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I’m going to place my philosophical naïvety and ignorance on the line. You may or may not be aware (depending on whether you know me / have any interest in me / are psychic) that I am a philosophy graduate of the University of London. There I gained a graduate level understanding of Philosophy of Mind; Metaphysics; Logic and Phenomenology, amongst various other modules. It is however from those four modules in particular that I will be drawing my motivation and justification in this article. It’s been over a year since I finished my study, and I must confess to having a rather poor memory. I’m also lazy – and so I’m not going to go wildly out of my way to fully reference things herein (would you really be checking anyway?). But I miss philosophy. I was good damn it! I could’ve been the best! So I’m going to bore you with some. With that proviso, here I go.
There has been some talk recently (and throughout the last few decades) of downloading a human mind onto a computer chip, and thereby gaining the ability to exist continuously in a mechanical rather than biological casing. Similarly, there are suggestions that; in the not too distant future; parts of the human brain (and body) might be replaced by mechanically engineered substitutes that would function as well as (or better) than their biological counterparts[1]. If this is a plausible possibility (which it appears scientists consider it to be) then, in theory at least, one could gradually – piece by piece – replace the entirety of their brain and body with mechanical substitutes and, so the idea goes, come out the other end as the same person – composed entirely of technologically generated components.
Now, as far as my basic experience in the relevant philosophical fields inform me, most modern philosophers and scientists have no particular philosophical concern here. Whether eliminativist; reductionist; property dualist or whatever – more or less nobody now questions the idea that (in some sense) the mind is the brain. In other words – there is no separate substance that is ‘mind’, as opposed to the substance that is ‘brain’. Déscartes was wrong. This is not a notion that I object to in any way; on the contrary I fully support it. It is also a fact that, gradually, all of our biological material is naturally replaced so that eventually our bodies are made up of entirely different atoms from those that they were earlier composed of.[2] So far, so excellent. The amalgamation of these two ideas is that, over however long a period, the matter which composes your brain – and as such: your mind – will eventually have been completely replaced by new biological material at a later date. This is reality – the only way this could not be the case were if either (1): biological matter remained consistent from birth to death; or (2): the mind were composed of different substance to the brain. Both (1) and (2) are extremely unlikely, if not patently false, and thus we must at least accept the inevitable fact that, for any one person, their ‘one’ brain is made up of entirely different matter at distinct points throughout their life.
The question faced by people like me is this: if nature is already automatically replacing my biological matter with new biological material – if over an extended period, nature gives me a ‘new’ brain, in terms of it’s material make-up – what possible objection can there be to us humans doing precisely the same thing, only replacing the old biological matter with synthetic material instead?[3] Granted – the human replacement process would be a lot quicker; and probably in larger quantities on any single occasion, than the natural process – but surely in principle, they’re one and the same. I find it very difficult to answer this objection; probably because it’s unanswerable – the two practices are theoretically equal. If different feelings are elicited from one rather than the other, they are probably due only to the relative conspicuousness of a speedy human replacement operation as opposed to the years-long flow of change in natural recycling, and a natural fear of the unknown.
What does all this entail? That a person – a mind – is reducible to it’s thoughts; feelings; and beliefs: it’s mental states in the philosophical jargon. It doesn’t matter whether those mental states are actualised in a biological brain, on a computer, or in some combination of the two. All that’s necessary for something to rightly be described as ‘me’ is for that thing to be realising my mental state-set – that’s why, so the idea goes, you can download ‘me’ (my mental state-set / mind) onto a computer and thereby grant me immortality as a machine. Is this idea objectionable? Is there more to a mind than its mental states? Intuitively I feel there is – and perhaps some of the objections I’m going to raise later on imply so – but far cleverer men (and presumably women, I just don’t know any in particular) than I have said not. David Hume, the great Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, tried to find something to the mind once all the thoughts; beliefs; ideas and so on were stripped away – and found nothing.
