PHILOSOPHY - History: Locke on Personal Identity #1

Part 1 of 3. What makes you the same person as the little kid growing up a number of years ago? Is the identity of a person tied to the persistence of a body or a soul or something else entirely? Can we even give any explanation at all of the persistence of a person? In this Wireless Philosophy video, Michael Della Rocca (Yale University) explores some of the puzzles and problems of personal identity that arise from the revolutionary work of the philosopher John Locke.

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[mothman]

Good lesson, but I feel that, compared to other videos on this channel, here the slow, hefty pace of academia takes its toll on the listener's attention and interest. Academia, or the art of spending eleven minutes and a half on the mere formulation of a problem that was abundantly clear after the first twenty seconds.

[ArcaneCowboy]

I find the linguistics involved interesting. I have no problem when I hear, "He is the same as..." I'm fine. But when I hear, "He is identical to..." I bristle. He's the same guy, but not identical.

[hi-sbqn]

i love how he ranked weight gain above having a family

[munstrumridcully]

I was always fascinated by this line of reasoning. This question becomes eve more complex in the modern age of potential (eventually) "perfect" human cloning, as exemplified in the film "The Sixth Day", or, as a hypothetical, say a "quantum copy", as in the film "The Prestige", where an exact copy of the protagonist is made, routinely for a "trick", but the protaganist murders them. I say that such thought experiments as clones or quantum copies or multuverse duplicates, as well as genetically identical twins, shows that genes are an important part of "persona", but what then makes the person complete is not his genes, but it is the combination of genes, experience has recorded -- however imperfectly -- as memories, and environmental -- even in utero -- factors. I think this is why a clone, no matter how perfect, is _not_ identical to the genetic donor, even if all memories were copied into the clone, because at the moment experience diverges, a new "person" is created, with new experiences, even if at first, they are identical in response to given stimuli, as they diverge further in time and experience, even that will likely change. 

[BelegaerTheGreat]

"Why do we pursue philosophical problems, even though most have never been resolved?"
Because they have been resolved, people just disagree which resolve is better. A man's goal is to figure out which philosopher was right, to what extent, and employ their views, expanding them if need be.

[velocab]

The answer is there in the Rubik's cube: it is the same cube scrambled and solved. It changed - yet it is the same cube. You changed over time, Micheal, but it is still you. Try taking a snapshot and defining yourself outside the fourth dimension of time. All else is sophistry.

[Xamarin]

As one progresses through life and views more of the world, they gain experience thus becoming wiser. For instance, If I were to ask my younger self the question, "Would you like to take some illegal narcotics with me", my younger self probably would've said "sure, ok - sounds like fun!" - Whereas, if I were to have this question asked to my modern self, who knows/can foresee the negative consequences of doing such an action, my modern self would most definately reply, "No, thank you sir; I will absolutely not accept your narcotics!" It is with this that one may find the contrast of the younger, more naive identity and the older, wiser identity.

[FiniteFr]

man I shouldn't have watched this at 4am. Who am I. This is like a think tank damn

[ozzyochoa]

My 2 cents...The same particle types must be in the same arrangement. The particles can be changed with an identical particle. But, it must also be in the same arrangement which produces the same processes. Once you lose the material or the functional arrangement of them, the identity is lost. They are codependent. There is also a temporal dimension. If the new arrangement of molecules is that of a previous state, such as that of a younger version of you, then it wouldn't be you, It must fit all 4 dimensions of space to be qualified as you. So there are different versions of you at different times. None of them identical to the next. The old you isn't the new you if it's not you at this time, but the current you isn't you without the old you.

[observinthelaws]

Very well made, and very well explained video. Keep up the good work man!

[soselaveasna]

Can you please help me to answer, "why do people change or stick to their identity?" And "why do people change or choose to remain with their sense of belonging?"

[Armando]

TRUTH is the answer. Truth not as "property" but PERSON who you are not

[daseinz]

In philosophy we don't answer a question, we respond to it.

[ALavin-enkr]

Memory provides identity over time. A person who loses memory usually return to their childhood as being what is real for them now and they focus on that.

Also atheistic philosophy does not take the soul into account but it is what makes us the same over time and over aeons even though we show up in different forms in different eras. We, consciously, only remember the progressions of the current life.  

Our subconscious mind remembers more, and our superconscious mind remembers all. These prior lives and the traits we acquired follow us life after life. We are supposed to increase the good traits and mitigate and eliminate the bad ones through a religious perspective.

This lecture is much ado about nothing as it does not go to the ground of our identity which is religion; the definition of which is ‘that to which we are bound.’ Religion is life and life is religion; our relationship to the whole to the Universe which Eastern religion equate with God.

[Uhlbelk]

What kind of person thinks they are the same 20 years later?  No one I know.  I am identified as the same person, but am not the same.  So the question is what becomes identity when NOTHING ever remains the same.  I will offer a simplistic answer, identity is when the unique set of all values of an object are sufficiently retained in the mind of the individual identifying the object. Take the hypothetical instance of a man who loses his memory.  For him, those memories are the most important values and not having those memories makes him a different person in his mind.  To his friend, those memories are the most important, but his appearance is also significant (the guy without memories can't remember his appearance so it would be insignificant), which would make him more likely to say hes still the same person, but would qualify that with hes the same person as long as those memories still exist in his head somehow. Finally from a completely impersonal position of say the government, which will say he is the same person because he is mostly in the same body he had before he lost his memory.  Thus something like the plates in my cupboard, are essentially identical to me, because the value of them in my mind is their utility, their unique complex of matter they are made from is irrelevant and thus they have the same identity to me.

[DifferentName]

A and B are different, but we struggle so hard to convince ourselves that they're identical.

[ShieldsAUS]

Would be good to get these boards posted somewhere to go over at a later period

[Jothaxify]

The material and dialogue is great but there are not enough frames in the animation, specifically the movement of the hand and the adding of illustrations to the page. This video and I imagine this channel would benefit from an upgrade in technology and use of technology, in order to keep audiences engaged visually. Found myself trying to look away from the screen and this made it harder for the video to keep my attention.

[kelseykid]

I did a project for a history competition and linked John law Shakespeare Shakespeare to the US Constitution

[Armando]

What is it in virtue of which definition of a person at one time equals definition of the person at another time. "in virtue of" is synonym for meaning. he is assuming there should be another, universal meaning between two unequal meanings.