Settled? Or pointed differently? Identity, Morality and Society

Okay, we need to distinguish some thoughts here because I'm pretty sure I don't have a problem with using the teleporter, anymore (did I ever, really?). So first things first,

1. If the teleporter works 100% of the time, all the time, then I have no problem using it.
2. We are in agreement that a concept like identity is exactly that, a concept (a way of organizing and augmenting 'information' received via sensory organs) , which human beings have created and utilized to perpetuate their own continued conglomeration of particles.

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Now, I have a deep desire to address the things you bring up in the last post beyond the scope of whether or not we use teleporter technology and this may be an unfair analysis on my part. In the event that this is true I'm stating this as my caveat: What you have written previously may not have been meant for the scope of what I want to address with it, never the less, I think it provides interesting discussion...

My problem with the whole shebang is if we take this description of the world and try utilize it in other contexts. The way in which we are trying to characterize 'the world', in my mind, excludes the human endeavor of trying to 'make sense' of 'the world'. Restated: Because of the facilities a human possesses there is a very specific way in which we interact with our surroundings which allows us anything we might call 'intellect'. For instance; the fact that we use language to characterize almost everything delimits what we are discussing to the realm of logic and reason (as defined by man, for man), which under the Play-doh* metaphor, has no place in the 'real world' and in fact doesn't exist in it. Whether we like it or not we have to talk in language and to a certain extent about things like 'identity' or 'morality' because these are key concepts and facilities with which humans have to do (even if we are talking about them just to denounce them). Essentially, I'm assuming that by:

"I am trying to circumvent the necessary culture bias inherent in our thought. Except I'm claiming it's UNNECESSARY, because the cultural bias that's keeping you out of the teleporter doesn't hold me back. "

You meant that the 'necessity of our cultural biases' is actually unnecessary for you to determine that you would enter the telporter and that your resistance of cultural biases does not continue unto things like: having this discussion, enjoying the company of your family and friends over the company of others, studying law or choosing to partake in any part of society at all. Because any of those things necessitate that you interact within the cultural bias whether you are aware of it or not. Because we are situated within our cultural biases.

Hence why Spontaneously Occurring Lincoln, the question of his identity, memory and all that "paperwork" are relevant to a discussion involving human beings. And why social identity is relevant for human beings to survive, because as much as the 'real world' may be devoid of concepts, 'our world' is not (and by our world I mean a world in which human created endeavors matter, not the world in which everything is Play-doh). Our world is one where if you don't recognize yourself as a U.S. citizen and don't pay taxes then other people change your circumstances. And while this may, from the 'greater perspective', just be the adjusting of particles from one place to another, to you it matters deeply that you are at home and not in a Federal prison.

Lastly, I think a major argument against what I say here is that I'm trying to handicap any discussion about the 'truth' of existence by claiming that we only know 'truth' through our human filter. And I think we would both agree that it is a pretty lame position to claim "well, everything ever is only ever a human endeavor" as though it discounts what we do here (by having discussion), but the primary reason I choose this argument is not to put a stop to our discussion but to augment it. It seems to me that by understanding the necessity of human bias we can address concepts in a more humanly meaningful way. Which I think is a fair position to strive for in a discussion because it brings a certain amount of relevance and pragmatism. I.e. If we want to discuss something like morality it may require that we acknowledge it is a just human phenomenon but also that we don't discredit it solely because it is just a human phenomenon. Surely we still reserve the right to be choosy (Modern legal theory and Utilitarianism vs. scripture for a basis of morality) but none the less it requires a sort of acceptance of the 'human endeavor'.


Now as I have stated it may be deeply unfair of me to even have this discussion at all because I'm changing the context of which we are speaking but to address some pertinent things you brought up last time; and in an attempt to elucidate what it was we were discussing with this line of thought originally here is an excerpt from my last post followed by what I took as your response:

Surviving effectively means being part of social orders. If identity did not also include a historical understanding of oneself then memories would serve no purpose. Personal history is as much a evolutionary trick for survival as feeling hunger or a fear of heights. But it is extended to others as well. You remember who is the king of your village because it behooves you to know who's shoes not to shit on... for survival. I think also it creates the kings identity for himself when he knows that others don't shit on his shoes out of fear.

