Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2017 - December)
(Text as at 05/01/2018 00:11:31)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
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 Religion1 project, with its penultimate chapter considering the metaphysical possibility of resurrection.
- While 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 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 jumping-off point for my thesis is here2, and a progress dashboard is here3. Maybe a better place to find my current views is here4.
Summary of Progress during October - December 2017
- I spent 308 hours in 4Q17 on my Thesis or Thesis-related work (308 hours YTD, where for “YTD” – Year to Date – I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2017). That’s 106% of the planned effort (106% YTD). Overall, 45% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 45% YTD) – as against 41% planned (41% YTD).
- I’d increased my planned effort by about 50% with respect to the previous quarter, yet managed to exceed this budget. This was again enabled by the amount of time liberated as a result of my abandonment of Bridge. Again, maybe unfortunately, this free time and more besides was spent on the item below.
- As during the rest of 2017, a considerable amount of time was spent on papers issued under the aegis of Aeon, including maintaining the filing system and the summary Note5. These papers are very interesting, and of wide scope. Not many of them are strictly germane to my research interests, but I continued to read – and where possible remark on – the one or two of interest that appeared daily. I have found this very satisfying and it has raised a lot of issues across a broad range of topics, many relevant to my research. I amended my routines to segregate out in this report (and the Interim Report6) those Aeon articles that are really nothing to do with my research.
- I revised the Note describing my Current Beliefs7 on the topic of Personal Identity in the light of Pete’s review. Sophie Botros has agreed to review it as well, when I’ve licked it into shape.
- I attempted to read "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History: A Philosophical Enquiry", but found it tough-going. I tried reading "Dummett (Michael) - Truth and the Past", as an aid to comprehending the first part, but didn’t get very far.
- As Sophie had had her book partly reviewed by Simon J. Evnine, I bought his "Evnine (Simon J.) - Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood" and downloaded other papers. I can’t take this any further for now.
- Unfortunately, trouble with the trains meant that I couldn’t attend the Salon run by Oliver Black at his house in Spittalfields at which Edmund Fawcett spoke on “the rise of the political right and its threat to liberal democracy”. Sophie tells me that Edmund is Boris Johnson’s uncle, and that Boris wants to make a reply. I’d be surprised if he has the time, but Sophie seems sure it’ll happen.
- As David Wiggins attends the Salon, I bought his latest book: "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity".
- I updated quite a number of my Notes. I’ve decided to change my approach in the short term. Rather than spending ages researching the reading lists, I’ll just list those books / papers on the relevant topic that I’ve actually read, and supply brief text. As a second pass I’ll use what I’ve read to update that text.
- Discovered (via Aeon) Kristie Miller who – sometimes with her partner David Braddon-Mitchell – has written a lot about persistence. Purchased "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time" & downloaded a lot of other stuff.
- Discovered (also via Aeon!) "Kazez (Jean) - The Philosophical Parent: Asking the Hard Questions About Having and Raising Children", which is highly relevant as by elder daughter Becky is scheduled to produce our first grandchild (a boy) at the end of January.
- Discovered (also via Aeon!!) "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" and had a preliminary email discussion with Pete & Mike. Started a Note8 as a critical review.
- Discovered "Silver (David), Hassabis (Demis), Etc. - Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm" and related papers. Relevant to Transhumanism9.
- Checked out in detail "Olson (Eric) - Personal Identity - Oxford Bibliographies Online". Comforting to know I’m not missing anything. Need to assimilate Olson’s brief comments.
- Completed "Ayer (A.J.) - More of My Life".
- Converted my undergraduate paper on "Jackson (Frank) - Grue" to Note format.
- Looked back over:-
→ "Todman (Theo) - Birkbeck Philosophy Society - 2001/2002 Programme", and
→ "Todman (Theo) - Birkbeck Philosophy Society - 2002/2003 Programme".
One day, I hope to write up my notes of the various papers delivered.
- Purchased "O'Neill (Cathy) - Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy", required reading for all new King’s Cambridge entrants.
- Catalogued a number of the books downloaded from Springer at the end of 2015.
