Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Status Reports

Status: Personal Identity (2011 - June)

(Text as at 06/07/2011 23:13:55)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

Rationale for this Project

I am researching the subject of Personal Identity primarily because of its intrinsic interest and importance. It is really a sub-topic in my Philosophy of Religion project, with its penultimate chapter considering the metaphysical possibility of resurrection.

Earlier versions of this report had “to obtain a PhD in philosophy by age 60” down as my major goal, but this – even were it still a possibility now that I’m approaching 58 – strikes me as rather silly. I think I should pursue my philosophical researches on my own, using my own methods, until such time as I get stuck, and then when I’m ready to take things further, and have completed all the infrastructural groundwork, consider whether a PhD is the appropriate step. After all, why do I need a PhD? I don’t want a job as an academic philosopher, so I suspect it’s only vanity or insecurity that makes me want to pursue this course. I’m interested in the topic of my research in its own right. 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 studying for a PhD might be the only effective way to do this. But a PhD is not an end in itself, and certainly not the ultimate aim of my doing philosophy. But it’s still true (as I’ve said in previous versions of this report) 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.

I’ve now managed to retire from HSBC, so am of “independent means”, but for now my intention is to make solid progress on my research on my own – mainly for its own sake – but also so that when and if I apply for a full-time course, I am in the best possible position to do so. My current plan is not to return to Birkbeck (if they’ll have me back) until October 2012 (when I’ll be nearly 59).


