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Stephen Law - How does Personal Identity Persist Through Time?

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Think back 5, 10, 20 years-50 if you're old enough. Physically, you are completely different. Mentally, you feel pretty much the same. Decades roll by and every molecule of your body changes many times over. Yet you sense yourself the same-continuous, a unity. How can this be? Is the self an illusion? If not, what's the commonality that persists through time.
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Stephen Law is a philosopher and Reader in Philosophy at Heythrop College in the University of London.
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Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

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6 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 151

@wackywarrior001 3 года назад

I play video games, I’m always amazed when I sometimes meet people years later in a new game , new “ bodies “ and after a game or talking to them , you go hey , your so and so from that other game ! And they go yes ! And your so and so ! It shows something more can be felt and connected

@Laffy-ix5xy 3 года назад

That's a really interesting point of view. It's as if you're saying that the avatar can take on certain personality traits of the player. Even if it's only the way the avatar moves, or the choices they make in the game, it's still amazing that you recognise them.

@canonman223 3 года назад

When an elderly man whose wife was in a nursing home with dementia was asked “why do you bother to come visit her everyday since she no longer knows who you are?” He answered “because I still remember who she is”.

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

Yes, the memories that others have of us can be part of our identity. So I might be rather disappointed in myself because I get scared easily but my friend might remind me of how brave I am about meeting new people, something that he finds difficult. Thus his picture of me as brave in some situations can become part of my picture of myself. So we can build up the sense of confidence of our friends.

@dreyestud123 2 года назад

What does it mean if he develops dementia and he forgets who she is? They could live in the same room but regard each other as strangers. Are they still the same people without the memories? I'd say from the first person experience the wife became a different person once she lost her memories. It gives the husband comfort to visit his wife in her present state but I would argue she's not the same person once she developed dementia.

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

@@dreyestud123 Hi Don E, my experience is that people can partly forget who they are but they still retain major personality traits. Sometimes they even improve a little. A person who used to hurt people with her sarcasm might lose that habit and people might enjoy being with her a bit more.

@existncdotcom5277 3 года назад

.“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”

@letsamaya8521 3 года назад

I have a question since my childhood still I don't have answer: It's human brain which contains consciousness and performs all type of thinking and dicision making. But if we go at atomic level, there are just atoms which are arranged in a specific way to perform those tasks what brain does. Since as living beings we have ways to communicate,we can tell what we are thinking and what we are feeling. So is an atom also capable of thinking (it can be single bit of information) or it also has consciousness at a very low level. does every single object has consciousness, just because they don't want to brag about it or they don't know what they are or it's zero bit of information for them. I know it's foolish but it is a query I don't find a solution for.

@Traderhood 3 года назад

That’s a great question.

@nicholasdaniels1306 3 года назад

Hey Closer to truth you should cover psychedelics. On salvia you can become objects (chairs, beds, clocks, etc.) and forget you were human. DMT and ayahuasca are crazy as well. Entire reality changes.

@LordTetsuoShima 3 года назад

Also Dissociative Holes (K-holes)

@allyloogs 3 года назад

It seems bizarre that he is so interested in consciousness but doesn't delve into psychedelics..

@nicholasdaniels1306 3 года назад

@@allyloogs I’m sure he’ll get to it on his path to be closer to truth.

@allyloogs 3 года назад

@@nicholasdaniels1306 4000 videos in. You'd have thought if he was going to get there he would have done it by now 😂.

@nicholasdaniels1306 3 года назад

@@allyloogs Maybe he will see the comment!

@francesco5581 3 года назад

In dreams we haven't our body , our reality , our history , our geographic location , our familiars , our work , our relationships and YET we are ourselves.

@Traderhood 3 года назад

Dreams are just haphazardly assembled fragments of memories experienced by self in awaken state. So the same self that recorded these fragments in awakened state is experiencing them as a self in dreams.

@francesco5581 3 года назад

@@Traderhood it's true that we often experience in dreams things that had some kind of impact in our lives, but often not. Are "out of the blue" things, characters and stories and we make our decisions inside them. Also we know that lucid dreams are scientifically proven. WE think in dreams, we take decisions in a totally new contest, in situations we never lived.