"Here's why I resist social identity. Social identity is the paperwork. You don't give justification to your claim that surviving effectively requires being a part of social orders. I submit that memories are not essential. I like them, but if I can't form memories about pain (thinking of Memento and the shock test), though I would probably die in a hazardous environment, that doesn't mean I couldn't have a rewarding life of thought[**] if I resided in a safe place."

If memories weren't essential for the survival of the human race why do we have them? We evolved with memories, why wouldn't they be necessary? Also, you and I both know people have lived in tribes for a long time, as Anthropologists can estimate--what makes you think that this isn't a necessary human behavior? I don't need to make justification for the necessity of human social orders as much as you need to justify us not needing them.

And further I propose that social memory is a composite part of social order. Social identity is wrapped up in it too. Essentially human beings seem defined socially by their social relations. I assume that if there were only one human we wouldn't have identity but that is not the case. I don't see where you mean to go with these points...

"Regarding your modifications to my earlier statements, is identity so difficult to reduce? We're already supposing the reducibility of the mind. Isn't anything we acknowledge as true reducible? (i.e. we can reduce that which we call the mind, but we don't bother reducing God because we don't acknowledge it as existent. Instead, we reduce the concept of God to logical (and illogical) conclusions of the workings of the brain.)"

Yes, identity is incredibly difficult to reduce. Because it is so socially ingrained. Something like morality (which I would argue is a composite part of personal and social identity) is not reducible to 1's and 0's. It changes daily because people's opinions on the matter change daily. And some peoples opinions on the matter--matter more. Like judges. A concept like morality is similar to a concept like God****--illogical. Yet it defines our society and is a sort of societal 'truth'*&%*. In that it is deeply important and relevant. I agree this isn't pretty or neat but I submit that it is the world in which we exist and necessarily defines our relationship to anything and everything.




*Play-doh's allegory of the cave would get all hard and flaky if you left it out...

**I call B.S. on your claim that you could live a "rewarding life of thought" If you had no memories. First, I doubt you can even begin to understand what a life like that might be like. Second, the word 'thought' is meant in a human context with memories and for that matter so is rewarding to compare a life without a facility so ingrained in (yes I'm going to say it again) human identity is just nonsense***.

***It may indeed not be nonsense at all... I'd just need convincing. Sorry heat-of-the-moment-emotion showing through in that sentence.

****If someone doesn't give me crap because of this then we know for sure that no one reads this blog.

*&%*I'm getting a lot of ambiguity from my CrimLaw class and its sneaking into my discussion of social identity.

The teleporter resolved? and more on Spontaneous Lincoln!

Sidebar: Does what we are doing count as philosophy? Since we aren't juxtaposing old timy philosophers and their ideas with our own for the purposes of supporting our ideas? Granted you and I both know we probably would not have the ammunition we do for these conversations if we had not spent the 2 ish years in the major but I think we're loosing street cred (in the world of philosophy) for not having all that 'textual support'. Not that I'm going to provide any in the following account. Just food for thought.

Sidebar2: Forgive me if the first part of this post is a bit repetitive of what we've been discussing for the past few posts but don't fret! towards the middle and end it really picks up steam.

Good points. I'll start with 'artificial'. I like the beaver dam analogy. The ready made synonym for artificial that comes up via google/wiki search is man-made but that is not necessarily helpful because after all isn't birth a type of man-making process. So you're right a more specified definition or a getting rid of the word altogether seems appropriate. Although I think colloquially (as you suggest with the beaver dam analogy) it could be assumed the word artificial seems to refer to things man creates via intellect and skill vs something man creates biologically. It's sort of like Anti-Christ where women represent the chaos of nature (biological functions/beavers? [is that pushing this too far?]) where as man represents logic and order (artificial). Though as teleporter tech becomes readily available to a store near you, we will probably need to get rid of the distinction or outline (as you suggest) detailed specifics. (also as lawyers we're probably going to have to figure out this whole "in stasis resulting from a lack of physical substance" thing for all the contract writing we're gonna be doing)

Now as for our teleporter continuous consciousness argument I'm beginning to feel cornered and this is usually a sign that you're on to something and I'm behaving like a adolescent... but we'll withhold judgment just a little longer.