What’s my problem then? I accept that the mind is of identical substance to the brain; and that our biological material is always being recycled; and I can’t put my finger on an alternative definition to mind minus any mental states. What the hell am I objecting to?! First of all – easy! We’re just having a nice little debate here, Mister (Misses / Doctor / Sir… / Your Majesty). I have no particular argument or proper objection per se. Rather, there are a number of thought experiments that trouble me (and a sneaking suspicion that there is an obvious answer to all this, that might not have occurred to enthusiasts lacking philosophical knowledge). The key problem I have concerns what this entails for identity. Isn’t this all rather reminiscent of the Ship of Theseus paradox?[4] If you replace bits of a brain, piece-by-piece, until it’s of an entirely new substance – can it rightly be described as the same brain? Of course, we’ve already briefly covered a positive answer to this question – that so long as the brain continues to realise (some degree of) the mental state-set – it retains its identity. I suppose in this sense, there is a difference between a brain replaced piece-by-piece, and a ship recycled in the same way: the identity of the brain is in the mind that ‘comes off’ of it; while the identity of the ship is nothing more than it’s basic physical properties – it has no corresponding mental properties.[5] But – as with Theseus’s Ship – what would we have to say if we were somehow able to collect and reconstruct all that old biological matter that once made up your brain, thereby recreating it anew and reawakening its realisation of your mental state-set? Which would be ‘you’? Both? If so, had your old brain not been reconstructed, would its instance of ‘you’ have been dead? Do we all have a trail of deaths behind (the current) us? This point is better demonstrated with reference to technological advancements. Suppose we take a possible world (A) in which, over twenty years, your brain and body is replaced by synthetic, but equivalent, parts. As this gradual replacement occurs, we dispose of each discarded biological component that has been replaced, which then rots away back into the earth. By the end of the twenty-year period you feel and think the exact same way you would have done had none of these technological alterations been made – but you are now entirely synthetic.[6] Now consider possible world (B): where instead of actually putting these synthetic components in you, the scientist merely stockpiles them. Then on December 31st, nineteen years later, he puts them all together (as well as upgrading their ‘software’ with your current mental state-set). Thus, the scientist constructs something exactly identical – Leibniz’s law identical – to the ‘you’ of possible world (A). The only difference is that, in possible world (B), the biological ‘you’ is still alive and well. Our instinct is that the synthetic ‘you’ of possible world (A) is really you – all the scientist has done is replicate nature’s normal behaviour. Indeed – if he hadn’t replaced your parts with synthetic components, we know that they would have naturally been replaced with ‘new’ biological ones anyway. But what about the synthetic ‘you’ of possible world (B)? Here, on the contrary, our instinct sides with the biological ‘you’ as the genuine ‘you’ (stay with me). The synthetic ‘you’ seems an impostor – a clone at best – and yet he’s logically identical to the ‘you’ of possible world (A)! So what do we say? Are there now (in (B)) two ‘you’s? Some philosophers suggest things like physical continuity in cases like this so –while there was a continuity between the old biological, and the new synthetic ‘you’ of (A), while not in (B) – that justifies our intuitive distinction, but frankly that just sounds like arbitrary nonsense to me.
With a few alterations, this thought experiment applies in multiple different cases. For instance, consider the well-known idea of a ‘matter’ transporter – as in ‘The Fly’.[7] Here we have the idea of a machine which breaks down a material body, and then transmits information for it to be constructed in a separate second machine, thus allowing the body to seemingly move almost instantly from one location to another. The idea of such transporters, far from being confined to science fiction and thought-experiments, are now seriously considered,[8] and yet surely they entail the same identity problems we suffered with the previous example. Take one possible world (C) where a transporter is used normally, and thus a young man – Brian – is materially deconstructed in London and has his constructive information relayed to New York where a second transporter reconstructs ‘him’ in a flash. When ‘Brian’ steps out of the routinely used transporter in New York, he goes to work; has a normal day; then heads back at 7:00pm to be zapped back to London. Now, consider possible world (D), where the transporter in London scans and reads Brian’s constructive information but malfunctions and doesn’t materially deconstruct him.[9] Thus, information is relayed to New York, and the second transporter duly constructs ‘Brian’s’ body; however the Brian that stepped into the transporter in London is still there, wondering what’s going on. Again, as with the synthetic ‘you’s’ of (A) and (B), the New York Brians of (C) and (D) are identical – but one seems to be Brian, while the other seems not. Why?
