Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2026 - September)
(Text as at 15/10/2026 21:53:17)
Rationale for this Project
- I am researching the subject of Personal Identity primarily because of its intrinsic interest and importance. But I think when I’ve sorted it out a bit, and have something to say, I’ll want to engage with other philosophers active in this field and re-starting a PhD at Birkbeck or elsewhere might be the only effective way to do this. While a PhD is not an end in itself, and certainly not the ultimate aim of my doing philosophy, it’s still true that a PhD would teach me research techniques, provide focus and direction, and furnish a professional qualification should I want to publish any results in this or any other area of philosophy.
- The best place to get an overview of my current views is here1.
- My draft Thesis is here2 and the jumping-off point for an alternative rendering, with an ever-expanding set of reading lists is here3, though follow the links from the Chapter Abstracts for the real work. A (currently not very helpful) progress dashboard is here4.
Summary of Progress during July - September 2026
- I spent 195.5 hours in 26Q3 on this Project, or related work (674 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2025). That's 93.7% of the planned effort (80.8% YTD). Overall, 27.5% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 22% YTD) - as against 26.2% planned (25.3% YTD).
- To make way for work on my Bridge and other Projects, I’d retained the time allowance on this project in 26Q3 at the somewhat reduced allocation of 16 hours / week. However, I only achieved around 90% of this time allowance, 80% YTD.
- However, I did make some progress on the consolidated version of my Thesis - Personal Identity5. I have completed the first run-through and intend next to start working this into a Thesis-proper, with the rest of the website as supporting material.
- This quarter I started to focus on the key elements – in particular the Objections to Animalism6.
- I also found various recent works by Eric Olson that I’d not hitherto added to my database.
- I read and annotated "Jansen (Charles) & Markunas (Michael) - Can a Machine be Conscious?", relevant to Transhumanism7.
- I started investigating William Lane Craig and his philosophy of Time8. I’m considering this as a topic for next year’s OBT Conference.
- I discovered "Loose (Jonathan), Menuge (Angus) & Moreland (J.P.) - The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism" (in particular "Loose (Jonathan), Menuge (Angus) & Moreland (J.P.) - Substance Dualism and Its Physicalist Rivals") and "Swinburne (Richard) - Are We Bodies or Souls?" and started looking into Dualism9.
- I’ve been reading "Spinney (Laura) - Proto: A New History of Our Ancient Past" while walking Bertie. While Language10 is relevant to my Thesis, it’s doubtful whether this book is.
- Another dog-walking book is "Chivers (Tom) - Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World", more interesting and more relevant (to Probability11).
- I continued reading "Ramakrishnan (Venki) - Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and Longevity", relevant to Death12.
- I’ve greatly enjoyed reading "Grossman (Vasily) - Life and Fate", rather tangentially relevant to this project via Narrative Identity13.
- I did some tidying-up on the topic of Resurrection14, particularly "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - 1 Corinthians: 15".
- To control the various links within my Thesis, I’ve created and maintained a PID Note Usage15 Page, though this didn’t get a look in this Quarter. However, I intend it to be a major focus in the near future.
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List16.