I think a major opponent to my jumping on board the teleporter bandwagon (as you've hinted at) is that I'm still imagining ourselves having a sort of dualistic relationship between 'mind' and body. Your observations really short circuit any inclination that the consciousness needs to be continuous or rather that using the perfected teleporter would keep the consciousness from being continuous (or phrased differently--Hey! I think I finally get what you are saying and yeah it does seem to make sense). But by admitting this the whole cloning possibility this stuff gets really weird (for me as I know it did for you when it was first posited in this argument [Boy, I can't believe how long its taken me to understand what you were saying]). Supposing you stepped through a faulty teleporter that sent your 'image' to two different exit points (So instead of the traditional cloning scenario where the teleporter doesn't kill you but just creates a duplicate, we now have a situation where your first body does die but instead of one 'other-you' there are two)? What happens when you step out of the teleporter in Japan and in Singapore simultaneously? Where do you end up? If your consciousness is continuous then how do we describe this phenomenon of you arriving in two places at once from one starting place? I'm not sure if this point is clear but it strikes me as unusual. Though I do believe the discussion on identity later on helps clarify what we do with this situation.

I like the blanket statement that we must redefine or leave behind the traditional terms of life and death to understand this concept better. Or rather now that I'm thinking more along the terms of which you have been this whole time... death isn't really a problem at all. If we define death as cell death (that is vital cell death) then this (teleportation) is almost like an augmented (artificial?) form of cell replacement on a large scale (as you have suggested earlier).

Now-- what do we do with the man trapped in limbo? or in stasis? or temporarily dead? Does he still exist? of course the internet exists right...? and its not physical...

Which is why (I think) I'm so interested in socially created identities...

I'm bummed you reject social identity so fully. But then I do love community and you don't so I guess that makes sense...

I think you are wrong to so carelessly suggest that identity is just a mechanism for relating to oneself and I feel ashamed if I gave that impression. Because I think it is as much a social function of defining oneself as it is a personal way to survive effectively. Surviving effectively means being part of social orders (though I think you disagree with this point [sidebar: I've recently heard of this thing the government used to do and still may do that I think you'd be super interested in. Its called homestead homes]). If identity did not also include a historical understanding of oneself then memories would serve no purpose. Personal history is as much a evolutionary trick for survival as feeling hunger or a fear of heights. But it is extended to others as well. You remember who is the king of your village because it behooves you to know who's shoes not to shit on... for survival. I think also it creates the kings identity for himself when he knows that others don't shit on his shoes out of fear.

Perhaps including social in the word identity is asking too much of language and that is fine but I do believe that retaining the social-historical 'memory' of Lincoln is important to his identity, because his identity is relevant to other peoples identities. So, for example, when spontaneously occurring Lincoln appears at Gettysburg and finds lots of tourists and is not a standing group of 1800's people he ceases to be 'real' Lincoln simply because his historical identity is wrapped up in a different time. His own personal identity departs from that of original Lincoln when he finds himself in that situation. For perhaps the remainder of his life he is convinced he is 'real' Lincoln and his life now consists of raving like a lunatic and trying to 'get back to his time' or some such similar B sci-fi movie plot. His identity is shifted and he is shifted.

I agree that pinpointing historical Lincoln's identity would be foolish but similarly you could not identify Lincoln without a historical context in which he existed before.

Now lets clarify some of this nonsense. 1.) identity is a mechanism developed to keep our cells alive. 2.) however, identity is not necessarily a singular phenomenon and in fact is shaped dramatically by our relation to other 'identities'. 3.) Human beings have a habit of maintaning a long historical 'memory' of what past human beings have done and in fact use that memory as a way to help constitute their current identity.

