Questions tagged [identity]
The identity tag has no usage guidance.
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Why am I this particular human being?
Some philosophers dismiss this as a question about a tautology: when Alice asks "Why am I Alice?", this is equivalent to her asking "Why is Alice Alice?", which is not an interesting question. But ...
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How can a stream of thoughts and perceptions have freewill?
William James believed that there was no central entity or ego that embodied the "I" in "I feel" or "I think". That the continuous stream of thoughts and sensations generated the illusion of their ...
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When and why do we say that two things are the same?
In a preceeding question I have asked about the foundations of rational reasonning. It seems the concept of identity plays a key role. However "identity" is not observed in the real world: our mind ...
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Why should we care about personal identity?
I just read a book about personal identity and it gave me insights in different theories about personal identity. But after all, I still don't get, why we should care about personal identity.
Being ...
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If I upload my brain into a computer is it still me?
I think the answer is yes but I know a lot of people disagree. So, I would like to ask these people when exactly does it stop being me.
Let's say I want to upload my brain into a computer using the ...
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Does personal identity/"the self" persist through periods of unconsciousness, such as dreamless sleep?
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
I read the above comic, something which turned out to be a mistake because I have just enough understanding of physics, and philosophy to follow its line of ...
user48033
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Almost Sure Mind Transfer via Parfit's Identity Theory (interesting thought experiment)
Under Derek Parfit's theory of identity, we should direct our concern to future selves not because they are identical to us, but because they bear some special relation to our current self. He used ...
user4634
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Can the copy or clone of something be a different, separate and independent entity?
People claim clones and copies are extensions. For instance, they claim that when a cell divides, the "daughter" cells are the "parent" cell; that if something happens to the "...
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How is identity defined in the law of identity A = A?
How is identity defined in the law of identity A = A?
Is identity the values and properties we assign to the object, or is it a circular definition where A is itself, or is it like a unique Id ...
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How can one differentiate nonexistent entities?
How is it possible for things that do not exist to not be the same? How can one differentiate nonexistent entities? How can I know the difference between ghosts and werewolves if neither exist?
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What is the status of the statement: "I am here now"?
The statement "I am here now" seems to have many peculiar properties that I am not sure how to express. It appears analytically and equally true for any speaker anywhere at anytime. Yet its truth is ...
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What are the philosophical solutions to "ship of Theseus" problem of identity?
Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment in which every piece of a ship kept in a harbor is replaced one at a time. The questions are: would the end result be the same ship or a new ship? If it is not ...
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Identity in Quantified Modal Logic
Why is ¬(◇(a=b)∧◇¬(a=b)) a validity in Quantified Modal Logic (QML)? For example, let a:=“the present King of France” and b:=“the richest bald person alive”. Then, it seems ◇(a=b)∧◇¬(a=b) is not a ...
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Can a person's continuity of consciousness be broken and a new person arise?
I realize that the person I am as I type these letters and the person I am at the end of this sentence is slightly different. Change occurs all the time and infact change within my brain is the reason ...
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What's the difference between cloning and metabolism in terms of affecting personal identity?
Suppose I'm cloned when I am alive. Provided there is a technology that can copy ALL my mental states into the clone, such as memories, values, beliefs and the like. No more, no less. Also there is ...
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What determines a person's gender identity?
I've noticed that when many transgender allies and even some transgender people themselves have their claims investigated that they, in my estimation, can never really answer them too adequately: one ...
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The necessity of shine in Hegel's Logic
In the Doctrine of Essence Hegel begins with shine [schein] as
"all that remains of the sphere of being" (WL, p.342).
He further qualifies it as a
"nothingness or a lack of essence......
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Conundrum of the self?
I've been thinking about this topic in relation to artificial consciousness. Specifically self-awareness.
(I can define terms precisely if requested, but usually prefer to be as general as possible:)...
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What areas within philosophy look at continuity of personality and self-hood?
I'm sure these kinds of questions fall within some fairly central fields of philosophy: what makes "me now" and "me 10 seconds, months, or decades ago", the same person? In what sense are these "the ...
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Is steam necessarily ice?
This question arose from the discussion of my recent question, [When is the first appearance of Phosphorus after March 21, 2021?][1] One of the other arguments in Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' is ...
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When is the first appearance of Phosphorus after March 21, 2021?
Saul Kripke's argument, in his seminal 'Naming and Necessity', that Hesperus (the Evening Star) is necessarily Phosphorus (the Morning Star), has become one of the canonical examples of a posteriori ...
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Use-mention distinction
Is it 1+1 or “1+1” that is a formula of addition?
To my intuition, it is the former, and the latter seems to be a name of the formula. The reason why I ask this question is that provided my intuition ...
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