Julia North Thought Experiment Essay

Locke’s argument for the memory criterion of personal identity, is that psychological continuity (the consciousness of past experiences) is the aspect that preservers our personal identity. Locke

In a series of relatively simple though complexly-worded (out of necessity) thought experiments regarding body-swapping and changes to memory and the mind, Bernard Williams attempts to demonstrate that identity should be identified with the body rather than with the mind when identity is extended into the future (and by extension during the present). That is, though it is typical for identity to be associated with the mind at any given moment, Williams argues that the logic that supports this intuitive association does not hold up over longer periods of time, and that anticipation of the future leads to an association of identity with the body rather than with the mind. Whether or not Williams is successful in this attempt is a matter of much debate, with this author finding some fundamental flaws in the very premise of the comparisons and thus the conclusions, however the argument is fairly elegant and persuasive and certainly worth of closer inspection. A careful reading of the argument might lead one to a conclusion opposite to that which was intended, but is no less rewarding for this unusual quirk.

A simple example of this is: The person is the same person as someone in the past if the person has the consciousness of the experience that the someone in the past did. Thus, the identity of a person is limited to how much the conscious of later person remembers their earlier conscious memories. Only then he is truly the same person or himself. But then this bring few questions: Can there be a the same thinking substance in different people or different thinking substance in the same person and how do we punish people? To answer the first question he believes that the issue lies whether a immaterial being with consciousness could have its consciousness of its past actions be completely removed then begin a life with new consciousness. Nonetheless if it was possible then Locke argues that there is no reason to say that the person who’s soul and conscious lived before the removal is the same person whose new consciousness took over. To answer the second part, Locke says that the answer depends on whether the conscious of the past actions can be transferred to another person who did not experience it. Locke believes this phenomenon is possible and if it was, would this person be the same person he was before? Yes. Using Locke’s theory where

John Locke claims that memory is the key to identity, so “as far [as] someone’s memory goes, is so far the identity of the person.” (Campbell) First, Locke explains the concept of body swapping in terms of the prince and the cobbler: the “transfer of memories between the body of the prince and the body of the cobbler would mean the people have swapped bodies.” (Campbell) In this example, the

John Locke states that personal identity is a matter of physiological continuity that is based on the consciousness of a person rather than the individual’s body. Personal identity is constituted by memory connections; specifically the depiction of autobiographical memory connections that result in constituting personal identity. John Locke states that a person’s personality and psychology can be transferred to another body and that individual can still stay the same person because the consciousness of the person did not change. This idea is known as transplant intuition. This intuition is the basis of the account of personal identity. If a cerebrum was removed from one body and transplanted into a different body, the transplant intuition

Summary: The problem of the soul continues as Descartes suggested that the human is composed of two completely different substances; a physical body which Descartes compares with a machine, and a non-physical mind, related to the soul, that allows humans to think and feel even if it has no “measurable dimensions” (67). But Elizabeth put in doubt his ideologies when she realized that a non-physical thing doesn’t have the strength to push and move the body. This led to several questions unanswered and also let space for other materialist theories such as behaviorism, mind-brain identity, and functionalism, which also fail in offering an explicit solution.

Locke then presents his own body switching experiment to further strengthen his argument. The experiment is about switching souls between a Prince and a Cobbler. In this experiment, Locke takes the soul of the Prince and puts it in the body of the Cobbler and takes the soul out of the Cobbler and puts it in the body of the Prince. The result is that the Prince has the body of the Cobbler and the Cobbler has the body of the Prince.7 Both the Prince and the Cobbler feel normal because their consciousness goes along with their soul. Though the Prince and the Cobbler are in completely new bodies, they are still the same person because the soul that transferred from one body to other still has the same consciousness.8 Locke is trying to prove through his body switching experiment that personal identity goes where your consciousness and memories go. It doesn't matter what body contains what soul because each person has their own consciousness and that makes them able to identify themselves.9

To quote Karl Popper, “Every solution to a problem, raises another unsolved problem” (Williams, 2003, p. 2). It has been a topic debated for centuries, still, a definitive solution is yet to be found that universally satisfies the problem of mind brain identity. The most logical answer comes in the form of monism. Therefore in this paper I will argue that the mind and the brain are identical, as the mind exists only as a property of the brain. David Lewis and D.M Armstrong give support for the causal relationship between mind and brain states in the form of the identity theory, and deal with the multiple realisability argument provided by Hillary Putman. Gottlob Frege provides his support for materialism by showing that mental states are determined by the function of the brain, while discounting Thomas Nagel’s argument which proposes the idea of Qualia. Both the functionalist theory and identity theory reach agreement on the materialistic view that the mind and brain are of the same substance.