@djcarey1206 3 года назад

I'm a infj personality type so I day dream all the time. I leave my body 100 times a day!?

@REDPUMPERNICKEL 3 года назад

I remember a dream of a few months ago in which the '"I" in the dream was a total stranger, a completely different person. That fact is the only reason I remember that dream, not its content, just the fact that the experiencer was definitely not me. Never before or since have I had such a dream experience and if anyone had told me they had such a dream I might have struggled to understand how it was possible. I mean, even during my extremely intense and astonishing LSD experience, now ancient, there was never any sense of a stranger being present. In fact, as I recall, for most of the trip there was no sense of self at all! Somehow only naked experience was happening (and memories laid). It was a full moon night, Victoria Day long weekend high school camping party tradition, late 1960s... When my gaze and the lion's met, a scintillating blue electric beam leapt between our eyes and I stood transfixed by an indescribably intense brotherly love emotion. Difficult to describe because there was no 'I' present, just the naked feeling of love and electric blue connection. (The lion was a member of a supercilious pride lounging round the outstretched paw of a thirty foot tall Sphinx in profile, the whole scene illuminated by exotic trees whose leaves were crystal gems of various colors glowing calm and bright from deep within). So, of late I've come to realize that my self is nought but conscious thought and if they should vary from the normal, so will I right along with them.

@francesco5581 3 года назад

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL yes there are dreams that are more vivid and meaningful than others

@snafutube 3 года назад

I've heard stories of people who have had heart or other major organ transplants who go on to develop some characteristics of the donor

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

I feel that we have a gradually developing picture of ourselves. So I have a greater sense of confidence in my ability to express myself through spoken and written words than I had as a child or even as a teenager. That picture of myself comes partly from a collection of memories of success in this area and partly from a picture that is reflected back to me by friends. Similarly, the fact that my friends like being with me gives me a confidence in my ability to relate to others but my need for some solitude also informs my picture of myself as a person in relationship to others. My body also reflects my sense of identity. I feel good when I go for a walk but I often have a reluctance to actually start the walk and to walk every day. What can confuse my picture of myself can be a sense of shame. If others feel disappointed that I don't walk often, then I may be reluctant to admit that aspect of my personality, even to myself. As I am lucky enough to have encouraging and non-judgmental friends, then I can feel more confident to face my faults. If I venture into some new area and find it difficult, for example I attempt to do a course in advanced maths but find it too hard, I may feel a sense of anxiety about what this means. Does it mean that I'm unacceptably stupid? Or can I see myself as having talents in some areas but not in others? As I move through my life, I will adjust my sense of self, growing in confidence in some areas and perhaps getting worried about others. Old age will be a particular challenge because of failing memory but it may also mean a great ability to live in the moment and to value that moment.

@andreasplosky8516 3 года назад

"How does Personal Identity Persist Through Time?" Personal identity changes all the time, very often in ways we do not even notice. For example our memories are constantly changed and tweaked and even forged. They are very unreliable. We are very sloppy observers of ourselves. It is a social convention to consider a certain body the same person over time. Of course in general this works just fine, but when you look closely things are much more complicated.

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

Exactly. Especially when you realise that our memories are constructed up on recall.

@jalosor6823 2 года назад

I agree. I feel like my personal identity has cosistently changed so far i my life.

@crazywilly85 2 года назад

And the gut connection to the brain, wonder how that would play out when switching brains.

@Laffy-ix5xy 3 года назад

Watching this is making me think of Trigger's broom from Only fools and horses. He claimed to have had it for 20 years. And in that time, it had 17 new heads and 14 new handles. Of course, it sounds like it's not the same broom he started off with. But is there some kind of memory that gets carried down through the heads and handles, making it fundamentally the same broom? Maybe Trigger was right all along.