- Discovered I have access to Cambridge Core (Cambridge Core), which allows up-to-date access to 17 philosophy journals, including:-
→ Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review)
→ Episteme (Episteme)
→ Journal of the American Philosophical Association (Journal of the American Philosophical Association)
→ Philosophy (Philosophy)
→ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements)
→ Think (Think)
There are also a great number of books available for download. I need to avoid distraction, but if there’s a book by CUP I need, and it’s here, then it’s a good place to go!
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List10. More detail follows:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 174.25)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 154.5)
- "Al-Khalili (Jim) & McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Andersen (Ross) - What Happens If China Makes First Contact?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bar-On (Dorit) - Transparency, Epistemic Impartiality, and Personhood" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Baron (Samuel) & Miller (Kristie) - Our Concept of Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Barrow (John) - Impossibility - The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Benatar (David) - Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Bering (Jesse) - Life after Death" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Birch (Jonathan) - Crabs and lobsters deserve protection from being cooked alive" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Blackburn (Simon) - Review of Derek Parfit's 'On What Matters'" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Borgonie (Gaetan) & Lau (Maggie) - Life goes deeper" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - A Realist Present and a Coherentist Past" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Caught in a Timeless Leibnizian Net" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Collingwood and Oakeshott: Is History Possible?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Presentism and Modality" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Projection, Analogy and Meaning" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Tense Theory" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - The Realist/Anti-Realist Wars" (Read / Write, 5 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History: Bibliography" (Write, 9.25 hours)
- "The Week, Botsman (Rachel) - Big data meets Big Brother" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - How To Be A Conventional Person" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - On Time and the Varieties of Science" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - Talking about a Universalist World" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - The Loneliness of Stages" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - The Physics of Extended Simples" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - There Is No Simpliciter Simpliciter" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Burri (Susanne) & Robillard (Michael) - Why banning autonomous killer robots wouldn’t solve anything" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Campbell (Douglas Ian) - The Eightfold Way: Why Analyticity, Apriority and Necessity are Independent" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) - Everlasting glory" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) - Not nothing" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) - Remember Herostratus" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) - The free-will scale" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) - Who killed Knut?" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "The Week, Cooke (Rachel) - How Sleep Could Save Your Life" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "De Sousa (Ronald) - Natural-born existentialists" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Doyle (Robert O.) - David Wiggins" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Doyle (Robert O.) - Metaphysics: Problems, Paradoxes, and Puzzles Solved?" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Dummett (Michael) - Truth and the Past" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Dummett (Michael) - Truth and the Past: Preface" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Dupre (John) - Metaphysics of metamorphosis" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Emslie (Karen) - Hallucinogenic nights" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - Believing Conjunctions" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - Epistemic Unities" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - Kinds And Conscious Experience: Is There Anything That It Is Like To Be Something?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - Personhood and Future Belief: Two Arguments for Something like Reflection" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Evnine (Simon J.) - The Universality of Logic: On the Connection between Rationality and Logical Ability" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Falk (Dan) - Armchair science" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Gamble (Jessa) - Life in Circadia" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Gifford (Sheyna) - Life on Mars" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Greene (Kate) - Planet boredom" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Iida (Fumiya) - Could we build a Blade Runner-style ‘replicant’?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Ishiguro (Hide) - Leibniz's Philosophy of Logic and Language" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Jaekl (Philip) - In Cold Blood" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Kazez (Jean) - Animalkind: What We Owe to Animals" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Kazez (Jean) - Life Doesn't Begin at Conception" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Kazez (Jean) - The Philosophical Parent: Asking the Hard Questions About Having and Raising Children" (Read / Write, 3.5 hours)