I agree identity has no place if we could talk about people simply as organism unfortunately for science and objectivity (and I think as we will find in Law) it is very difficult to distinguish the organic procedures of the human body and the seeming social behavior. This is why I altered your previous statement as:

"The illusion of mind is theoretically reducible to functions, like complex equations that decide behaviors. Because it is just a complex configuration of neurons firing in certain alternating patterns."

And added:

There is nothing irreducible about man (no soul, no magic, no spirit). Though social concepts like identity may be incredibly difficult to reduce as they are dynamic and not inherently objective (though what is really objective?).

Please tell me if I'm doing that thing I do where I start to blabber nonsense.

So to answer some questions you posed: If we lost all the info about Lincoln, does he exist less? Well, from 'God's' perspective no, but from ours? Absolutely.

"What do you represent? To whom do you represent it? I don't think this branch of your argument gels with the rest. It sounds like you're trying to find an exterior locus of identity in other people, those who know or remember you." Yes.

"Problem of social identity. What do I have to do to encounter the historical Lincoln? If I see his body in the casket, have I "just missed him?" If I witnessed his birth, was he not yet the man he will become?"

I agree with what you are noticing that at different point during his life Lincoln was not the Lincoln we know today. I'm aware this seems fishy. I do not think it is. You seem to be suggesting that my argument for social historical identity is necessarily including the totality of his identity (the total memory of Lincoln as being necessary to understand Lincoln). We don't have that. We don't know Lincoln like his best friend may have and that changes Lincoln for us. This is the product of social historical memory-- we don't know a person like they would have been known if you'd known them personally and after they die you can't know them personally. It is not so bizarre to think that historical Lincoln is different than acutal Lincoln might have been. Isn't baby Jesus' identity radically different from that of Adult Jesus even though theoretically it was the same person?

You may want to argue then, that the historical identity of Lincoln is not Lincoln.

One of our philosophy professors explained once that a dictionary is only really a snapshot of what words are in common usage at a particular period in history. Similarly is our relationship to historical Lincoln only a snapshot of parts of what constituted his identity and probably would not give a person accurate knowledge of the kind of stuff Lincoln actually did on his free time. However, it is the only way in which we relate to Lincoln at all. Essentially what I'm saying is--the real Lincoln, the one who lived and died in the 1800's, he doesn't exist for us, he never did (for us? to us? can something exist for something else? that maybe the worst possible language I could have used there).

The man trapped in cyber limbo--does he exist? He sure does as long as we remember he's in that flash drive.

I believe I've (we've?) stumbled into an argument about whether or not we can have or rather should pretend to have and use a 'God's eye' view of things (completely objectively). Are we trying to circumvent the necessity of our socially constituted biases in our intellectual thought? In order to have intellectual thought?

Intellectual thought? that sounds pretty biased. (Intellectual masturbation? That sounds a little more accurate... though still biased)

"If I see any 5 of the total 17 past members of Scorpions, does society validate the identity of the band?"

Shut up! You are a stupid head! (I'm going to bed mad)

Re: Re: The Teletransporter

I have a lot of respect for Jackson for a whole host of reasons one of which is his ability to concisely and intelligently articulate out complex ideas (even from convoluted or vague sources--i.e. me). My biggest problem with this entire scenario involves answering the question of our continued consciousness (or the illusion of consciousness). Jackson is always concerned that I am trying to make some sort of metaphysical leap of faith (assigning something transcendent or 'magical' to the human being rather than just organic compounds). Rest assured Jack I'm not looking for a new faith based on the continuity of the human spirit. I am, however, concerned that once the continued consciousness in my first body is dissassembled that the re-created consciousness would not be a continuation of my previous thinking self but rather a new consciousness with old memories. Thus there could be a permanent separation between the old self and the new self which would prohibit a continuity over the teletransportation.

I'm afraid I do not know if we can resolve this issue. Either you feel this is addressed enough in your argument about the replacement of bodily cells and I have just not fully grasped the ramifications of your argument, or you have yet to quell my fear of death (the end of my continued consciousness).

