forms of identity are relevant to an understanding of personal identity. Like a fountain, which retains its shape throughout constant change, definitions of human identity must include change as an essential quality of identity Steven Harris - please respond...! 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