@ricklanders 3 года назад

Robert just got one step closer to truth. As he states, without memories, we would still have our awareness. So what does that tell you about who we are? We're not the memories, because we can lose those, and yet we still have conscious awareness. We're not our thoughts, because the thoughts can change or be lost, and we still have conscious awareness. The common denominator to all our experience is the sense of conscious awareness, not thoughts or memories or even feelings. So then what about this persistent sense of "self," of personal identity, of personality? All a construct of thoughts and culture, nothing more. When the thoughts change, the "self" changes, But the awareness never changes. That's closer to "you."

@keithgreenan3177 3 года назад

A persons awareness is the Iness or thereness behind the eyes. It is the sky of your mind. Every thought and emotion exists in you awareness that never changes. Science cannot explain that.

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

How can it be the same? When I was 5, 12 , 18, 33 was a different person with different interests, memories and priorities. Let’s put it this way, if you at 33 wake up in your 9 year old body, you would say its not your body. 5 year old waking up in a 33 you, you wouldn’t see it as your body. If your 33 year old met your 12 year old self and wan’t introduced, you wouldn’t identify with yourself.

@andreasplosky8516 3 года назад

Completely agree. It is an unspoken convention to consider a certain collection of body cells the same person now, and in 40 years time, while in reality nothing about them is the same, not even their memories. The body changes completely, the personality changes dramatically. Memories are changed every time a person recalls them, and we are unable to detect the changes. The myth of our persisting identity is a lie we tell ourselves.

@irfanmehmud63 3 года назад

No. If at 33 you wake up in your 9 years old body, you would say, "Yes this is my body, but it has become much younger now."

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

@@irfanmehmud63 How would you know it’s your body? you would only know that you are in a young body. You wouldn’t even remember what your nine year old body looked like.

@andreasplosky8516 3 года назад

@@ReverendDr.Thomas I agree with all except the last paragraph. Your conclusion is one huge bridge too far, which is typical for the religious mindset. A phrase like "life itself" is confusing and wrong in the way it is used. Life is not a separate thing in itself. Life is what we humans call a collection of very often animated cells with certain properties (metabolism, procreation, homeostasis, growth, organization, chemistry, evolution). Biologists are not even sure where to draw the line between life and not life. There are beings like bacteriophages that diverge spectacularly from that what we in general would call life. Life as far as we know can not be divorced from matter. There is no proof for that, not even weak evidence at all. Life is a property of certain collections of matter. That is what we know. Everything that goes further than that is just religious fantasy and has no proven basis in reality. Drawing final conclusions before you have proof for any of it, is not the proper thing to do. Cosmic consciousness/god is just a figment of the human mind until proof is presented. We have no knowledge of such a thing. It is what more primitive societies came up with to explain things they did not understand, and it also became a tool for power, control, and the generation of personal wealth for certain elites. There is no good reason to believe any of it.

@andreasplosky8516 3 года назад

@@irfanmehmud63 "No. If at 33 you wake up in your 9 years old body, you would say, "Yes this is my body, but it has become much younger now."" Yes you would call it your body, but that is not the point. The fact remains that it is not the same body. Not a single cell would remain of your older body.

@rickrouse7865 3 года назад

none of the atoms 20yrs ago are in my body today but I am that same person. This proves who I am is not constituted by atoms but by something else. I have memories but I am not my memories. Remove all my memories my personality remains the same. My loved ones would not feel like they're talking to a stranger when talking to me, they would say "That's Rick as I have always known him". Existence must have form but form is not shape. Water can be shaped many different ways, it's still water. My mind therefor must have form that is independent of atoms. That form what is it if it's not matter? Can I call it a soul or a spirit?

@REDPUMPERNICKEL 3 года назад

Everything you wrote is wrong except the bit about water.