- "Keogh (Rebecca) - The human brain’s bandwidth for visual images is severely limited" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Klein (Mike) - Google's AlphaZero Destroys Stockfish In 100-Game Match" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Kozubek (Jim) - Even if genes affect intelligence, we can’t engineer cleverness" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Lamarque (Peter) - On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Loux (Michael) - Modality and Metaphysics" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Madison (Paige) - Who first buried the dead?" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Martin (Alan P.) - Human head transplant: Controversial procedure successfully carried out on corpse" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Mascaro (Joe) - To save Earth, go to Mars" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life is quantum" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - A New Definition of Endurance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Blocking the path from vagueness to four dimensionalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Causation sans Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Defending Contingentism in Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Defending Substantivism About Disputes In The Metaphysics Of Composition" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Enduring Special Relativity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Immaterial Beings" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Is some backwards time travel inexplicable?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Introduction" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Non-mereological Universalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Ought a Four-Dimensionalist To Believe in Temporal Parts?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - 'Personal identity' minus the persons" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Persons as Sui Generis Ontological Kinds: Advice to Exceptionists" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Sorry, Time Travellers: You Can't Change the Past" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Stuff" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - The Existential Quantifier, Composition and Contingency" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - The Metaphysical Equivalence of Three and Four Dimensionalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - The Twins' Paradox and Temporal Passage" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Vagueness, Persistence and Indeterminate Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - What is Metaphysical Equivalence?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Newman (Sandra) - Infanticide" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Olberding (Amy) - Is the death of an elder worse than the death of a young person?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - Personal Identity - Oxford Bibliographies Online" (Write, 9.25 hours)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One - Preface & Summary" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Three" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Two - Preface & Summary" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Pearl (Sharrona) - Changing faces" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Poole (Steven) - The human race" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Quach (Katyanna) - Checkmate: DeepMind's AlphaZero AI clobbered rival chess app on non-level playing, er, board" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Renstrom (Joelle) - And their eyes glazed over" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Renstrom (Joelle) - What happened when I made my students turn off their phones" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Rescher (Nicholas) - Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Roeder (Oliver) - There is no difference between computer art and human art" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Seibt (Johanna) - Forms of Emergent Interaction in General Process Theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Silver (Albert) - The future is here – AlphaZero learns chess" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Silver (David), Hassabis (Demis), Etc. - Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Simons (Peter) - How To Exist at a Time When You Have No Temporal Parts" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Singer (Peter) - Does Anything Really Matter?" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Skillings (Derek J.) - Life is not easily bounded" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Smolin (Lee) - Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Taggart (Andrew) - If work dominated your every moment would life be worth living?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Tobia (Kevin Patrick) - The Phineas Gage effect" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Animal Rights" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Animalism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Baker" (Write, 5.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Commissurotomy" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Current Position" (Write, 9.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Endurantism" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Exdurantism" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Human Persons" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Leibniz" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Near Death Experiences" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Olson" (Write, 4 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Out of Body Experiences" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Process Metaphysics" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Properties" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Temporary Intrinsics" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Time Travel" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Wiggins" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Toner (Patrick) - Hylemorphic animalism" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Torrengo (Giuliano) & Buonomo (Valerio) - What's next? Time travel and phenomenal continuity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Vieira (Celso) - Which is more fundamental: processes or things?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Activity, Process, Continuant, Substance, Organism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity: Introduction" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Heraclitus' Conception of Flux, Fire, and Material Persistence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Identity, Individuation, and Substance" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Mereological Essentialism and Chisholm on Parts, Wholes, and Primary Things" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance Renewed" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Putnam's Concept of Natural Kind Words and Frege's Doctrines of Sense, Reference, and Extension: Can They Cohere?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Sameness, Substance, and the Human Person" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Sortal Concepts: A Reply to Xu" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Substance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - The Concept of the Subject Contains the Concept of the Predicate" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - The De Re 'Must', Individuative Essentialism, and the Necessity of Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Williamson (Timothy) - On vagueness, or, when is a heap of sand not a heap of sand?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions (Total Hours = 3)