In regards to spontaneously occurring Lincoln: While biologically we may be able to call this being similar to Abraham Lincoln I think fundamentally the context in which he occurs changes his identity completely. Abraham Lincoln the 16th president no longer exists and despite his spontaneous clone standing over there, he still does not exist. The clone could not represent the same person because Abraham Lincoln is as much a socio-historical concept as he was a person with a personal sense of identity. Lincoln represents a particular part of U.S. history as well as the Civil War and The Emancipation Proclamation (I have my president flash cards handy!). This new version treads new ground in new history and though he may have shared a similar past history with Lincoln he is not Lincoln fundamentally because he is existing now, here beside me.

So the question is does historical temporal relationships matter when defining ones identity? I would say yes, because identity is a social concept not an attempted objective biological one (though that is full of problems as well).

Things:

1. The illusion of mind is theoretically reducible to functions, like complex equations that decide behaviors. Because it is just a complex configuration of neurons firing in certain alternating patterns.
2. There is nothing irreducible about man (no soul, no magic, no spirit). Though social concepts like identity may be incredibly difficult to reduce as they are dynamic and not inherently objective (though what is really objective?).
3. Artificial intelligence is theoretically possible.

Sidebar:

"4. Artificial intelligence must be co-existant with the teleportation technology. 5. The word "artifical" needs a new definition. "--Why?

The Teletransporter

"Suppose that you enter a cubicle in which, when you press a button, a scanner records the states of all the cells in your brain and body, destroying both while doing so. This information is then transmitted at the speed of light to some other planet, where a replicator produces a perfect organic copy of you. Since the brain of your Replica is exactly like yours, it will seem to remember living your life up to the moment when you pressed the button, its character will be just like yours, and it will be in every other way psychologically continuous with you. Is it you?"

Source: Derek Parfit. "Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons." In Mindwaves. C. Blakemore and S. Greenfield, eds. London: Basil Blackwell, 1987. 19-25. 21.

In "What if... Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy", where I found this interesting little gem, the author suggests that Parfit is attempting to elucidate some questions concerning human identity. What it is that constitutes an individual human being and so forth. The author uses an analogy from Parfit between the human being and a club or regularly meeting group: "'Suppose that a certain club exists for some time, holding regular meetings. The meetings then cease. Some years later, several people form a club with the same name, and the same rules' (23). To ask whether its the same club or another but identical club is, he says, to misunderstand the nature of clubs." (89)

This hypothetical concept has been at the heart of some of the more 'intense' pow wows of which Jackson and I have been a part. I think it is safe to assume that it is interesting on many levels not all of which are specifically oriented around human identity (although I guess human identity is linked to everything we could discuss, isn't it?). A direction in which this conversation usually evolves with Jackson and I is to ask the question: Would you ever use such a machine? Which tends to lead the conversation away from a question about what constitutes human existences to a conversation about how-afraid-am-I-of-death. That is, I tend to find that entertaining the idea of other people using the teleporter as not being problematic at all, yet I could never in my right mind be convinced to enter the machine because I'm certain it would lead to my death (despite the identical replication that would continue to live my 'life').

However, there is something satisfying in the analogy to the club for me, in that, it allows for more emphasis to be placed on the idea of 'time' as it relates to teleportation (and human identity and death). That is to say, what seems to be very important in establishing 'human identity' is the human being's continuity over time. However just as, asking whether or not a club with the same name and rules started 30 years after the other ended is in actuality the same club is not really to understand what clubs are, asking if a person is the same if you can perfectly clone him or her is to miss what it is to be a person (Now I'm in dangerous territory! Can't let this get metaphysical). It would seem that what we call human identity is too often being linked to something physical about our bodies but I think what Parfit is getting at is that this is a misguided approach to understanding identity. Identity, instead represents a socio-evolutionary mechanism to help perpetuate our species. In the prioritizing of our cells over others we will fight to spread our seed so it would of course be useful to think of yourself as an individually important entity. This is why it is so difficult to try and pin hole what it is exactly that constitutes human identity (its not really there!) instead we have developed a method of thinking of ourselves in such a way in order that we may better spread our DNA.

Now where Jackson and I seem to most often disagree is in that I am not comfortable letting this body die so that another identical can take its place but Jackson does not seem to have this same reservation...