The simple answer is that our notion of identity is a mess. One assumes identity is obvious – I am the ‘me’ of ten minutes ago; and of yesterday; and of last year; and of ten years ago – and yet what makes it so? Bodily continuity? Consistency of mental states? Causal connection? Something else entirely? Some of these can be ruled out from the offset, others seem arbitrary and wide of the mark. The reality is probably that identity is something of an illusion, and the best we can hope for is a practical definition which externally applies in most cases, and helps us adjudicate in ethical cases. Really – there’s not much making the ‘me’ of five years ago the ‘me’ of today. But is that right? Is there really nothing more fundamental than thoughts; ideas and impulses? Is there not a consistent experiencer, to which those mental states are applied – but that isn’t reducible to them? In some important way, a synthetic clone of me – whether the old me is around or not – just doesn’t seem like ‘me’, even with all the same mental states in place. For that vague reason I just can’t buy into the notion of an eternal existence as a machine, nor a Star Trek style teleporter. I can’t tell you precisely what’s wrong with the thinking behind them – but something tells me there is. That’s the best I can give you at this point. Want a proper explanation? Send me money for a PhD.
[1] For a very interesting discussion of this idea, by a proper scientist – Michio Kaku – not a sub-PhD blogger, see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0087fn6/Visions_of_the_Future_The_Intelligence_Revolution
[2] The common idea is that this takes seven years, although it’s not clear where this originates. However, irrespective of the amount of time taken – it is certainly the case that the matter which made up the ten year old ‘you’ will not be identical to that making up the eighty year old ‘you’. For more discussion, see here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_human_body_regenerate_every_7_years
[3] Note here I’m not talking about any ethical objection (if there are any). I’m referring to any theoretical objection – is there any relevant difference in the situation stated?
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
[5] I realise I’ve implied a simplified conclusion to the aforementioned paradox, but it makes a relevant point in contrasting with the brain case that I’m focusing on.
[6] To eliminate changes to your mental state-set that might have come about as a result of your technological replacement operations, let’s imagine that they all occurred completely out of your knowledge – while you were sleeping. So, twenty years later, you have no idea that your body is entirely synthetic – you still believe yourself to be a completely normal, biological, being.
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_%281986_film%29
[8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/breakthrough-brings-star-trek-teleport-a-step-closer-451673.html
[9] Remember, the idea of these machines is that they relay the information of how to arrange matter in the form of the object they’re sending – they don’t send the matter itself.
This isn’t an important post, at least not in the same sense that I intend some of my other posts to be. Rather, these are just some brief frustrations that I have with the modern way some people act – at least in this country – that I find abhorrent, and that I feel we’d be better off without. Actually, it IS important. Politeness and decorum are much underestimated things nowadays, and people seem to fallaciously reason that just because an excess of these things are bad, so must be the entire institution. Well that’s false – it’s politeness that upholds and retains civility in consciousness, and our abandonment of it may play a larger part in the supposed ‘breakdown of society’ than we imagine. So here they are: stop doing the following.
Licking plates.
My God. I’m happy to say that, as far as I know (or hope), most people are in agreement with me on this one: that the practice of licking your plate after finishing eating is gross. Nevertheless, there are certainly people who do it, and these people need to be stopped – right now. How can anyone possibly think this is acceptable? You’re running your tongue over a dish – which will be used again – by other people… I don’t care if it’s going to be washed; there’s no solvent powerful enough to wash away the memory I now have of your filthy tongue smearing itself across a once pure piece of porcelain, defiling it as you go. Nor do I care if I’m being completely hypocritical in accepting your slobbering over the cutlery which will likewise be put to use again – you can do that discreetly, there’s no way to discreetly salivate over a plate. Just stop it you uncivilised git! (Dogs licking plates is ok though, I don’t know why but it is.)
