Identity

Let's say that I have a perfect duplicate who is psychologically continuous with me. If I get bad news from my doctor that my days are numbered, can I anticipate surviving my death?

Comments

A thought experiment akin to the one that you propose has been deployed by Derek Parfit, in his classic book, Reasons and Persons, which I highly recommend if you're interested in this topic, in order to argue that personal identity is "not what matters." According to Parfit--I'm simplifying somewhat--if some agent has a perfect duplicate who is psychologically continuous with the agent, then, according to Parfit, even if the agent dies, and therefore the agent's consciousness does not continue, and so s/he does not continue to exist (Parfit is therefore answering question to the negative, and admitting that you won't survive) what's important, namely one's plans, projects, etc., will be continued by the agent's duplicate, and that, again according to Parfit, is more important than the survival of one's consciousness--indeed, in such a case, one shouldn't be worried about dying, because what one values will be carried on (albeit only by a psychologically continuous duplicate of oneself). Now Parfit finds these considerations reassuring: are they? Is what matters to being the person that one is simply that one's plans, projects, etc., be continued? Consider the following extension of the thought experiment. Suppose that one is married, and that, unbeknownst to one's wife, one's perfect duplicate will take one's place upon one's death. Ex hypothesi, she won't be able to distinguish the perfect duplicate from the person with whom she shared her life up until that person's death and replacement by a perfect duplicate. Now suppose that she were to discover, somehow, that she is now living not with the person with whom she had shared her life up until the replacement, but with a replacement--albeit one physically and psychologically indistinguishable from the original: should she be unconcerned? Reflection on this question, may, I think, lead to a refining of one's intuitions regarding the importance of identity.

Read another response by Sean Greenberg

Read another response about Identity