- A full list of items worked on in the quarter appears below:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 169)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 156.5)
- William Lane Craig (Write, 6 hours)
- Simon J. Prokhovnik (Write, 0.75 hours)
→ See "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Religion" (6.75 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - Changeling" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- AI Copium - Did GPT-6 Just ESCAPE Containment?! (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
→ See "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts" (0.75 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & Thornton (Allison Krile) - The feeling animal" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Big-Tent Metaphysics" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Constitutionalism: Alternative to Substance Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Response to Eric Olson" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Bayne (Tim) - Problems with Unity of Consciousness Arguments for Substance Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Biggar (Nigel) - Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Block (Ned) - Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Chivers (Tom) - Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World" (Read / Write, 7.5 hours)
- "Collings (Evangelian) - Animalism has a pregnancy problem" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Cooper (John W.) - Biblical Anthropology is Holistic and Dualistic" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Why Should a Christian Embrace Materialism (about Human Persons)?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Craig (William Lane) - The Kalam Cosmological Argument" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Craig (William Lane) - The Tensed Theory of Time" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Craig (William Lane) - The Tenseless Theory of Time" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Craig (William Lane) - Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Damasio (Antonio) - Reflections on the Neurobiology of Emotion and Feeling" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deng (Chao) & Colchester (Max) - Nathan Cofnas - The controversial academic who ignited the Jason Arday furor" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - Animalism is Either False of Uninteresting (Perhaps Both)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - Animalists on the run" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Feser (Edward) - Aquinas on the Human Soul" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Bodies and Their Parts" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Maximality, Function, and the Many" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Mental Excess and the Constitution View of Persons" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Psychological Continuity, Fission, And The Non-Branching Constraint" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Surviving death: how to refute termination theses" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Francescotti (Robert) - Who are 'We'? Animalism and conjoined twins" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Goetz (Stewart) - Against Animalism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Green (Joel B.) - The Strange Case of the Vanishing Soul" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Habermas (Gary) - Evidential Near-Death Experiences" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hasker (William) - A Critique of Thomistic Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hasker (William) - The Case for Emergent Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hauser (Christopher) - Persons, Souls, and Life After Death" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hermida (Margarida) - Thought experiments, sentience, and animalism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hudson (Hud) - I am Not an Animal!" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Hyslop (Alec) - Other Minds" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Inman (Ross) - Against Constitutionalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- Investigation into Black Helen of Troy (Write, 0.5 hours)
→ See "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Race" (0.5 hours)
- "Jansen (Charles) - Snowdon on Personal Identity" (Read / Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Jansen (Charles) & Markunas (Michael) - Can a Machine be Conscious?" (Read / Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Johnson (Gregory) - Theories of Emotion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kim (Jaegwon) - Against Cartesian Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kim (Jaegwon) - Emergence: Core Ideas and Issues" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Koons (Robert C.) - Against Emergent Individualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kovacs (David Mark) - Pregnant Thinkers" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kriegel (Uriah) - Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Legin (Louise) - Is Animalism Either False or Uninteresting? Or is it Duncan's Criticism that is Either False or Uninteresting?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Levy (Joseph) - Basic Concepts For A Fundamental Aether Theory" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Levy (Joseph) - Relativity and Aether Theory a Crucial Distinction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Licon (Jimmy Alfonso) - Another Argument for Animalism: The Argument from Causal Powers" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Licon (Jimmy Alfonso) - Properly Functioning Brains and Personal Identity: An Argument for Neural Animalism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Loose (Jonathan), Menuge (Angus) & Moreland (J.P.) - Substance Dualism and Its Physicalist Rivals" (Write, 7.25 hours)
- "Lowe (E.J.) - Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Luzio (Hugo) & Santos (Ricardo) - Animalism and Dicephalus: The Psychological Disunity Solution" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Lycan (William) - Redressing Substance Dualism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Maiese (Michelle) - How Can Emotions Be Both Cognitive and Bodily?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Markosian (Ned) - Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Marsh (Michael N.) - The Phenomenology of Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences: No Heavenly Excursion for 'Soul'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Introduction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Menuge (Angus) - Why Reject Christian Physicalism?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Nichols (Peter) - Substance concepts and personal identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "O'Connor (Timothy) & Jacobs (Jonathan D.) - Emergent individuals" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "O'Connor (Timothy) & Wong (Hong Yu) - The metaphysics of emergence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - For Animalism" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - Lowe's Non-Cartesian Dualism" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - Partial Twinning and the Boundaries of a Person" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - Precis of 'The Human Animal'" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - Radical Resurrection and Divine Commands" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Olson (Eric) - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - The Central Dogma Of Transhumanism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - The Dualist Project and the Remote-Control Objection" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - The Metaphysics of Artificial Intelligence" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - The Metaphysics of Transhumanism" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - The Problem of People and Their Matter" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - There is no such thing as conventionalism about personal identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What is the Problem of Biological Individuality?" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) & Witt (Karsten) - Against Person Essentialism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Osipenko (Alexius A.) - Hylemorphic animalism, brain transplant and 'brains in a vat'" (Write, 9 hours)