Summary of Progress during April - June 2011

During 2Q11 I made some effort to make progress:-

1. Core Reading / Writing:
   • "Anderson (Ray S.) - On Being Human: The Spiritual Saga of a Creaturely Soul" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Anderson (V. Elving) - A Genetic View of Human Nature" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Augustine (Keith) - Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences" (Write, 1.25 hours)
   • "Ayala (Francisco J.) - Human Nature: One Evolutionist's View" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Baillie (James) - Identity, Survival, and Sortal Concepts" (Read, 2.75 hours)
   • "Baillie (James) - Problems in Personal Identity: Preface" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Beginning in the middle" (Read, 0.75 hours)
   • "Bricker (Phillip) - Review of LePoidevin's 'Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time'" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
   • "Brown (Warren) - Cognitive Contributions to Soul" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Brown (Warren) - Conclusion: Reconciling Scientific and Biblical Portraits of Human Nature" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Brown (Warren), Murphy (Nancey) & Malony (H. Newton) - Whatever Happened to the Soul: Preface" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Buzzi (Giorgio) - Correspondence: Near-Death Experiences" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Candlish (Stewart) - Review of Minds, Brains and People by T. E. Wilkerson" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Cartwright (Richard) - Scattered Objects" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "DeGrazia (David) - Human Identity and Bioethics: Introduction" (Read / Write, 5 hours)
   • "Donnelly (John) - Death and Ivan Ilych" (Read, 0.5 hours)
   • "Fenwick (Peter) & Fenwick (Elizabeth) - The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences" (Read / Write, 4.5 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - Persons, Animals, and Fetuses: Summary" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - Problems and Persons: Preface" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - Problems and Persons: Introduction" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - Reasons for Granting Personhood" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - The Central Feature of Personhood" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - Theory and Justification: Summary" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Forrester (Mary) - What Makes an Individual a Person: Summary" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Graham (George) - Death and Identity" (Read, 1.5 hours)
   • "Greeley (Andrew) - The Light Beyond: Foreword" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Green (Joel B.) - Bodies - That is Human Lives: Re-Examination of Nature of Humans in the Bible" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Hinton (J.M.) - Review of Minds, Brains and People by T. E. Wilkerson" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Jeeves (Malcolm) - Brain, Mind, and Behavior" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Kubler-Ross (Elizabeth) - Life After Life: Foreward" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Le Fanu (James) - Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves" (Read, 12.75 hours)
   • "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: Concluding Thoughts" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
   • "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: Further Reading" (Write, 11 hours)
   • "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: Preface" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
   • "McGill (V.J.) - Review of Minds, Brains and People by T. E. Wilkerson" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Merricks (Trenton) - Objects & Persons: Preface" (Write, 1 hours)
   • "Moody (Raymond A.) - Life After Life: Main Text" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Moody (Raymond A.) & Perry (Paul) - The Light Beyond: Main Text" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Morse (Melvin) - Life After Life: Preface" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
   • "Murphy (Nancey) - Human Nature: Historical, Scientific and Religious Issues" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Murphy (Nancey) - Non-Reductive Physicalism: Philosophical Issues" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Pearce (E.K. Victor) - Review of 'Kanzi: Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind' by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh & Roger Lewin" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Plantinga (Alvin) - Against Materialism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Post (Stephen G.) - A Moral Case for Nonreductive Physicalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Quine (W.V.) - From a Logical Point of View: Foreword, 1980" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Rawlings (Maurice S.) - To Hell and Back: Life after Death - Startling New Evidence" (Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Sainsbury (Mark) - Paradoxes Preface/Introduction" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and Essence - Prefaces & Introduction" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
   • "Savage-Rumbaugh (E.Sue) & Lewin (Roger) - Kanzi: Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
   • "Simons (Peter) - Parts: A Study in Ontology - Concluding Remarks" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
   • "Simons (Peter) - Parts: A Study in Ontology - Introduction" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Sosa (Ernest) - Subjects Among Other Things" (Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Strawson (Peter) - Review of Minds, Brains and People by T. E. Wilkerson" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come" (Read / Write, 3.75 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings: Preface" (Read / Write, 12 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Plantinga’s Replacement Argument" (Read / Write, 5.25 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Précis of Material Beings" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Relational vs. Constituent Ontologies" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Van Inwagen (Peter) - What is an Ontological Category?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Wiggins (David) - Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity: Introduction" (Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
   • "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance Renewed" (Write, 4.5 hours)
   • "Wilkerson (T.E.) - Two Kinds of Metaphysics" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
   • "Williamson (Timothy) - Vagueness: Preface + Introduction" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
   • "Wright (N.T.) - Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?" (Read, 0.25 hours)
   • "Wright (N.T.) - Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All - Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
   • "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God: Preface, Bibliography & Indexes" (Read, 1 hours)
   • "Zaleski (Carole) - Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near Death Experience in Mediaeval and Modern Times" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
2. Background Reading / Writing:
   • "CSC WG - Human Enhancement – A Discussion Document" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Fetzer (James) - The evolution of intelligence: TOC & Preface" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
   • "Jones (D. Gareth) - A Christian Perspective on Human Enhancement" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Lucas (J.R.) - The Future - An Essay on God, Temporality and Truth" (Write, 1.25 hours)
   • "Malament (David) - Review of 'Space, Time, and Spacetime' by Lawrence Sklar" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "North (J.D.) - Review of 'Space, Time, and Spacetime' by Lawrence Sklar" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Percival (Philip) - Review of J.R.Lucas's 'The Future'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Regis (Ed) - Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly over the Edge" (Read / Write, 1 hours)
   • "Singer (Peter) - Practical Ethics" (Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Absolute Space and the Metaphysics of Theories" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Do Unborn Hypotheses Have Rights?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Facts, Conventions, and Assumptions in the Theory of Spacetime" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - How Free Are Initial Conditions?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Incongruous Counterparts, Intrinsic Features, and the Substantiviality of Space" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Inertia, Gravitation, and Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Is Probability a Dispositional Property?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Methodological Conservatism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Modestly Radical Empiricism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Naturalism and the Interpretation of Theories" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Perceived Worlds, Inferred Worlds, the World" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Philosophy and Spacetime Physics: Introduction" (Read / Write, 4.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Probability as a Theoretical Concept" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Prospects for a Causal Theory of Spacetime" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Saving the Noumena" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Semantic Analogy" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Space, Time and Spacetime: Epilogue" (Write, 0.75 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Space, Time and Spacetime: Introduction" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Space, Time and Spacetime: Preface for the Paperback Edition" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Content of Science, the Methodology of Science and Hempel's Models of Explanation and Confirmation" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Elusive Object of Desire: In Pursuit of the Kinetic Equations and the Second Law" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Falsifiability of Geometric Theories" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Language of Nature Is Mathematics - But Which Mathematics? and What Nature?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Reduction (?) of Thermodynamics to Statistical Mechanics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics and the Complexity of Reductions" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Time, Reality, and Relativity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Types of Inter-Theoretic Reduction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Unfair to Frequencies" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - Up and Down, Left and Right, Past and Future" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Sklar (Lawrence) - What Might Be Right about the Causal Theory of Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Weingard (Robert) - Review of 'Space, Time, and Spacetime' by Lawrence Sklar" (Write, 0.5 hours)
   • "Williams (Christopher) - Review of J.R.Lucas's 'The Future'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
   • "Williamson (Timothy) - Is Knowing a State Of Mind?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
3. Discussions:
   • Correspondence on Descartes with Emma Restall Orr (1 hours)
   • Correspondence & discussions with Mike & Sylvia (2.5 hours)
4. Research Repositioning:
   • Catalogue Papers and Books (17.75 hours)
   • Philosophy Papers - Abstracts correction (57.25 hours)
   • Thesis - Maintain Research Notes (General) (10.25 hours)
5. Admin:
   • Reading BBK (Birkbeck Magazine; Spring 2011) (0.25 hours)
   • Thesis Planning+Admin (April - June) (3 hours)
   • 1Q11 Status Reports (2.5 hours)
   • 2Q11 Status Reports (1.25 hours)