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 10)
- Thesis - Seminars (Attendance) (Total Hours = 4.25)
- Oliver's Salon - Abortive Trip (1.25 hours)
- Sophie's Book Launch - Discussion (3 hours)
- Thesis - Seminars (Reading)
- Sophie's Book Launch - Journey + Planning (2.25 hours)
- Thesis - Seminars (Writing)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 69)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 51.5)
- "Ayer (A.J.) - More of My Life" (Read, 11.25 hours)
- "Black (Oliver) - Legal Validity and the Infinite Regress" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Cowles (Henry M.) - Child’s play" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Earman (John) - Hume on Miracles" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Ebert (Philip A.), Smith (Martin) & Durbach (Ian) - Lottery Judgments: A Philosophical and Experimental Study" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Edmonds (David) & Eidinow (John) - Wittgenstein's Poker" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "England (Jeremy) - Why trees don’t ungrow" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Frauenfelder (Mark) - 'I forgot my PIN': An Epic Tale of Losing $30,000 in Bitcoin" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Gopnik (Alison) - Finding Our Inner Scientist" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Jackson (Frank) - Grue" (Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Katsav (Joel) & Vaesen (K.) - Pluralism and Peer Review in Philosophy" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kazmi (Zaheer) - Beyond liberal Islam" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Levenson (Thomas) - Epic fails" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) - Mathematical Contingentism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Mulgan (Tim) - The ethics of ET" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "O'Neill (Cathy) - Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Who knows what" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Ruggles (Laura) - The minds of plants" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Scruton (Roger) - An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Scruton (Roger) - An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Scruton (Roger) - The great swindle" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Smith (Martin) - A Generalised Lottery Paradox for Infinite Probability Spaces" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Believing the Unlikely" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Ceteris Paribus Conditionals and Comparative Normalcy" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Coin Trials" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Intuitionistic Probability and the Bayesian Objection to Dogmatism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Knowledge, Justification and Normative Coincidence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Some Thoughts on the JK-Rule" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - The cost of treating knowledge as a mental state" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - The Logic of Epistemic Justification" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - The Risk Minimisation Conception of Justification" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - What Else Justification Could Be" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - When Does Evidence Suffice for Conviction?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - When Probability is Not Enough" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" (Write, 8 hours)
- "Smith (Subrena E.) - Why philosophy is so important in science education" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Sorabji (Richard) - Gandhi the philosopher" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Swinburne (Richard) - Review of John Earman's 'Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles'" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Birkbeck Philosophy Society - 2001/2002 Programme" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Birkbeck Philosophy Society - 2002/2003 Programme" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Wertheim (Margaret) - Physics’s pangolin" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- Thesis Background - Books Admin (Total Hours = 11.5)
- Admin - Catalogue Papers and Books - Invesigate Cambridge Core (0.5 hours)
- "Admin - Catalogue Papers and Books (including Abstract improvements)" (1.25 hours)
- Admin - Catalogue Papers and Books (including Abstract improvements) - John Earman (1.5 hours)
- Admin - Catalogue Papers and Books (including Abstract improvements) - Springer Downloads (3.75 hours)
- Admin - Sort out - New Chest of Drawers & Filing Cabinet (4.5 hours)
- Thesis Background - Status (Total Hours = 6)
Thesis (Aeon) (Total Hours = 64.5)
- "Adelman (Jeremy) - What is global history now?" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Alvarez (Walter) - Laws or comets?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Avin (Shahar) - Science funding is a gamble so let’s give out money by lottery" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Baggini (Julian) - The triage of truth: do not take expert opinion lying down" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bardi (Ariel Sophia) - How 'Hindutva' recast multi-faith India as the Hindu homeland" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Baron (Jonathan) - Uncertainty and Probability within Utilitarian Theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Benatar (David) - Kids? Just say no" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Bourke (Joanna) - Our anaesthetic times" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bousquet (Antoine) - The battlefield is dead" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Burak (Jacob) - Head to head" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Burak (Jacob) - Is philanthropy driven by the human desire to cheat death?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Buss (David M.) - Why women stray" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Cave (Stephen) - Democracies fail when they ask too little of their citizens" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Cave (Stephen) & Klein (Stefan) - Once and future sins" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Chatfield (Tom) - The attention economy" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Crabb (Jon) - Monster mash" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Currid-Halkett (Elizabeth) - Conspicuous consumption is over. It’s all about intangibles now" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Currie (Adrian) - Does science need mavericks?" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Fawcett (Edmund) - Reclaiming liberalism" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Flora (Carlin) - Praise them!" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Glausiusz (Josie) - Would the world be more peaceful if there were more women leaders?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Gott (J. Richard) - Universe in a bubble" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Graney (Christopher) - Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Guerrero (Alexander) - The lottocracy" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul) - Aeon: A-B (& General)" (Read / Write, 13.75 hours)