- "Ozanne (Charles) - If there is no resurrection of the dead … What then? An exposition of 1 Corinthians 15" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Penny (Sylvia) - The Resurrection Chapter: 1 Corinthians 15" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Prinz (Jesse) - Embodied Emotion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Ramakrishnan (Venki) - Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and Longevity" (Read, 5.25 hours)
- "Rooney (James Dominic) - Hylomorphism and Diachronic Identity: A Thomistic Approach" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Rooney (James Dominic) - Hylomorphism and Persons in Odd Situations" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Rooney (James Dominic) - The Problem of Thomistic Parts" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Sauchelli (Andrea) - Phase Animalism and Artificial Intelligence" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Sharpe (Kevin W.) - Animalism and Person Essentialism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Shewmon (D. Alan) - Brain Death: Can It Be Resuscitated?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Shewmon (D. Alan) - The Metaphysics of Brain Death, Persistent Vegetative State, and Dementia" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Skrzypek (Jeremy) - Conjoined twins share no parts" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animalism" (Read, 2 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animalism and Some Philosophical Problems" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves: Introduction" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Spinney (Laura) - Proto: A New History of Our Ancient Past" (Read, 6 hours)
- "Steward (Helen) - Paul Snowdon on Animalism" (Read / Write, 3.5 hours)
- "Stump (Eleonore) - Resurrection, Reassembly, and Reconstitution: Aquinas on the Soul" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Swinburne (Richard) - Are We Bodies or Souls?" (Read / Write, 6.5 hours)
- "Thornton (Allison Krile) - Animals Now and Then" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Thornton (Allison Krile) - Disembodied Animals" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Resurrection" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - 1 Corinthians: 15" (Write, 8.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Animalism - Objections" (Write, 10 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism)" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Corpses" (Write, 3 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Resurrection" (Write, 8.25 hours)
- "Toner (Patrick) - Hylemorphic animalism and conjoined twins" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Toner (Patrick) - On Hylemorphism and Personal Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Vasilyev (Vadim), Olson (Eric), Dennett (Daniel), Stoljar (Daniel), Frankish (Keith) & McGinn (Colin) - Vasilyev’s argument against psychophysical supervenience" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Whaley (Kristin Seemuth) - Too Many Animals, Too Many Thinkers" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Yang (Eric T.) - Unrestricted animalism and the too many candidates problem" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Yates (David) - Hylomorphism, or Something Near Enough" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Problems for Animalism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions
- Thesis - Research Repositioning
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 26.5)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 20.25)
- Thesis Background - Status
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- As far as effort is concerned, I’ve had to retain the greatly reduced plan at 16 hours / week17 rather than increasing it as I’d like. This is on account of pressure from other projects, in particular Bridge.
- I have a skeleton thesis18 in place. This now needs to be filled out, based on the consolidated version: Thesis - Personal Identity19.
- I need to continually review20 the Note describing my Current Beliefs21 on the topic of Personal Identity, which now doubles as the Thesis Conclusion22.
- Otherwise, I need to get my focus back onto the core issues of Baker23 and Olson24, in particular the Arguments Against Animalism25 and papers by Olson recently acquired.
- Most of what I’m working on appears in the reading lists for the Thesis chapters. Items below26 are either those that don’t, or which require particular focus. I intend to prune this over the coming Quarter:-
Detailed Task List
- Continue with my Thesis27; in particular
- Spend an hour a day updating the Thesis Document28 itself.
- Spend half an hour a day writing something original; namely, essays on:-
→ The difference between Forward and Backward Psychological Continuity29.
→ The persistence of Androids30.
- Continue filling out those sections of my Thesis that I can write something on without further research, using books / papers already analysed.
- Continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs31 on the topic of Personal Identity.
- Regularly review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity.
- Complete the outstanding actions in the Appendix to my Thesis:-
- Priority 1 (42 items)
- Animalism32: Complete full analysis of "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology".
- Animalism33: Complete full analysis of "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology".
- Arguments Against Animalism34: Apply "Olson (Eric), Etc. - Abstracta Special Issue on 'The Human Animal'" to Thesis Chapter 7
- Arguments Against Animalism35: Apply "Olson (Eric) - Human Atoms" to Thesis Chapter 7
- Arguments Against Animalism36: Apply to Thesis Chapter 7:-
→ "Hudson (Hud) - I am Not an Animal!", and
→ "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument"
- Biological View37: Complete thorough review of "Wilson (Jack) - Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities".
- BIV38: Where does Paul Snowdon claim that no-one thinks that a BIV is an animal?
- Brain State Transfer39: Apply "Lawrance (John) - Hosting Andrew" & respond to the author
- Cartesian Egos40: Find papers on.
- Chapter 241: Should the Notes on Consciousness42, Functionalism43, Supervenience44 and Zombies45be placed in Chapter 446?
- Constitution View - Objections47: Considerably beef up this Note (and Chapter 9). Start with "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Replies to Zimmerman, Rea & Pereboom" and links.
