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Article 7499 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <burt.720811664@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 3 Nov 92 17:27:44 GMT
References: <burt.720426490@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <m94oTB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacj
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>burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:

>> I would say that this persistent sense of identity across
>> multiple states of being, and even across multiple
>> personalities, could be explained easily in terms
>> of an assumed a priori consciousness which has the
>> capacity of intentional identification with structures
>> in an individuals mind.
>> bv


>Just me being annoying again. How do you know there is a persistent
>state of identity? You have no contact with these other states of
>being. You only have historical knowledge, and you would need to make
>all sorts of assumptions about the reliability of that knowledge.
>It may be an inevitable consequence of the wiring in the human brain
>that we falsely perceive continutity of identity in ourselves, when in
>fact no such continuity exists.

>  Wayne McDougall, BCNU

     "Sometimes you go away, but I'm here all the time."
                              from somewhere in R.A. Heinlein,
                              Time Enough for Love

We're talking about two "persistant states of identity" here, Wayne.
You're talking about the one that says: Well, here I am now, and
this is the same I as I remember from ten minutes/two days/three
years/ ten years, etc. ago.  There is, as you point out, no immediate
reason to believe this.
What I'm talking about is the state of identity that says: Here I am
_now_ and whenever _now_ is, I'm here.  That is, I'm not positing
any historical qualities with this identity, simply a sense of
identity qua identity.
When one begins to ask about this kind of "identity" problems arise
because one can't think in terms of "identity as..."  In fact, it seems
to me that this is directly related to the question of consciousness,
for which I've been pushing a via negativa type definition--that
which is beyond all possible distinction.
This is rather radical, but has philosophical roots in Parmenides,
and from a theoretical viewpoint buys alot: one is able to posit
consciousness as a priori and ask what mental structures and
processes are necessary and sufficient for maintaining a structure
of self with which consciousness identifies to yield a self-identity.
This would be the kind of identity that you were talking about.
bv