@rickrouse7865 3 года назад

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL ok thank you for your opinion, have a nice day

@REDPUMPERNICKEL 3 года назад

@@rickrouse7865 Sorry, I was in a hurry. You deserve some explanation... "Remove all my memories my personality remains the same". Immediately after ALL your memories were removed you would be in about the same mental state as a newborn baby, i.e. tabula-rasa-but-for-instinct. You could not recognize anything because recognition results from comparison of sensory input to memories. You'd be unable to respond to your name. You'd have no concepts whatsoever including a self concept. Your body would again have to learn how it and the world relate. "Existence must have form but form is not shape". Except that form and shape are exact synonyms. Existence refers to matter. All else is conception, i.e. abstract. Shape is not matter therefore shape is abstract as are movement, time, pattern and process to name a few examples. It would clarify thinking considerable if we all agree to use 'exist' to refer to the physical (i.e. matter) only and to use 'being' to refer to all else. Thus my body exists whereas my conscious self is being. My self is conscious being because it is one of the extraordinarily complex processes going on in my existent body and process is an abstract entity, see?

@GulfsideMinistries 3 года назад

The classical position stands between both the Cartesian (or even Platonic) soul and the psychological continuity. We say, instead, that, indeed, persons do require bodies (at least in the case of human persons). Without a body, you are not a (human) person. But since the human body, including all of its psychological attributes, can change, none of that is sufficient in and of itself to ground personhood. So a body, while necessary, is not sufficient; you need a non-changing aspect of the being to be a person. But if its non-changing (immutable), it can't be physical. So what is this immaterial aspect of the person? We call it a "soul," but what we mean by that is what Aristotle said in "the form of the body"--which is entirely consistent with the much more ancient Hebrew notion. In general, we call it the animating principle of the body. So suppose a naked (human) soul could exist. That would not be sufficient to call the soul a "person," just as the corpse of a person, being a body without a soul, would not be a person. The (human) person is the body-soul composite. Final point about brain transplant thought experiment. It's merely an updated version of Thesius' Ship. Grant for the sake of argument that if I get someone else's brain then I get their memories, personality, etc. (which is a big grant!). All that means is that I have SOMEONE ELSE'S memories. It doesn't follow that I have moved to a different body. People are not their memories. They are not their psychological histories or temperaments. Human persons are individual, embodied rational entities. The nature is the immaterial grounding that does not change. The body is that which persists through time and changes. Plato was wrong. Descartes was wrong. Wittgenstein was wrong. Aristotle was right.

@AlexStock187 3 года назад

Yet another example of why people need to read Maximus the Confessor. He’s hard to understand, but it’s worth it. He would answer the question in this video with the single world “logos”. When you understand what he means by that, it just might blow your mind. I think there’s substantial overlap, if not 1:1 correspondence between Maximus’ “logos & logoi”, what philosophers call “identity and thingness” and also what theoretical physicists call “information.”

@mickeybrumfield764 3 года назад

Personal identity seems to be tied to a large extent to what is preserved in our consciousness which of course can fluctuate over time.

@jasonH5997 3 года назад

We desperately need to figure out consciousness.

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

@@jasonH5997 I have a feeling once we do, there is going to be a lot of upset and disappointed people.

@_lonelywolf Год назад

The continuity of the personality through time is due to the continuity of the biological neural network of the person through time as well. If your neural network is changed in any way, your personality should change. Therefore, your personality is a property emerging from your biological neural network; and this is the materialistic view attempting to answer the question of the continuity of the personality through time. Other more idealistic views, posit the existence of a soul or spirit that, by definition, is timeless; but that's another story.

@kallianpublico7517 3 года назад

Categorization and combination. Is the soul always innocent? Why should the physical brain and body always be combined with a consistent, persistent self? After all we grow, learn and change in the context of the climate, culture, and the strategies they allow for survival as well as the genetic vulnerability and mental acuity and desire to survive(will). Is our desire to survive categorically different from our ability to choose how to survive? In other words is our moral will exempt from the external conditions of climate and culture? Howso? If we have no choice how can we choose? There is an experiment in Physics called Young's two-slit experiment. In my mind the "meaning" of the results is this: when given a choice the photon behaves like a wave; when given no choice it behaves like a particle.

@allwecanseeisaboveusnow 3 года назад

Personal identity is created in the DMN (direct mode network) it’s a circuit in the brain which helps us understand who we are and the thing that we are. It’s been studied that psychedelics effect the DMN!

@soubhikmukherjee6871 3 года назад

Law is one of the best modern day philosophers.