Not moving aside when someone walks passed you.
Now this is a phenomenon predominant among young men of a lower social class background. There seems to be a prevailing attitude among some of these people that the more boorish; the less courteous; and the lesser your control over your clothing and physical body (think loose trousers; swinging arms; shuffling steps; and slouched heads), the more ‘manly’ you are. I’ve written about this attitude before in my post about the concept of alpha males, but the aspect of specific importance here is the notion that the more of a tosspot you are to others (usually other males) – the more ‘dominant’ a male you are yourself. Obviously, this is nonsense. The reason I step to the side when passing you, boorish youth, on a narrow street isn’t because I defer to you as my intellectual; physical; or social superior – I most certainly don’t. I step to the side because you are walking in the opposite direction to me, and you need to get passed just as I need to get passed you. It’s common courtesy, and I move out of simple recognition that you’re another conscious being whose simple desire to reach your destination is easily accommodated and accepted by me. Actually, scratch that – I’d step aside for an unconscious robot if it passed me on the street – it’s not a god damned issue, and I don’t demonstrate my gender by ploughing into others; thinking that my balls are so big that I’m not required to make a miniscule half-metre detour to let you through. You’re not being a man; you’re just a bloody thug. You’re an idiot.
Not apologising when you gently knock into someone, or when someone else gently knocks into you.
This is something that people of both genders and all social classes are guilty of. I’m not talking about when someone slams into you on their skateboard, knocking you flying – obviously in that case there’s only one person who should be apologising (…the one on the skateboard – for knocking into you and for using a skateboard in the first place). No, I mean when there’s a gentle brush or tap that occurs when in a queue; or standing in a crowded place; or at a busy bar or something. It doesn’t matter whether you inadvertently caused the tap, or whether the other person did, the polite thing – the English thing – to do is to quickly; automatically, say “sorry” to one another (with a polite smile if you can muster it), and then move on. It takes about a fifth of a second to do and leaves both parties feeling content; unscathed; and fully inspired by human dignity (maybe). The correct response isn’t to scowl at the other person as if they’ve intentionally punched your child in the face. Don’t be so petty.
Eating with your mouth open.
Now I think this one ties in to 2’s notion that the more boorish you are – the more manly, or at least the more independent and unconcerned at the judgement of others – you must be. I see this one a lot nowadays among young lads who think themselves tough “men’s men”. There’s not really much further explanation I can give of it as it’s fairly self explanatory. Unless you have some medical condition which renders your mouth too small to masticate with your lips closed – KEEP YOUR LIPS CLOSED. No one wants to see the food in your mouth; no one wants to hear it gradually breakdown into a sludge suitable for sliding down your throat; and no one (aside from other bloody morons) thinks you’re more manly, or carefree, because you haven’t got the decency to move your lower lip and your jaw independently of each other. Honestly, stop it.
Disrespecting the elderly.
Let me be clear here – I’m not talking about the old fashioned idea that young people accept that just because their seniors have been alive longer, necessarily they must have a monopoly on truth which thereby entails all young people must accept older people are right about everything. Often old people are wrong – a lot of them vote Conservative – and it’s certainly a good thing that young people are now capable of respectably disagreeing with them, and moreover, openly doing so. No, what I’m referring to is the basic notion that it’s important to treat old people with a certain extra degree of courtesy; respect; and kindness. I’m being ambiguous. What I mean is that, if you’re one of those rude people who disrespect your peers; who’s selfish and arrogant; who’s a thug – you should at least show a little courtesy to the elderly. At least be ashamed of yourself in front of them if not me. Some might think this is an unjustified and old fashioned attitude, and it probably is, but come on – there’s something nice and; I think; important in the notion of the young treating the old with a degree of reverence, that would be costly to surrender in the damage it might inflict on our traditional, probably even tribal, sentiments of civil hierarchy. I’m not talking about worshiping old people, or giving them any particular power or say purely in virtue of their age. I’m just advocating a basic recognition, in civil terms, that they are our parent generation(s) – and that thereby they’re worthy of the same kind of especially respectful treatment we (hopefully) deliver to our own grandparents. If you have to be a scumbag to someone, delinquents, be a scumbag to me.