- Constitution View48: Complete a thorough review of "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View".
- Constitution View49: Draw up a list of supporters. Does this include Trenton Merricks?
- Constitution View50: Follow up on References in "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face".
- Constitution View51: Move this Note (and some subordinates) to the top of Chapter 7.
- Constitution52: Follow up the references in the Note.
- Degrees of Personhood53: What does Parfit mean by ‘persons of reduced degree’? How does this relate to my Note?
- Exdurantism54: Read and review "Sider (Ted) - Four-dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time".
- General Surveys55: Re-read and review "Noonan (Harold) - Personal Identity".
- Human Persons56: Read and review "Hudson (Hud) - A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person".
- I57: Conduct Further research its meaning and usage.
- Kant58: Re-read & Review:-
→ "Longuenesse (Beatrice) - Kant on the identity of persons", and
→ "Cassam (Quassim) - Kant and Reductionism"
- Language of Thought59: Convert Note to 'Language' (with LOT as a subsection)
- Metaphilosophy60: Complete draft Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to the Introduction in Chapter 1)
- Methuselah61: Write up the background of David Lewis’s TE and sort out the Note thereon.
- Ontology62: Read and review "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings".
- Parfit63: Read & Review:-
→ "Parfit (Derek) - We Are Not Human Beings", and
→ "Johansson (Jens) - Parfit on fission"
- Perdurantism64: Read and review "Heller (Mark) - The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four-Dimensional Hunks of Matter".
- Persistence65: Read and review "Hawley (Katherine) - How Things Persist".
- Resurrection66: Update Note in the light of "Todman (Theo) - Resurrection"
- Sorites67: Determine what is wrong with Peter Unger's Sorites arguments for Nihilism68.
- Soul Criterion69: Focus on how souls (are supposed to) help with the problem of personal identity, and what problems they encounter in the attempt.
- Souls70: Determine what proportion of contemporary philosophers believe in immaterial souls.
- Souls71: What are they supposed to be, in contemporary philosophical thought, and what problems does the concept encounter?
- Substance72: Read and review "Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - Substance: Its Nature and Existence".
- Thinking Animal Argument73: Write an essay and divide it between Chapter 6 and Chapter 9.
- Thought Experiments74: Complete full analysis of "Wilkes (Kathleen) - Real People: Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments".
- Thought75: Complete draft Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to Mind76 in Chapter 4)
- Time77: Read and review "Mellor (D.H.) - Real Time II".
- Wiggins78: Complete thorough review of "Wiggins (David) - Sameness and Substance Renewed".
- Wiggins79: Complete thorough review of "Ferner (Adam) - Metaphysics and biology: a critique of David Wiggins’ account of personal identity".
- Ensure all Note snippets have at least one primary source cited in the text - and then make sure I've read and commented on it!
- Priority 2 (25 items)
- Priority 3 (11 items)
- Continuity and Connectedness109 feature often early in this Thesis before being discussed in Chapter 5. Add some signposting.
- Descartes110: Supply worthwhile Snippet Text, or treat as out of scope.
- Hylomorphism111: Replace the long Wikipedia quotation with my own work! Also, follow up on the references relating Hylomorphism to the CV112.
- Leibniz113: Supply worthwhile Snippet Text, or treat as out of scope.
- Quantum Mechanics114: Read & apply:-
→ "Everett (Hugh) - 'On the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics,' short thesis as defended, 1957", and
→ "Everett (Hugh), Wheeler (John Archibald), Etc. - 'The Theory of the Universal Wave Function,' long thesis as published, 1973"
- Race115: Read and apply:-
→ "Lambrecht (Felix) - Reparative Justice for Historical Injustice",
→ "Wikipedia - Slavery in Africa",
→ "Nwaubani (Adaobi Tricia) - My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader", and
→ "Edwards (Dave) - The concept of race is a social construct".
- Replication116: This note is a mess. Follow up on amoebic division and get the science right.
- Supervenience117: Write something sensible!
- Aristotle: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to 'Other Philosophers of Note' in Chapter 1)
- Paradox: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to the Introduction in Chapter 1)
- Sexual Identity: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to Narrative Identity118)
- Priority 4 (11 items)
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the tasks outlined in my Thesis Dashboard129, using the materials listed130 in the Chapters and underlying Notes.