@Traderhood 3 года назад

@TheDirtyDeDerShow What? Maybe therapy?

@laurenth7187 2 года назад

You don't know how it persist... but why, that can be answered, it's to limit the amount of entropy in life, which can't deal with too much chaos. Therefore not only we remember our identity, but the society itself remembers, on a historical path what it is. Life is conservatory, We are bound to stay as we are, therefor even psychoanalyze can't "cure" someone, it can only make people able to deal with their problems.

@julianmann6172 2 года назад

Our individual identity in this world is linked to a 5 part soul in the higher realm. In other words our existence here represents one fifth of our soul. When we sleep, all these parts are re-united as they need to be. This is the main purpose of sleep.

@bluelotus542 3 года назад

Not only the sensation of being always the same person amidst constant changes persists, but none of us likes all these changes, least of all the last change.

@cps_Zen_Run 3 года назад

Not accepting change only leads to needless suffering. Accept the impermanence of all experiences, both “good and bad” (which are just labels)

@bluelotus542 3 года назад

@@cps_Zen_Run Impossible.

@festeradams3972 2 года назад

I agree with the guest, Kuhn always seems to drift off to the "an invisible man living on a cloud" stuff. If there's some kind of independent "Soul" then in the case of Alzheimer's or other advanced Dementia, the body we recognize is still there but the "person" has faded away and gone with the deterioration of the brain. Basically "the lights are on, buts nobody's home". Of course the last quote is subjective and not always a particular brain disease, I've seen many who are medically healthy, but still give you that blank stare...

@brydonjesse 3 года назад

You grow and layer more and more information into each island of thought if you will. Each is growing and becoming more structured and less abstract. If you do not nurture a thought or idea it withers. Library's of information and buildings of thought.

@rogeriopenna9014 2 года назад

About the argument that you could lose your long term and short term memory, and still have the feeling you are the same person... You could have the feeling. But how do you know? You don´t remember how you were yesterday. You are just USED to knowing that you are always the same person, as there are tons of synapses your brain built during your life, that say you are the same person day after day. But you don´t really know. Because to be sure you are the same person, you need your memory of who you were. It's like Blade Runner. Insert the fake memories of a childhood into the Android, I mean, Replicant. And Rachel doesn´t even know she is a Replicant. She is sure she has always been the same person, for some 30 years. Even though she was created a few months ago.

@SB-wu6pz 3 года назад

What is persisting is Atman(I) and the personal identity is ego which is created by memories. Take the dream analogy.The dreamer is Atman and the characters in the dream are ego..Atman is singular..It only exist .

@cheaterxl243 3 года назад

You could say that YOU are the sum of your past. That’s what I believe to be true.

@cps_Zen_Run 3 года назад

The true “you “ is your Consciousness. You are the Witness, the Observer. We are not our thoughts nor body. Thoughts are transient. Losing parts of your body ( arms, legs, etc) doesn’t make you a different person.

@bernardcohen3245 3 года назад

Obviously you have to punished the soul not the body but again is the soul loses it’s memory then what would you punish it’s a paradox I’ve wrestled with since I was a kid

@mediocrates3416 3 года назад

The question is about personal identity: how do they identify? If it's about the fundamental nature of personhood, that's something else.

@projectmalus 3 года назад

There could be a third thing coming from the two you mentioned. If 'how do they identify' is mostly repetition, with short lived aperiodic events embedded (the fundamental nature) then chaos emerges, a non-repeating alliance with reality, like the number pi, that is capable of long lasting creative endeavour.

@mediocrates3416 3 года назад

@@projectmalus Growth? Vervaeke says evolution is not thinking because the ecosystem is non-autopoietic: i'm thinking "autopoietic" has more to do with personal identity than with the fundamentals of thinking. But; growth, i think you mean...? 😁👍

@projectmalus 3 года назад

@@mediocrates3416 Well, there's two kinds at least of growth...dredging the memory bank here, described in one way as mitosis and meiosis. A splitting and an adding to (I could be wrong). The first doesn't change the quality only the quantity, the second removes quantity by introducing a new thing. Machine like repetition at one end of the spectrum and all expression at the other, and a balance introducing the third thing, cohesiveness from enabling more engagement, for the individual. All control and all expression, the school system more at the control end...a lack of engagement for the individual marginalized by a loss of efficiency (the need to be efficient, the budget, in an inefficient system) - and Facebook etc at the other extreme, a loss of engagement since the actions are meaningless...lots of them though. Engagement tied to meaning and persistence of identity, and the structure behind the individual having great effect. Change the structure to fix the problem.