Saying: “Are you going X?” rather than “Are you going to X?”
This one really confuses me – and I guarantee every one of you will have come across it (well actually, is it just a southern thing? I don’t know, anyway…). Essentially, this is a place holder for all the lazy grammatical errors that pervade modern speech nowadays. I’m sure the heading is clear enough for you to grasp what I’m talking about here: instead of “are you going to the cinema?” we have “are you going cinema?”, or sometimes just: “you going cinema?” Is this a new more efficient use of the English language, or just lazy slobbery? It’s the latter. If this were to qualify as ‘newspeak’ (to add a touch of Orwellian sophistication to this pointless article), and we were accepting that as a good thing, then we’d also have to qualify: “you go cinema?”; “you: cinema?” and just the word “cinema?” as superior forms of the original question. Or even better, we could just have the ‘Charades’ hand movement for ‘film’ accompanied by a curious look on your face. Where did this come from? I don’t know. Please stop it. Another one, this time from the middle-classes, is the constant misapplication of the word ‘literally’ to sentences that are not literal but exaggerative as in “Oh my God – I was so hungry that I was like literally starving to death!”. As this has rendered the word ‘literally’ meaningless, people now feel the need to add the word ‘actually’ when they do actually mean something literally as in: “No seriously – I was actually; literally so late that I missed the whole thing!”. However as a result of the new redundancy of the word ‘literally’, those who were originally misusing it can no longer employ it to the same potent effect in their stupid sentences, and so ‘actually, literally’ has become the new ‘literally’: “No seriously! I was ACTUALLY, literally so hungry that I was like, anorexic!” It’s hard to see where this will end.
That’s it for now. Of course there are countless more, but I feel I’ve provided enough of an insight into my misanthropic psyche for the time being. Don’t harm one another; and do unto others as they would do unto you (unless you’re a masochist; or a Tory).
I’ve recently started a new job in Cambridge, which, until I get myself some accommodation in that fair city requires me to take a long train journey through the villages and rural countryside that lies between London and Cambridge. This has allowed me to rediscover an insight which has come to me a number of times, and that is how truly pleasant the English countryside is.
Beautiful is not the right word for it. There are many beautiful parts of the world but England’s countryside is not amongst them (in the sense that I’m using the term at least). Neither is it incredible or awe-inspiring. Likewise, there are many examples befitting these descriptions – great mountain ranges; impossibly dense jungles; endless deserts and stunning vistas – but not England’s countryside. So why do I love it?
The hymn ‘Jerusalem’ has it right with its description of a ‘green and pleasant land’. England’s countryside is neither loud nor stridently obtuse. It is pleasant; it’s pretty; quiet; unimposing; comforting; but with a sense of dignity and underlying stir. It’s composed of fields; little hills; meadows; small woodlands – none of which are worth writing home about, but that in totality somehow rouse me to great affection for our country. It inspired the Shire in Tolkien’s master work; many paintings by a number of great British artists; musical scores; the Hovis adverts; and perhaps the English spirit itself.
I’ve read of a theory on why the Japanese have such a fondness for small and compact things despite the seeming lack of any necessity for such a bias, at least outside Tokyo. According to this theory, the fondness is rooted in the mountainous geography of Japan, which required settlements to be squeezed in to the bordering, suitably habitable, areas. Since room was limited, opting for the small and efficient was preferable if not outright essential. Now that settlements are not so bound by geographical features, and that room need not be so carefully monitored, the Japanese retain their love of the compact – the minimal – as part of their cultural identity. Could the same idea be applied at all to the English?