- Read and comment on131 the following remaining PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis:-
- "Baggini (Julian) - Psychological Reductionism About Persons: A Critical Development",
- "Eddebo (Johan) - Death and the Self: A Metaphysical Investigation of the Rationality of Afterlife Beliefs in the Contemporary Intellectual Climate",
- "Gendler (Tamar Szabo) - Imaginary Exceptions: On the Powers and Limits of Thought Experiment",
- "Keles (Serap) - Personal identity and persistence over time : the hybrid view with regard to hylomorphism",
- "Kotak (Aakash) - The Hybrid Theory of Personal Identity" (MPhil Thesis)
- "Lechthaler (Manuel) - Composition and Identities",
- "Lybaert (Fauve) - Personal Identity and the Formal Self",
- "Paez (Eze) - Abortion: What We Ought to Believe - An Ontological and Normative Analysis",
- "Parsons (Josh) - Theories of Persistence",
- "Rau (Philipp) - The Author, Not the Tale: Memory, Narrative, and the Self",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Once Upon a Spacetime",
- "Southgate (Susan Jane) - Personal Identity: The Simple View",
- "Trakas (Marina) - Personal Memories", and
- "Woods (Evan Thomas) - The Problems of the Many".
- Apply the issues raised by recently-read PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis to my various Notes:-
- "Atkinson (Thomas) - Human organisms and the survival of death: a systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism", see also the Section on Resurrection below
- "Hodson (Sommer) - A Hybrid View of Personal Identity",
- Follow up on Keith Augustine's comments on my review of "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'".
- Teletransportation132 (Update Note using the following):-
- "Science Unbound - Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want": Complete reading / reviewing relevant passages in these follow-up items
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek"
- "Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality"
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel"
- "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek"
- "Penrose (Roger) - The Emperor's New Mind"
- "YouTube - Video - The Trouble with Transporters"
- AI133
- "Birch (Jonathan) - The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI",
- "FT, ChatGPT - Five Books - The Best Books on Artificial Intelligence",
- "Google DeepMind - The Thinking Game: The inside story of the AI breakthrough that won a Nobel Prize",
- "Korhonen (Anna), Woodward (Sarah) - This idea must die: 'AI will outsmart the human race'",
- "McBain (Sophie) - Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?",
- "Milliere (Raphael) & Buckner (Cameron) - The Philosophy of Language Models",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - AI, humanity and Christian ministry",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Living virtuously with AI chatbots",
- "Rawlinson (Nik) - ChatGPT vs The Rest",
- "Uria-Recio (Pedro) - How AI Will Shape Our Future",
- "Wikipedia - Large language model",
- "Wooldridge (Michael John) - This is not the AI we were promised"
- Resurrection134
- "Atkinson (Thomas) - Human organisms and the survival of death: a systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism", a PhD Thesis noted above
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke's Theory of Personal Identity",
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Personal Identity Before the Essay",
- "Craig (William Lane) - Review of N.T.Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God",
- "Cullmann (Oscar) - Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?",
- "Forstrom (K. Joanna S.) - John Locke and Personal Identity: Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy",
- "Gasser (Georg), Ed. - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?",
- "Graves (Shawn), Hereth (Blake) & John (Tyler M.) - In Defense of Animal Universalism",
- "Johnson (Mark) - Researchers have developed a model to explain the science of near-death experiences. Others have challenged it": Annotate
- "Locke (John) - Of Identity and Diversity",
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief",
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Materialism Most Miserable The Prospects for Dualist and Physicalist Accounts of Resurrection",
- "Marston (Paul) - After Death: The Intermediate State"
- "Marston (Paul) - Can Dead Believers Interact with the Living?"