@mediocrates3416 3 года назад

@@projectmalus Ranked ballot, single transferable vote.👍🍻🍻

@JohnDoe-nv2op 3 года назад

Its the dynamics of CTC loops what are you. They are the only stable thing there.

@PuBearsticks 3 года назад

The commonality is "awareness of" Body changes, thoughts/mind change. Everything within the field of awareness changes. Awareness remains unchanged.

@liamlieblein6375 3 года назад

I'm not sure, it seems that the modality of my awareness changes too, like the way I'm aware of my thoughts vs awareness of my body in space etc. Maybe the awareness of awareness, or consciousness.

@PuBearsticks 3 года назад

@@liamlieblein6375 can you see that it is not the awareness itself that changes. It is what it is aware *of* that changes no? Consciousness in this case is an apt synonym for what I am referring to.

@liamlieblein6375 3 года назад

@@PuBearsticks I see what you're saying, probably more semantic than anything. What I mean is that the changes in awareness, or the modality in which phenomenon are revealed to you, exceed the objects that it refers to. The difference between action and perception is a good way to distinguish. Perception is usually the example used for consciousness, with a clear cut subject object distinction. Awareness in this way conceptualizes experience, putting it neat little chunks that we can refer to. When we are acting, especially when we are absorbed in our actions, the modality of our awareness *itself* changes. Subject and object become melded into one continuous actualization of potential. The object, if you could say there is one, is the potential, which is experienced, or made actual to us, through our actions. What's funny and frustrating is that, in order to point to it, you collapse what you're pointing at, making it a definite object instead of a potential one. Meditation helps to reveal this kind of awareness, where one is minimally perceptive of their presence, but is itself limited. Hope this helps convey in some small way what I mean.

@elir7184 3 года назад

Awareness itself does change. Awareness can change in intensity, obviously, and as someone else already pointed out, the underlying modality (or texture) of awareness also changes. You can use awareness as a logical bridge or unification through time, but you still have to admit that its a swinging bridge if you are wanting to be comprehensive. Most people with their preconceived ideas actually want no such thing.

@projectmalus 3 года назад

Is there any reference point for the identity or awareness? I guess persist doesn't mean non-changing.

@TheJwebb7 3 года назад

Absolute True Individual Identity is not fundamentally defined by the physical body or anything physical.

@stopPlannedObsolescence 3 года назад

What about intro song ?

@jamesruscheinski8602 3 года назад

Maybe information is the identity of person? Identity is the information of the person?

@sgs261 2 года назад

This whole conversation presupposes the idea of a 'me'. But what if there isn't one? Doesn't that solve the problem?

@ladoparts 3 года назад

Your consciousness is akin to the sum unique expression of your self aware personality compatible with others just like you but all unique individuals. This is the image of the Creator God - our consciousness as relational rational united beings animated by love

@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 3 года назад

Was just discussing this earlier today with my mom.

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

And your mother also has aspects of your identity that she can share with you e.g. Perhaps as a baby you were easily startled but you gained more confidence when the family got a dog which you were very fond of. Learning that story from your mother will help to build your sense of identity. She might be very self-critical for not being a good enough mother but you might say, "Oh, Mum, I remember how you made my school lunches and how you were never late picking me up from school." And she starts to realise that she was a wonderfully reliable and caring Mum. That can enhance her picture of herself.

@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 2 года назад

@@tracesprite6078 My dad is more self-critical than my mom

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

@@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 Do you sometimes tell your dad about things that he did that you loved? Our parents are just visitors in our lives. They will vanish one day. Now is the time when you can make your dad feel like his parenting was helpful or reassuring to you.

