Lecture
Open individualism (English: open individualism; abbreviated from the open individual view of personal identity) — a viewpoint in philosophy according to which all people are one and the same person. It is assumed that the sense of subjectivity «I am I,» «I exist here and now» is a property of human consciousness that is the same in all people.
The term itself was coined by the philosopher Daniel Kolakruen, although similar ideas have been expressed since the time of the Upanishads, in particular by the well-known philosophers Averroes and Josiah Royce, the writer Leo Tolstoy, and some outstanding physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger, Fred Hoyle, and Freeman Dyson.
The problem of personal identity — a philosophical problem consisting in the fact that a person, at different moments in time, considers himself to be one and the same person, while his body and consciousness are constantly changing. The main competing theories in this area are:
1) The psychological criterion, formulated by John Locke. Locke writes that «as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present action, so far it is the same personal self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its present thoughts and actions that it is self to itself now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past or to come». 2) The biological criterion, defended today above all by Eric Olson. This theory, roughly speaking, holds that we are our bodies, and our memory and personality are merely episodes in the life of these bodies. 3) The narrative criterion, which holds that we are the story told about us by ourselves and by other people. Supporters of this theory are D. Dennett, P. Ricœur, and Dmitry Volkov. 4) D. Parfit's theory, which denies the importance of personal identity, replacing it with the concept of «survival.»
According to the definition of Professor G. I. Chelpanov, «by the identity of a person I mean the circumstance that I identify my present „I“ with the „I“ that I had many years ago. Between them there is in reality an enormous difference. Indeed, when I was a child, in using the word „I“ I meant something quite different from what I mean when I now use this word. But it seems to me that my present „I“ is identical with my past „I“» .
One of the difficulties here lies in the fact that a person's body takes part in metabolism, by virtue of which the physical particles composing it are constantly changing. «The fact that we are always made up of the same muscles, bones, nerves, skin, and so on,» writes Professor G. Teichmüller, »is merely an appearance; it is only the similarity of form that does not disappear, while the substances themselves are in constant flux» . In the 19th century, scientists calculated that the entire physical composition of the human body changes over a period of 5 to 7 years, so that by the end of this period literally not a single atom remains in us from those present at the beginning . We are thus never identical in terms of the substance of which we are composed .
The essence of the sense of oneself as a person is not fully captured by any of the existing theories. In answering the question of personal identification, contemporary philosophers increasingly resort to the theory of relativism, or to the assertion of linguistic indeterminacy .
To explain open individualism, the simplest way is to compare it with reincarnation, since the idea of reincarnation is widely known.
Reincarnation presupposes that, under certain conditions (the transmigration of the soul, and so on), several people can be one and the same person (the perceiving subject) if these people live at different times. Open individualism asserts that all people, including people living at the same time, are one person. In this sense, open individualism can be called «multiple incarnation.» The philosopher Joe Kern also calls open individualism «materialist reincarnation.»
But open individualism does not belong to the mystical teachings about the soul; rather, it treats the sense of subjectivity «I exist here and now» as a property or function of the human body, above all of the brain. At the same time, unlike the traditional view («closed individualism»), this property is the same in all people.
Also for comparison: there are many copies of the book with the story «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.» Despite the large number of material carriers, the story «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn» is only one and the same in all of these books. In the same way, personhood is only one, even though there are many material carriers of this personhood.
It is necessary to explain additionally what is meant by «personhood» in this article, since this is an ambiguous word.
Daniel Kolak refers to the definition given by the philosopher Derek Parfitruen in his book «Reasons and Persons»ruen:
«… to be a person, a being must be self-conscious, aware of its identity and continued existence over time».
Parfit, in his lengthy book, nowhere else explained what self-consciousness (or even consciousness) is. Nor did he explain what awareness of one's identity consists in. And it is even less clear what awareness of continued existence over time consists in, and whether such awareness exists at all (and whether it is real, if it does).
Nevertheless, it is obvious that Daniel Kolak is a person, while, for example, a rock or a piece of paper is not. Of course, there may be more complex cases here, if we consider, for example, a not-fully-developed human being, a dolphin, or an advanced artificial intelligence. But for the purposes of understanding this article, ordinary cases suffice.
The philosopher Daniel Kolak distinguishes three views on personhood: closed individualism, empty individualism, and open individualism.[10]
Closed individualism is the ordinary and most widespread view. According to closed individualism, there exist many numerically distinct persons, many different «I»s, with each person existing continuously throughout the person's life.