- "Marston (Paul) - Death and ‘Hell’: What the New Testament Does and Does Not Teach",
- "Marston (Paul) - Hellfire and Destruction: What Does the Bible Really Say about Hell?",
- "Mavrodes (George I.) - The Life Everlasting and the Bodily Criterion of Identity",
- "Mooney (Justin) - The possibility of resurrection by reassembly",
- "O'Connor (Timothy) & Jacobs (Jonathan D.) - Emergent individuals and the resurrection",
- "O'Donnell (Patrick S.) - Death & Dying: A Select bibliography",
→ Also "O'Donnell (Patrick S.) - Human Nature, Personhood, and Personal Identity: A Select bibliography",
- "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death",
- "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave",
- "Quinn (Philip L.) - Personal Identity, Bodily Continuity and Resurrection",
- "Quinn (Philip L.) - Some Problems about Resurrection",
- "Ramakrishnan (Venki) - Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and Longevity",
- "Stevenson (Ian) - Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation",
- "Thompson (Evan) - Dying: What Happens When We Die?",
- "Thompson (Jon W.) - Individuation, Identity, and Resurrection in Thomas Jackson and John Locke",
- "Thompson (Jon W.) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Early Modern Philosophical Perspectives",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection",
- "Zeleznikow-Johnston (Ariel) - The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death",
- "Wright (N.T.) - Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All - Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts": Annotate
- "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God", Read relevant chapters, ie:-
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Shadows, Souls and Where They Go: Life Beyond Death in Ancient Paganism"
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Time to Wake Up (1): Death and Beyond in the Old Testament"
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Time to Wake Up (2): Hope Beyond Death in Post-Biblical Judaism"
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Paul (Outside the Corinthian Correspondence)"
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Corinth (1): Introduction"
→ "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Corinth (2): The Key Passages"
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited"
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The “Falling Elevator” Model",
- Dualism135
- "Swinburne (Richard) - Are We Bodies or Souls?": Read / comment
- "Loose (Jonathan), Menuge (Angus) & Moreland (J.P.) - The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism": Read, focusing on
→ "Loose (Jonathan), Menuge (Angus) & Moreland (J.P.) - Substance Dualism and Its Physicalist Rivals"
→ Review Abstracts of other papers
- Update Note.
- Complete analysing the following papers136:-
- "Cofnas (Nathan) - Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry",
- "Corabi (Joseph) & Schneider (Susan) - The Metaphysics of Uploading",
- "Evin (Allowen), Etc - The emergence and diversification of dog morphology",
- "FT, Baggini (Julian), Warburton (Nigel) - Five Books - The Best Books on How To Think (Like a Philosopher)",
- "FT, Coyne (Jerry A.) - Five Books - The Best Books on Evolution",
- "FT, Dennett (Daniel) & Warburton (Nigel) - Five Favorite Books",
- "Frary (Mark) - Beyond Repair",
- "Galton (Francis) - Visualised Numerals",
- "Giusti (Elena) & Derbew (Sarah) - Decolonizing Blackness, alongside the Classics Curriculum: A conversation with Dr Sarah Derbew",
- "Gradesaver - The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie: Study Guide - Introduction", Etc.
- "Harari (Yuval Noah) - Disruption, Democracy & the Global Order" (update in the light of YouTube video and CSER summary),
- "Hume (David) - Treatise I.IV.VI: Of Personal Identity",
- "Jones (Thomas), LRB - Lords of the World",
- "Kobie (Nicole) - Neuralink: an old idea that could be the future of medicine",
- "Middleton (Anna), Welford (Megan) - The Ethics of Genomics"
- "Moreno Figueroa (Monica), Jolin (Lucy) - A world without oppression to you",
- "Mulhall (Stephen), LRB - Non-Identity Crisis",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Central Dogma Of Transhumanism",
- "Paris (J.J.) & Elias-Jones (A.C.) - Do we murder Mary to save Jodie?",
- "Putnam (Hilary) - Brains in a Vat",
- "Stenger (Victor J.), Lindsay (James A.) & Boghossian (Paul) - Physicists Are Philosophers, Too",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Materialism and the Psychological-continuity Account of Personal Identity",
- "Velleman (David) - Beyond Price",
- "Walker (Robert) - Mary And Jodie – The Case Of The Conjoined Twins",
- "Watkin (Christopher) - Christianity and critical race theory",
- "Zangwill (Nick) - Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat"
- Consciousness137
- "JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies (Consolidated List)":
- This is a large project – I need to sort out all the volumes associated with author JCS. Some I have in hard copy. Others were once on-line for free, but now seem to have disappeared. Some I claim to have downloaded.
- For volumes I have in either hard copy or electronic form I need to 'burst' them into their constituent papers (at the least for the usual suspects).
- Ingenta seems to have the latest issue of JCS for free download: Ingenta - JCS.
- Imprint Academic - Journal of Consciousness Studies says its archive is available on Ingenta and is free for current subscribers. So, If I wanted to go ahead with this, it might be best to subscribe for a year (£102; £122 including print [not worth it]); but only if I can spare the time to address the archive!
