Talk:Swampman

message: I just thought I'd point out that the title is "Swamp man" (with a space) but in the article's text it refers to it has "Swampman" (without a space). It's not consistent! 203.122.200.195 08:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swamp man/Swampman 

message: Is there a reason the thought experiment, as described here, uses the person who devised it as a character contained in it?
Did Davidson deliberately do so, and does this article maintain that wording, to make some additional point? I would not be surprised if this were so, but I am unable to comprehend that point without my head exploding, and would appreciate futher exposition.
However, if that's not the case, it makes everything pointlessly confusing. 
Consider this paragraph from the article:
Davidson(1) holds that there would nevertheless be a difference, though no one would notice it. Swampman will appear to recognize Davidson'(2)s friends, but it is impossible for him to actually recognize them, as he has never seen them before. As Davidson(3) puts it, "it can't recognize anything, because it never cognized anything in the first place." 
Here, Davidson(1) is the real philosopher who wrote the paper. Davidson(2) is the hypothetical dead guy in the swamp. (Or is it? If not, it would seem that Swampman and has escaped his thought experiment.) And Davidson(3) is identical to Davidson(1). 
The statement of the experiment itself says:
This being, whom Davidson(1) terms 'Swampman', has, of course, a brain which is structurally identical to that which Davidson(2) had, and will thus, presumably, behave exactly as Davidson(3) would have. 
1) = real guy writing paper, 2) = dead guy in swamp, 3) dead guy in swamp.
Could the character in the thought experiment be renamed "Smith" without affecting its meaning? -- Paul Richter 07:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why doesn't the article on [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]] mention that he was killed by a lightning bolt in a swamp and replaced by Swampman?

message: It is not like a clone, because a clone is a fixed state of matter. It can not possibly arrange its brain matter in whatever way we store memories, for the second person/it to walk, let alone carry on with the life. Do not modernise it. 86.149.101.100 (talk) 12:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Implicitly declaring that memories cannot be transferred or copied due to "whatever way we store memories" seems to be referencing some type of original or unreferenced research. If there is any research on the matter, we would love to be able to read it, to help reinforce the ideas. Whether memories are stored based on "physical" structure (ex. Neuroscience - Long Term Potentiation) or an unknown storage mechanism that depends not only on the "present" state of the physical structure, but also on the causal impacts of the same physical structure, we can only determine what is more favorable as evidence per each becomes relevant. Kaikydelan (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  My view 

message: The argument seems similar to Wittgenstein's argument about things like signposts in a one-minute England (that appears out of nothing and lasts for only a minute) having no meaning despite being identical to the actual England; perhaps someone more knowledgeable could say something about this. Ben Finn (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Without knowing more about what you're referring to, there arises a need to be persuaded why one-minute England would not fully have the same meaning as the actual England, for exactly one minute. 92.3.222.154 (talk) 10:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Wittgenstein

message: Hello! Not an expert in philosophy by any means so feel free to remove/edit what I did. I added content to the intro (w/ citation, although elaborated upon by me) and changed what used to be a plagiarized block quote from a book (plagiarism which continued even outside of the block quote) to just quoting Davidson's work itself. Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall; I have access to it but it's not freely available. Carla.Abra (talk) 18:20, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  2020 Update