Empty individualism, in its extreme form, asserts that no «I» exists at all – this is an illusion. Only the specific person, his body and brain, exist. In another form of empty individualism, an «I» exists, but only for a short time (for example, for an hour or a longer period), after which the person's body creates another «I.» Therefore, for example, a person at the age of 10 and the same person at the age of 50 are different persons, with different «I»s.
Well-known representatives of empty individualism: Buddha, David Hume, Daniel Dennett, Robert Nozick, Derek Parfitruen, Sydney Shoemakerruen, and Peter Ungerruen.
In particular, Daniel Dennett holds that there is no single controlling instance (subject) in consciousness, and that its whole operation represents a system of spontaneously self-organizing processes. Dennett considers the claim that an «I» exists to be one of the main philosophical myths that has taken root in philosophy since the time of Descartes.[11]
According to Daniel Kolak:[12]
Daniel Kolak offers various arguments and thought experiments to substantiate the possibility of open individualism. As an example, one can cite the thought experiment «Physics Exam,» a brief summary of which follows.[13]
Suppose I belong to that small number of people whose right and left brain hemispheres are equally well developed. Therefore I can write with both my left and my right hand. Scientists have equipped me with a device that makes it possible to block communication and the transfer of information between the hemispheres of my brain, and also to stop such blocking. The device is switched on and off by pressing a button. I am sitting in front of a problem on a physics exam and I see 2 possible methods of calculation for solving this problem. I decide that my left hand will solve the problem by the 1st method, and my right hand by the 2nd method, and I switch on the device. In the «right-handed» stream of consciousness (that is, I control the movements of my right hand, but not my left), I recall that I am supposed to solve the problem by the 2nd method, and I begin making the calculations. I notice that my left hand is also writing something, but I do not feel this hand and do not know exactly what it is writing. I can only look at what my left hand is writing, exactly as I would look at what my neighbor at another desk is writing.
My «left-handed» stream of consciousness has the same experience.
Suppose the 2nd method of solving the problem turns out to be unsuccessful, and the 1st – successful. In this case the «left-handed» stream of consciousness experiences pleasure at having solved the problem successfully, while the «right-handed» stream of consciousness is upset.
Then I switch off the device, and unexpectedly I recall that I performed the calculations by both methods at once. But were there two persons, two «I»s, present during the exam? Such a position would seem extremely strange, and one could assert that during the exam only one person, only one «I,» was present, but with a divided consciousness.
This thought experiment shows that within a single person there can be sharply defined boundaries (the hemispheres of the brain are not only located in different places in space and composed of different matter, but also have different sensory experience, thoughts, feelings, information, and control over different parts of the body, and so on), yet we still do not assert that there are therefore two persons because of this. In other words, these boundaries are intra-personal rather than inter-personal. Accordingly, the question arises of how metaphysically significant the boundaries that exist between two people are: whether these are boundaries between two persons or boundaries within a single person.
Daniel Kolak offers the following thought experiment, the author of which is S. Shoemakerruen.[14]
Let us imagine a society in which, owing to an increase in a certain kind of radiation, the human body can remain healthy for no more than a few years. Being very technologically advanced, this society has devised the following procedure for solving this problem. For each person, several duplicates of him are created, obtained from his cells by cloning and accelerated growth. These duplicates are kept in an unconscious state in a storage facility protected from radiation. Periodically, a person goes to the hospital for a «body change.» This involves a procedure for transferring the state of the person's brain into the brain of one of the duplicates. That is, the information containing all the memory, psychology, and so forth is transferred into the duplicate's brain. At the end of the procedure, the original body is burned.
At the same time, everyone in this society believes that the procedure preserves the person, and they treat the procedure as a routine operation. One can, for example, hear such words as: «I cannot have lunch with you on Tuesday, since the body-change procedure is scheduled for that day; let us have lunch on Wednesday instead.» All social practices are preserved for the duplicate: he owns the same property, has the same rights and obligations, is married to the same spouse; if before the procedure the person committed a crime, the duplicate will bear responsibility for it, and so on.
One could say that in such a society it is believed that one and the same person can be two numerically distinct human beings if they exist at different times. Are these people mistaken? If they are mistaken, it is not clear exactly what their mistake consists in.
Let us continue the thought experiment: suppose that in the course of the procedure, the transfer of the brain state occurred by mistake into two duplicates at once. It turns out that one person can be two numerically distinct human beings that exist simultaneously. But if this is possible, then only one step remains to open individualism, or, at the very least, open individualism does not appear obviously mistaken.
A. Zuboffruen (who proposed an idea analogous to open individualism, which he calls «universalism»[15][16]) and J. Kern put forward logical arguments against closed individualism that resemble reasoning about the sorites paradox (the paradox of the heap).[17][18]
Let us take a certain person and make a copy of him. Then let us take a small part of the person's body and the same part of the body of his copy, perform an operation, and swap them.