- Aeon138: Read & annotate papers as they arise, especially ...
- "Chittka (Lars) & Wilson (Catherine) - Bee-brained": Write-up
- "Frankish (Keith) - The Consciousness Illusion": Write-up
- "Frohlich (Joel) - Frames of consciousness": Write-up
- "Parks (Tim) & Manzotti (Riccardo) - You are the world": Write-up
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Consciousness is real": Write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - How we build perception from the inside out": Write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - The real problem": Write-up
- Panpsychism:-
- Set up Note on Panpsychism (as above)
- "BBC, Bragg (Melvyn) - In Our Time - Panpsychism": Review / revise.
- "Goff (Philip) - A Change of Heart on Fine-Tuning": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness": Book. Read.
- "Goff (Philip) - Is the Universe a conscious mind?": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Purposeful universe": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Why? The Purpose of the Universe": Book. Read.
- "JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 13, Issue 10-11 (2006)": Book. Read.
- Action the following Books and Papers:-
- "Bonhomme (Vincent), Etc. - General Anesthesia: A Probe to Explore Consciousness": Read & write-up
- "Crane (Tim) - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind": Re-read and review notes.
- "Dehaene (Stanislas) - Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts": Read.
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness": Read.
- "Donald (Merlin) - A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness": Read.
- "Eliot (Lise) - What's Going On in There?: How the Brain And Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life": Read.
- "Kammerer (Francois) - The Hardest Aspect of the Illusion Problem - and How to Solve it": Read.
- "Koch (Christof) - The Quest for Consciousness: A Nurobiological Approach": Read.
- "Metzinger (Thomas), Ed. - Conscious Experience": Burst out Papers and add Metzinger's Abstracts
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - Being You: A New Science of Consciousness": Read.
- "Shapiro (Lawrence) - The Mind Incarnate": Read.
- "Strawson (Galen) - The Consciousness Deniers": Read & write-up
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence": Write up Chapter 8: Consciousness
- "Veit (Walter) - A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness": Read.
- Ensure the annotations from recently-read Papers are added to the relevant Notes:-
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke on Living Things"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Review of 'What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology' by Eric T. Olson"
- As background tasks:-
- Ensure all items in:-
- "Various - Papers on Desktop", and
- "Various - Papers in Desk Drawer"
are either addressed or re-filed.
- Maintain "Various - Papers & Books Yet To Be Logged", and log papers therein if they become important.
- Convert old PDFs to Notes:-
- Review the two reports:-
- PDF-précis,
- PDF-essays139.
- Determine how the first is produced, and why the pdfs aren't highlighted, and compare with Write-ups Notes Jump Table
- Convert outstanding Essays & Précises.
- Complete cataloguing the books downloaded from Springer,
- Read and comment on140 the Short Stories in "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2".
- Continue / complete reading / annotating various books141 that have landed in my in-tray:-
- "Ball (Philip) - How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology",
- "Barash (David P.) - Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are",
- "Berns (Gregory) - What It's Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience",
- "Biggar (Nigel) - Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning",
- "Biggar (Nigel) - Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt",
- "Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Bliss (Rina) - What's Real about Race? Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society",
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies",
- "Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death",
- "Clark (Andy) - The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality",
- "Daeva (Elisha) - Before War: On Marriage, Hierarchy, and Our Matriarchal Origins",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - I've Been Thinking",
- "Edmonds (David) - Would You Kill the Fat Man? The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong",
- "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- "Green (Joel B.) - Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible",
- "Harari (Yuval Noah) - Nexus",
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds. - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul",
- "Kagan (Shelly) - How to Count Animals, more or less",
- "Korsgaard (Christine) - Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals",
- "Levitin (Daniel) - The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well",
- "Loke (Andrew Ter Ern) - The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation",
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics",
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Price (Huw) - Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time",
- "Ricard (Matthieu) - A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion",
- "Ritchie (George G.), Sherrill (Elizabeth) - Return from Tomorrow", also
→ "Ritchie (George G.) - Ordered to Return: My Life After Dying",
→ Reply to Faith Darch
- "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher and the Wolf",
- "Sapolsky (Robert) - Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will",
- "Schechtman (Marya) - Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life",
- "Schneider (Susan) - Artificial You",
- "Seung (Sebastian) - Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are",
- "Shermer (Michael), Gould (Stephen Jay) - Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time",
- "Spinney (Laura) - Proto: A New History of Our Ancient Past",
- "Walker (Matthew P.) - Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams",
- "Wasserman (Ryan) - The Paradoxes of Time Travel",
- "Wyatt (John) - Matters of Life and Death"
- Continue reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon142 (and the occasional spin-off). In particular,
- Complete write-ups143 for 206 items: Follow this Link144.
