What makes me

me?

Plan❄Overview of personal

identity issues

❄‘Multiple Personality Disorder’ (or, ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’)

What makes you you?

TIME

Overview of process

AbstractionDistinction

Thought experiments

Starting point

3 distinctions

Substance & Property

Numerical & Qualitative

Accidental & Essential

If my essence is X, then (1) any entity which has X is me,

and (2) any entity which does not have X is not me.

My Essence

Sufficient condition

Necessary

condition

Working, by fluke?❄A theory may seem

right under some scenarios

❄Need to test it with extreme scenarios to check its foundations

❄Use of thought experiments ❊Isolate variables by making

assumptions

Case 1: Growing up

Were you once a baby?

Case 2: Forgetful grandmother

❄At dinner, you discover the person who seems like your grandmother has completely lost her memory

❄Is she still the mother of your parent?

Who is responsible for the robberies committed by the robber?

Case 3: The Prince & the Robber Princ

e Mind

Robber Mind

Testing a philosophical viewPhilosophical

View

Hypothesis/Prediction

Observation/Reflection

Compare

What is my essence?

My body

My psyche

My soul

BIG picture

1. My entire body2. Whatever is physically

continuous with my body at the time of conception

3. My brain

My essence is my body

“I am my body (or, a part of it)”

98% of the atoms in our body get replaced every year

I am what is physically continuous with my body at

birth

“I can survive the gradual replacement of my body parts.”

You I

The tale of 2 carpets

You I

Gradual replacement

1. Seems to account for our concerns about brain transplants

2. Much of what seems most tied to a person’s identity is dependent on her brain

My essence is my brain

Who is responsible for the robberies committed by the robber?

Case 3: The Prince & the Robber

Prince

Mind

Robber Mind

or is your brain just the way to secure your psyche, which may be your true essence?

Preservation of essence

Preservation of psyche

Preservation of essence

Preservation of psyche

Is your brain really your essence?

1. Memory

2. Interests, preferences & character

My essence is my psyche

Case 2: Forgetful grandmother

❄At dinner, you discover the person whom you considered your grandmother has completely lost her memory

❄Is she still the mother of your parent?

False memories❄Recently, someone

claims he remembers writing Hamlet

❄Shakespeare wrote the Hamlet

❄So is he Shakespeare?

Same person

Real memor

y

???

• Physical habits?

• Psychological habits?

What is personality?

Case 1: Growing up

Were you once a baby?

Any psychological changes at all?

TIME

My essence is my soul❄Souls are invisible

❄How do we tell if you are you?❊We can see your body❊We can experience your psyche❊BUT how do we tell whether your soul

has changed?

What is my essence?

My body My psyche My soul

The tale of 2

carpets

Forgetfulgranny

The prince &

the robber

Difficulties

Sufficient?

Necessary?

Duplication problem

Big picture

Personality changes

‘I’ = body/psyche/soul

+ [anything else?]

My essence: what is sufficient?

Instant cloningInstant Cloning Machine

• For any proposed essence E, it seems possible for a perfect duplicate of E to exist

• What then differentiates E from E-duplicate?

The duplication problem

• Solution 1?• Duplicates may not exist

• Solution 2?• Individuality is a primitive notion

• Cannot be explained in other terms

The duplication problem

• ‘Thisness’ or Haecceity• In some cases, the difference

between X and Y is ultimate • A thisness is the property of being

identical with a particular individual, such that only that particular individual can have that property

Individuality

Review❄Key concepts❄What makes me me?

❊Body theory❊Psyche theory❊Soul theory

❄What is necessary?❄What is sufficient?

Why does personal identity matter?

❄Personal responsibility❄Personal authority❄Personal survival

A matter of Will

Euthanize?

Normal person

Normal person

Severe Amnesiac

In vegetative

state

Should we respect the Will?

Use of property?

“Dissociative Identity disorder”

Psychiatry meets Philosophy

Christine Beauchamp❄Nervous, ailing,

impressionable ❄Neglected by mother she

adored, abused by father❄Suffered 3 shocks in

1893❄Consulted with Dr

Morton Prince

B1

B1a

The Saint: Deeply religious, morbidly conscientious..

Less reserved

B1

B1a

The Saint: Deeply religious, morbidly conscientious..

‘She’• Despises B1• ‘Stupid, half-

asleep’

Sally

• Seems to know the thoughts and actions of B1 & B1a

• Claims to have existed as co-conscious person from B1’s early childhood

“Merry, irresponsible,

child of nature”

B I

B Ia

Sally

B IV

B IVa

The Idiot: • No memory of what happened

since trauma in 1893 (6 years back)

• Impatient, aggressive, resentful

B I

B Ia

Sally

B IV

B IVa

B IISober, responsible, well-balanced• Claims to be both BI & BIV• Has virtues of both, but not their

vices

19041893-

‘Multiple Persons’❄No continuity of consciousness

❊Lacking knowledge & memory relations

❄Radically different personality, each complex & consistent internally❊Different characteristics, allergies, bodily

responses

❄Each is an intentional system❊Rational, conscious, self-conscious, subject of

moral consideration

‘Multiple Persons’❄1st person perspective shows

self-understanding as person❊Awareness of unique identity, concerned

with non-existence❄Alternate & Simultaneous

existence❊Not just linear temporal existence, but

co-existence

1 body, many persons?

‘1 Person’2 senses of person/personality

Appearance meaning• Persona, mask• How you present

yourself to others

• Person in the numerical sense

• The true self

Reality meaning

Confusion“we should not confuse the appearance of natural persons with the reality of natural persons, and that we should appeal to psychology, biology, and physiology, not ordinary experience, to distinguish them.”

- Lizza

What’s the real self?Morton Prince:

“A normal self must be able to adjust itself physiologically to its environment, otherwise all sorts of perverted reactions of the body arise, along with psychological stigmata (amnesia, suggestibility, etc.), and it becomes a sick self. Common experience shows that, philosophize as you will, there is an empirical self which may be designated the real normal self. However, I shall put aside this question for the present and assume that there is a normal self, a particular Miss Beauchamp, who is physiologically as well as psychologically best adapted to any environment.”

Natural kinds❄There is a distinction

between the natural & artificial

❄We are familiar with natural persons and can refer to them to discern the unnatural

❄Natural persons are not like BI, BIV, Sally

Christine Beauchamp is 1 person

“Miss Beauchamp's personalities suffer from severe mental and physical defects: aboulia, impulsions, neurasthenia, amnesia of actions and thoughts, violent mood and character changes, abnormal suggestibility, and severe limitations in their ability to adapt to their environment. Normal, real persons do not suffer from these defects, or at least not all of them.”

Real or natural?❄Conflation of ‘real’,

‘normal’, ‘natural’❊Are they the same?

❄Must all real persons be ‘normal/natural’ persons?

❄Why must the real self be what’s best adapted to the environment?