@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 2 года назад

@@tracesprite6078 I've always had fun at my dad's house, and he knows. In fact, he told us, "When I die, I want you guys to have a party."

@tracesprite6078 2 года назад

@@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 He sounds like a terrific guy. It's great that you have that good relationship together.

@Capetown2233 3 года назад

How do you know you are the same person that was 30 years ago.? You only know you are conscious in the arrow of time

@patmat. 3 года назад

I often complain that your videos are too hard to follow, so thank you for once making me feel so much clever than your guest*... He's a philisopher I know, but still. * on his little example here, I don't know his work

@HighPeakVideo 3 года назад

Ha ha - spot on!

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

Actually, its the guest Stephen Law standpoint was the clever, logical and more robust than Roberts. Roberts argument could be easily picked a part with a few thought experiments or even real life situations.

@patmat. 3 года назад

@@anthonycraig274 I was referring to his brain swapping story to show/explain to the viewer that your identity is more ingrained in your brain than your other organs, like your feet I guess?

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

@@patmat. Oh, OK. Now I understand.

@letsamaya8521 3 года назад

They are memories which makes us what we are as a human or person, without memory past doesn't exist for you.

@rotorblade9508 3 года назад

So it means the identity is not preserved there are iterations based on present and memories

@letsamaya8521 3 года назад

@@rotorblade9508 yes, personality is all about the experiences anybody had during his/her life spawn, you remove the experience and it's gone.

@somethingyousaid5059 3 года назад

I would never have wanted to know myself under these conditions. I could never have been accepting of an identity that was forced on me. It's the perfect victimization of a helpless being, that's all.

@jamescook5064 2 года назад

Great series of interviews on ‘self’

@quantumkath 2 года назад

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, you're funny!

@williamburts5495 3 года назад

Consciousness represents or subjective reality and our body and the external world that our senses perceive represent our objective reality is something that never changes. Without this difference between the subjective and objective our understanding of what is subjective and objective would never be understood so consciousness always maintains it's positions of being " that which makes understanding of reality possible " thus it is an ever constant and since it is our subjective reality that represents our personhood your personality persist through time because there is a difference between the subjective and the objective that can never become interchangeable.

@ramsnation196 2 года назад

🤣😂😂😂

@gwenelbro3719 2 года назад

There isn't a personal identity. There is only Consciousness. I am not in the world, the world is in me.

@rovosher8708 2 года назад

It appears that the immediate conclusion would be that the identity, whether due to a soul or brain is unique

@rogeriopenna9014 2 года назад

What if we could duplicate someone, down to it's memories. Not just a clone (that would be like a twin brother).

@Traderhood 3 года назад

How can he take a unverifiable thought experiment and claim what the result of that experiment would be.

@stuartsteinberg4295 2 года назад

In this video you and Stephen Law are offering reasons from your intellect to detemine what the "self" is. How do you know that "reason" can determine an accurate description of reality in the world? If you say well reason can determine that. Then that is circular reasoning. The only way we can be assured reason can accurately describe reality is from something outside of reason which we trust. Something that transcends "reason". That something would be God and more specifically revelation of God to man. For me it would be Mt. Sinai. That is why Revelation is necessary to assure us that our reason can accurately describe reality. Rabbi Stuart Steinberg

@soubhikmukherjee6871 3 года назад

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth- AH.

@mediocrates3416 3 года назад

And you would follow them.

@soubhikmukherjee6871 3 года назад

@@mediocrates3416 not really. You can learn a great deal from other people's terrible mistakes.

@mediocrates3416 3 года назад

@@soubhikmukherjee6871 But, you wouldn't know they're mistakes cuz no *famous person* would tell you.

@solonkazos1379 3 года назад

their guessing

@caseydahl1952 2 года назад

okay I want to see this guy play table tennis

@MrSanford65 3 года назад

I think the answer is simple. What makes persistently you is the awareness of where you end and something else begins. And in fact it’s not the flesh and blood or the brain that Is the horizon of who you are, its the extension of your awareness and thoughts that end were you end ; and after that where something else begins

@soubhikmukherjee6871 3 года назад

It is not truth that matters, but victory- AH.