- Add new items to the database as and when I have time to read and comment thereon, maintaining a 'top ten' Priority 1 items.
- Keep up with the Journals I have access to as a Cambridge Alumnus via via JSTOR, Cambridge Core & Project Muse. Update my Journals Note145.
- Listen to Royal Institute of Philoophy podcasts - usually while doing some tedious task. Update my RIP Note146 to show what I've audited, and add footnotes when I get the time.
- Keep up with the philosophical world by regular reviews of "Interaction - Philos-List", but only seriously pursue147 items relevant to my research.
- London Review of Books:-
→ Update my LRB148 Note to reflect the fact that I've downloaded all relevant items up to the end of 2024.
→ Develop a method of importing them into my database.
In-Page Footnotes:
Footnote 17:
- 25 hours / week – while still ludicrously inadequate for what I want to achieve – is approximately what would be expected of a part-time research student. So, planning to exceed this is ‘a good thing’ provided I use the time wisely and efficiently.
Footnote 20:
- Maybe I should expand it into a proper paper, let Sophie have a look at it and consider submission to Aeon?
Footnote 26:
- This list is absurdly long and cannot represent what I’m really working on. It’s really an aide memoir.
Footnote 130:
- I used to itemise in this Note an ever-growing list of items accummulated over time, broken down by Chapter and Note.
- However, now both Chapters and Notes are getting into shape, there is no need to list these items again here, so they have been cut after checking they are covered in their place elsewhere.
Footnote 131:
- There are rather a lot of these, so some will have to be skimmed.
- There were a few more on less central topics.
- I hope to whittle these down as time goes by!
Footnote 136:
- This list used to get inordinately long and has been culled.
- Ensure this doesn't happen again!
Footnote 140:
- This was supposed to be holiday reading, but there's little chance of me completing this project (and the two other volumes) unless I get a move on!
- My intention is to read and review a Story after each 'General' book read.
Footnote 141:
- This list is getting ludicrously long, and either needs addressing or pruning!
Footnote 143:
- I had managed to reduce the backlog of 'Priority 1' items on my Aeon page to the required 10 items (though it has now got out of hand again).
- To achieve this in an acceptable timeframe, as well as restricting the new additions, I've been either downgrading the priorities or reading the papers on my Kindle and then adding brief comments and logging them to my database.
- Consequently, most of them then get added to this list for more detailed investigation.
- I'll now - hopefully - start whittling down this list of 206 items, but there's a risk that it'll continue to grow ... as indeed it has.
- To help with the 'whittling' I've added both the date the item was added to this list and its current status, which is to progress down the following list:-
→ 1. Read, or ...
→ 2. Re-read
→ 3. Draft 'Paper' Notes
→ 4. Read Aeon Comments
→ 5. Update 'Paper' Notes
→ 6. Apply to PID Notes
- Above '2. Re-read' is a little directionless. It usually means 'Re-read with the intention of performing one or more of actions 3, 5 and 6.'
Footnote 147:
- Sadly, looking through the list diligently wastes too much time - there's very litle of relevanmce to my research - which is good to know.
- So - as of mid-February 2025 - I've decided just to dip in now and then to see what's going on.
- Philosophy seems very 'engaged' at the moment. Lots of conferences on AI and Climate Change.
Table of the Previous 12 Versions of this Note: (of 101)
Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Summary of Notes Citing This Note
| Simon - T1S1T1 |
Status: Consciousness Studies (2023 - September), 2 |
Status: Priority Task List (2026 - September), 2 |
Status: Summary (2026 - September), 2, 3 |
Status: Summary Task List (2026: October) |
| Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 26Q4) |
Status: Web-Tools (2026 - September) |
Theo Todman's Philosophy Page, 2 |
Theo Todman's Philosophy Research |
Thesis - Method & Form |
| Website - Outstanding Developments (2026 - September), 2 |
Website - Progress to Date (2026 - September), 2 |
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
|
|
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Chapman (Colin) |
The Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
| Todman (Theo) |
Thesis - The Form of the Argument |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026