From: burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Date: 7 Nov 92 19:00:24 GMT

>> >> I would say that this persistent sense of identity across
>> >> multiple states of being, and even across multiple
>> >> personalities, could be explained easily in terms
>> >> of an assumed a priori consciousness which has the
>> >> capacity of intentional identification with structures
>> >> in an individuals mind.
>> >> bv
>>
>> We're talking about two "persistant states of identity" here, Wayne.
>> You're talking about the one that says: Well, here I am now, and
>> this is the same I as I remember from ten minutes/two days/three
>> years/ ten years, etc. ago.  There is, as you point out, no immediate
>> reason to believe this.
>> What I'm talking about is the state of identity that says: Here I am
>> _now_ and whenever _now_ is, I'm here.  That is, I'm not positing
>> any historical qualities with this identity, simply a sense of
>> identity qua identity.

>I fail to see how you can reconcile "indentity qua identity" with
>"persistent sense of identity across multiple states of being". I
>propose that the latter, by virtue of you applying the persistence to
>it, must have a temporal aspect that can only be drawn from a history
>which you agree we have no evidence as to the reliabiity thereof. It
>seems to me you have changed your tack from "persistent sense" to "here
>I am _now_". Yes the latter has no historical qualities, but neither is
>it "persistent".

Interesting.  I don't have any trouble reconciling these intuitively,
but will have to think carefully for a linguistic distinction.
So right now I'm just tossing out ideas.

Lwet's call the identity qua identity just Identity; and the persistent
sense of identity across multiple states of being--Personal Identity.
Identity is there regardless of whether or not I am at the moment
aware of any episodes of my past, excelt as these are embedded in
my momentary sensations, thoughts, and behaviors.  And, when I think
back on my past one of the things that I recall, although I don't
(usually) experience, is that in past moments there was also this
momentary sense of identity.

Also, I doubt that one can even apply a word like persistent (in time)
to an identity that is timeless.  I'd like to think of it as "outside
of time" but always there, but then one has to ask what it means to
be outside of time (and, of course, space).

Could also call this Identity an aspect of consciousness, making a distinction
between identity as in self-recognition and identities which we assign on the
basis of Aristotelean logic.  (E.g., _that_ is a "tree", but I am I.)
I can see lots of interesting threads coming out of that; e.g., that is
a tree, but tree is just a lable I've hung on it.  What is there about it
that leads to my recognition of it as something which can be labled tree?

So let's sum up this ramble before I start going too far afield.
All that I can be certain of is my instantaneous identity--here, now--
but there is availiable to that identity a set of representations called
memory, sensation, whatever, and the question is how to structure these
representations in an orderly way; to develop a narritive of a personal
history across which the here/now identity embedds itself in a spatio-
temporal context.  I don't have to do this, of course, but the best
reasoning so far suggests that if I dont this particular biological organism
(which, of course, may just be a figment) will cease to provide a suitable
vehicle for the here/now identity.

Still need to disentangle this, but it's a start.
bv