@Traderhood 3 года назад

How is this related to the subject?

@anthonycraig274 3 года назад

@@Traderhood He couldn’t google a quote for this subject matter.

@gk-qf9hv 2 года назад

Putting words into the mouth of Law, since he himself had nothing constructive to say

@CMVMic 3 года назад

Is it possible to implant brains in other bodies and be conscious with the same memory in another body? Seems like an assumption

@verenia1098 3 года назад

Perhaps our personal identity is spiritual in origin and our material identity is only temporary. God our creator is a self existent being who is one in His being with many beautiful attributes; so God would create His sons and daughters as only one in being without another copy of ourselves anywhere else. Conjoined persons in one body will have their own individual identity when they ascend into the heavenly state of being in the end times described by St John in Revelation bible scriptures.

@joshuaadamstithakayoutubel2490 3 года назад

Love it

@AlvaroALorite 3 года назад

I'm in love with this channel, I've been since I found out about it 2 years ago.

@AlvaroALorite 3 года назад

@Ryan S the most accurate answer to that is: I was a similar person in some aspects.

@brydonjesse 3 года назад

No people with amnesia go back to center without baggage and suffering of the life one lives. Odd disorder

@BritishBeachcomber 3 года назад

Simple answer... The person does not persist through time. I know, for a fact, that I am not the same person that I was 40, 30, 20 years ago. I'm not even the same person I was last year.

@jacowboy 2 года назад

Well this one is a total bust... so first of all, the question in the title is never answered. And then, the guest seems to be woefully unprepared for the discussion. Case in point: His brain transplant experiment... his conclusion seems to be that the body is not all that important, but here's the thing... While your identity is indeed a non-physical thing within the brain, the body still plays a HUGE part in shaping that identity: quick example, an ugly fat kid might get bullied, that might shape his identity, therefore his physical body IS part of his identity in a very intrinsic manner... dismissing the body completely seems reductive and simplistic. The other mistep comes with the thought experiment about someone completely losing their memory, because if that happened, if you had a complete and total loss of memory, then it would be like dying without dying, because the person you used to be no longer exists. And yes, you have the same body and perhaps some of the same tendencies which could result in developping a similar identity to the previous one, but it wouldn't be the same you, it would just be a shadow of your former self... at best. If you ask me, identity is a matter of duality (like everything else in existance, it would seem) between your body and your mind... or at least, your body plays a big part in shaping your self-image, and therefore your identity... Sure, you could live on in a new body, but that body would also entail new changes that would also shape your mind. So in my opinion, no, you can't be the original you unless you have both your own identity and your own body, in a strict way, but much like our bodies change with time, you could continue changing with another body... but still, that original body will have been very much essential to who you are, no matter what and the moment you lose it, you can no longer be whoever you used to be. All that aside, I would've been really interested in learning about the mechanics of identity permanence within the brain, so I dunno, maybe try again with someone more apt to discuss the topic? =/

@joeyburrell3207 Год назад

Maybe that elderly man who visited his wife with dementia, is just simply remembering who she was,but is no longer at that point of her illness. 😳

@lionsforliberty5419 7 месяцев назад

Nothing new here. Refer to "id" and "ego". Freud examined this decades ago (id and ego), Shakespeare centuries ago (to be or not to be), and the great Greek philosophers. When you remove anything transcendent such as soul and spirit, you must tie yourself into knots trying to make sense of it, and will likely wind up with depression and / or anxiety. They touch on this at 6:25, but Dr. Law can only create a strawman argument. He seems determined to start with a particular conclusion, and then work his way backward to the premise. Predictably, just like a good atheist philosopher.

@holgerjrgensen2166 3 года назад

No, It is the other way around, 'Time', is 'the Tail', of the personal identity, We cant travel in time, time is the result of the travel.

@dreyestud123 2 года назад

The argument for the soul is ridiculous. Kuhn quickly goes to the supernatural. There is so much unknown about brain science it seems silly he oversimplifies the arguments to memories or souls.