Surely it can, to an extent. In a World War II guide for American forces stationed in England that I possess, it states that the English have developed a strong sense of privacy due to the (relative) heavy-crowding of England compared to America. Since everyone is jammed in together, the English quickly learn to respect each other’s privacy if they want such treatment to be reciprocated. This sounds plausible, but could the geographical influence on culture be extended beyond such blatant necessity? There is scientific evidence that implies so – for instance, there’s an undisputed multi-faceted distinction in cultures from a desert environment with those from the rainforest. These geo-cultural comparisons extend to such perverse realities as the fact that societies which don’t use leather tend not to enjoy games of chance, favouring games of strategy* – where’s the blatant necessity there? Could England’s countryside have had (non-blatantly necessary) impacts on England’s culture? In my purely anecdotal; non-scientific; probably rather romanticised view, I think it could. I see a lot of the simplicity and pleasantness of the English countryside in the English character – we’re a polite; kind; somewhat introverted people – hence why the brashness of stereotypical American individualism can appear so vulgar to us. We’re not attention seekers, but neither are we necessarily shrinking violets. We have the same underlying strength that I mentioned earlier in reference to our landscape – the same resolve which provides the famous British grit. We wait in queues for great lengths of time without saying a word not because we enjoy them, but because we are respectful and courteous, and we will bend far further backwards to accommodate if need be. However, this does not come out of weakness, and we are more than willing to straighten up should circumstances require us to do so. I can’t remember precisely where I heard it, but in one quoted section from Winston Churchill he talks of how, if the war were to be the end of our Island story, he would have us go out fighting to the end. The English are brave and strong, even if this only shows when absolutely necessary. It’s as hidden in our souls as it is in our gentle rolling hills – but it’s there.
Perhaps I’m wrong. It may well be so that there exists no causal link between the properties of our countryside, and those of our collective character. However regardless, I admire both, and lament that each now seems very much in decline. With Saruman’s ransacking of the Shire, Tolkien despaired at the industrialisation of England’s fine outdoors. Likewise, our personal nature has experienced a similar degradation with the loss of such quintessentially English character traits as politeness; resolve; conscientiousness; and an aversion towards petty whinging. I hope that neither will be fully eliminated: that over-industrialisation and urban expansion won’t ruin our green pastures; and that selfishness and over-individualism won’t consume our ‘English spirit’. Undoubtedly, our children would live to regret the tragic loss of either.
* ‘Monkey Luv: And Other Lessons In Our Lives As Animals’, Robert M. Sapolsky, Vintage. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Monkeyluv-Other-Lessons-Lives-Animals/dp/0099474557/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1236808499&sr=8-1 – Really an absolutely fascinating book.
Welcome, friend, to damntheirlies’ blog.
First and foremost, allow me to assure you that there are no deep pseudo-Nietzschean sentiments behind my chosen screenname (‘damntheirlies’, stupid). There may well have been when I first started using it – I am ashamed to say that I was, regrettably, one of those pitiful; self-indulgent teenage mopers back in the day (ah, how I miss 2003), but not anymore – now I keep it simply because I’ve gotten used to it. Plus it looks pretty good written down. For anyone who’s interested, it’s drawn from a line in the musical of Les Miserables, sung by Enjolras, the leader of the student uprising at the barricades: “damn their warnings, damn their lies; they will see the people rise!”. Inspiring stuff.
Now to the blog. I don’t know what the future holds here. Perhaps I’ll get addicted – post stunning intellectual commentaries on life at 4am; develop wondrous relationships with adoring followers; gain fame and notoriety through an extended online dispute with 50 cent (I wouldn’t waste my time). On the other hand, this may be the last thing you ever see on here, and if so, I’m sorry (and goodbye).
Anyway, that’s enough meaningless twitter, perhaps I should get on to actually writing something interesting. Let’s go!
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