Will the person's «I» be preserved after such an operation? The obvious answer is that it will. It is unlikely that the replacement of a small piece of the body (even if it is a piece of the brain) would lead to the destruction of the person's «I.»
Let us replace a 2nd small part of the person's body in the same way. Obviously, the «I» should be preserved here too. Let us continue replacing, until we have replaced the person's entire body with his copy. It would be strange to assert that at some moment a «critical mass» of such replacements accumulates. We obtain that the copy has the same «I» as the person.
The sorites paradox is explained by the fact that the concept of a «heap» has a vague extension, such that of a certain collection of grains one cannot say definitely whether it is a heap or not. However, with regard to a person's «I,» there should be no such intermediate situations. A person cannot be partly «I» and partly «not-I.»
The philosopher Derek Parfitruen proposes the following thought experiment, which he called the «Combined Spectrum» (information taken from Kolak's work[19]).
At one end of the Spectrum is Derek Parfit, and at the other — the actress Greta Garbo. Between them lies a whole series of cases, starting with Derek Parfit, in whom one cell of the body or brain has been replaced with the corresponding cell of Greta Garbo, then 2 cells replaced, then 3, …, 1% of the cells, …, 50% of the cells, …, 99% of the cells, and so on up to 100% of the cells of Greta Garbo.
Derek Parfit asserts that with regard to the Spectrum we must accept one of three mutually exclusive conclusions:
1) Derek Parfit continues to exist throughout the entire Spectrum;
2) Derek Parfit ceases to exist at a certain point on the Spectrum and Greta Garbo begins to exist;
3) Derek Parfit exists at one end of the Spectrum, Greta Garbo — at the other, and in the central region of the Spectrum the question of whether it is Derek Parfit or Greta Garbo is an empty question.
Here, by empty questions Derek Parfit means questions that have no answer. We may decide to give answers to these questions, but any possible answer will be arbitrary.
Derek Parfit believes that the correct choice is conclusion (3). He acknowledges that (3) is extremely hard to believe, but that (1) and (2) are even harder to believe.
A. Zuboff proposed the following thought experiment[20]. S. E. Kultin arrives at similar conclusions[21].
A certain game takes place in an incredibly large hotel. At the start of the game, in each of the countless rooms of the hotel one drugged person sleeps. The organizer of the game flips a «fair coin»ruen[Comm. 1] 75 times for each sleeper. If some predetermined sequence of heads and tails comes up, the person wakes. If not — they continue to sleep forever.[Comm. 2]
Now imagine that you wake up in one of these rooms and are told the rules of the game. You ought to consider yourself incredibly lucky. But suppose that another visitor then comes to you and tells you that the first account was mistaken. In fact, everyone is woken regardless of how the coin landed. Suppose you need to choose between the two theories you have been offered. If the opinion of the second visitor is just as authoritative to you as that of the first, then it is obvious that the second theory is almost certainly the correct one.
A similar line of reasoning can be applied to the supposedly incredible luck associated with our birth (but not with the birth of another person — there is no luck involved there). This view is widely held; for example, Richard Dawkins, in his book «Unweaving the Rainbow», writes: «We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia». For example, for a particular person to be born at conception, the egg must meet one of roughly 200 million sperm cells. The same kind of luck is required for that person's parents to have been born at their own conception. In total, the odds of both a person and their parents being born come to 1 in 8 septillion.
Eternalism is the most popular view in the philosophy of time, in the sense that the majority of philosophers are indeed eternalists.[22] Moreover, many philosophers argue that the theory of relativity implies eternalism.[23]
Eternalism is not required for open individualism to be true, but if eternalism is true (or at least if the growing block universe view is true), then open individualism appears more logical, since no experience of sensory perception disappears, and people who lived in the past are as real as people in the present.
A. Zuboff argues that the fact that the universe, in its fundamental characteristics, corresponds to what is necessary for the development of life is called the «anthropic principle». If the basic features of matter that we see in this universe arose as a result of the physical or mathematical necessity of the very nature of matter, such that things could not have been otherwise anywhere, then such agreement between these characteristics and the requirements for the development of life would have to be nothing other than an astonishingly improbable coincidence. But if, instead, matter were extremely variable, with its basic characteristics changing radically across a countless multitude of different universes, then there would be no coincidence in the fact that a tiny fraction of these diverse physical worlds happened to coincide, in their fundamental characteristics, with what was required for the development of life.[24]
Universalism must be added to the many-worlds hypothesis before it can explain why our particular world is suited to life.[24]
Comments