A question that I have towards Locke's view is that if you have some kind of accident and lose all memory of your past permanently, are you really a new person? Locke states that you are a different person because your consciousness was no longer active after the accident, it was not continuous. Further on from that, so if a person is living their life with many memories, and then they are placed into a coma. When they wake up from that coma, and they do not remember anything at all, they now have a different identity according to Locke. Two things cannot have the same beginning according to Locke: “When we see a thing any thing, of whatever sort to be in a certain place at a certain time, we are sure that it is that very thing and not another thing existing at that time in some other place. We never find and can’t even conceive of two things of the same kind existing in the same place at the same time” (Essay II.xxvii.1). So if that person then begins to start remembering things, is that person still the same person that they were before the coma? Or does that person now have an even newer identity due to them not being the person who did not remember anything previously. In other words, as that

good way one hopes to be rewarded in the future. And on the other hand, if one lived by acting in a bad way one fears to be punished in the future. For instance, John acted in a bad way when he was 20, he committed war crimes; hence, he should expect to be punished for his actions. But Locke's analysis is not that simple; according to his definition of personal identity, people should be held responsible for their actions only if they remember doing those actions. Consequently, based on Locke's view, John should not be punished for the war crimes he committed since he does not remember what he did at 20. In this example, Locke does not punish John, who committed terrible war crimes, just because he does not remember. Is Locke's judgment fair to people who committed the same crimes but remember what they did? Or, is his judgment fair to the victim's families? Locke's judgment is only based on whether or not the wrong doer remembers his actions; it does not take into account other important elements; that is one of the reasons why Locke's theory about personal identity has been criticized.

This case was about two girls who were injured. Due to the incident Julia’s body died but her brain was saved, opposite of that happened with Mary Frances, her body was saved but her brain was damaged completely. Miller and Weirob who argued who the new person would be if Julia’s brain was implanted into Mary’s body. Miller thinks it would be Julia because her soul or the memory is being transferred into Mary’s body so, Mary will have all the memories of Julia. Contrast of that Weirob opposed to that and claimed it would be still Frances because her body didn’t diminished. She might not have the memory but she has all her body parts. There are many people who are suffering from mental disease where they don’t remember anything that had happened with them in past years, but they are still the same person from inside. Suppose they were Mr. M who lost his brain, if someone sees them they would still call him Mr. M and not someone else. Which proves Millers second theory is also wrong. Later Weirob was having a discussion with Dave Cohen and Sam Miller where she revealed that a physicist advised an operation for her where her body will diminish but

Locke rationalizes, an older person may not remember their “self” as young child, but they have memories from when they were middle-aged. When they were middle-aged, they remember their “self” as a young child, therefore their consciousness can be linked.

The mind is a complex myriad of thoughts and psychological systems that even philosophers today cannot entirely grapple. It is composed of the senses, feelings, perceptions, and a whole series of other components. However, the mind is often believed to be similar or even the same as the brain. This gives rise to the mind-brain identity theory, and whether there exists a clear distinction between the physical world and the non-material mind. In this paper, I will delineate the similarities and differences between mind and brain, describe the relevant ideas such as functionalism and materialism, and provide explanations on how these theories crystallized. Further, I will discuss the differing views of this concept from multiple philosophers’ perspectives and highlight the significance of each. Ultimately, I will defend the view that the mind-brain identity theory is false by analyzing its errors and examining the invalid assumptions it makes about consciousness.

Imagine a situation where your entire personality is changed forever by an object that pierces an area of your brain. Those who have had a frontal lobotomy, whether purposefully or not, have had their personality changed permanently. An unlucky foreman of the Rutland Railroad, Phineas Gage, was on the receiving end of a tragic occurrence that severed the frontal lobe area of his prefrontal cortex. He underwent the experience of having a railroad spike pierce him beneath his left cheek and exit through his skull, consequently injuring an important area of his brain. This occurrence changed one part of Gage’s personality completely, though he seemed almost entirely functional after his accident. The one thing that changed in Gage was his ability to imagine the future. He lived completely present in the moment. The unique accident that affected Phineas Gage can be broken down with various different philosophical approaches to answer what is called the “mind-body problem”. The mind-body problem is composed of attempting to explain things like beliefs, consciousness, emotions, etc., in organisms. Physicalism, dualism, and functionalism all have their unique explanation for the mind-body problem’s implication of Phineas Gage’s accident.

For centuries philosophers have engaged themselves into conversations and arguments trying to figure out the nature of a human person; this has lead to various theories and speculation about the nature of the human mind and body. The question they are tying to answer is whether a human being is made of only the physical, body and brain, or both the physical or the mental, mind. In this paper I will focus on the mind-body Identity Theory to illustrate that it provides a suitable explanation for the mind and body interaction.