- "Harper (Kyle) - How climate change and disease helped the fall of Rome" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Herbjornsrud (Dag) - The African Enlightenment" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hoak (Daniel) - Gravitational waves will bring the extreme universe into view" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Huenemann (Charles) - Why philosophers should hang out at the humanists’ parties" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Jao (Carren) - Sonifying the world" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Jonas (Rachel) - How does LSD induce short-term psychosis but long-term optimism?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Jukes (Peter) - All his materials" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Krishna (Nakul) - Is goodness natural?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Labaree (David) - An unlikely triumph" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Leeson (Peter T.) - Why the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guilt" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Levi (Primo) & Angier (Carole) - Cerium" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Levin (Janna) - Gravitational wave blues" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Madison (Paige) - Anthropology is far from licking the problem of fossil ages" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Malinowska (Kasia) & Medley (Bethany) - Want to reduce drug use? Listen to women drug users" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "McCray (W. Patrick) - It’s not all lightbulbs" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Mikanowski (Jacob) - ‘Ketman’ and doublethink: what it costs to comply with tyranny" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Munns (David) - A tale of ‘trons’: the suffix that tells the story of modern science" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Nanay (Bence) - ‘Know thyself’ is not just silly advice: it’s actively dangerous" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Napadow (Vitaly) - Does acupuncture work by re-mapping the brain?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Onion (Rebecca) - Lock up your wives!" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Orent (Wendy) - The Black Death" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Perry (Sarah) - A sublime contagion" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Anger is temporary madness: the Stoics knew how to curb it" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Value of Philosophy" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Price (Huw) - The cold fusion horizon" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Puchner (Martin) - Readers of the world unite" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Rasmussen (Dennis) - He died as he lived: David Hume, philosopher and infidel" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Rees (Martin) - Black holes are simpler than forests and science has its limits" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Roache (Rebecca) - The death of languages" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Rodrik (Dani) - Why nation-states are good" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Rosoff (Philip) - How doctors’ bias leads to unfair and unsound medical triage" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Sharpe (Jim) - Spoiling for a fight" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Shenker (Jack) - Democratising the digital" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Blake) - The Madras Observatory: from Jesuit cooperation to British rule" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Svoboda (Elizabeth) - The kindled brain" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Talisse (Robert B.) - Democracy is like fun: you can’t set your mind to having it" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Tampio (Nicholas) - Treat people as citizens" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Taubes (Gary) - The case against sugar" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Tchernichovski (Ofer) - What songbirds could teach us about constructive tweeting" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Thomas (Courtney Erin) - The early moderns had their work cut out curating their honour" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Truitt (Elly R.) - Preternatural machines" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Twigger (Robert) - Master of many trades" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Twigger (Robert) - The legend of the Legion" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wiles (Will) - Creepypasta" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Yong (Ed) - Microbes have no morals" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- I now have a clear idea of what I want to do over the current academic year11, which is to complete a skeleton thesis12 to my own satisfaction. As such I require rigorous focus on the priority tasks, books and papers. Lower-priority reading is not likely to get a look in, so will be cut.
- First of all, continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs13 on the topic of Personal Identity, and ensure the associated Notes have some text. Let Sophie have a look at it, and consider submission to Aeon.
- An “ideal” next step (and one previously suggested) is to ensure that everything of relevance that I have actually read is written up and incorporated in my Notes database and only later – and secondly – consider anything that I have not yet read. This would require discipline, in that interesting new stuff is always turning up, and would be an iterative process. Further, given I’m not getting any younger, it could also be wasting time which should be focussed on using the most relevant materials.
- So, if what I’ve read and written on – in the form of particular papers on a particular topic – is most relevant, I’ll “process” that, but otherwise will start anew.
- As far as effort is concerned, I’ve further increased the plan to 25 hours / week. This is still ludicrously inadequate for what I want to achieve.
- So, despite the above caveat, the primary tasks for the next quarter will be to complete a full review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those directly referenced by my Current Beliefs14.
- Following that, the focus (if you can call it that) will be on the following bumper list:-
- Continue with my Thesis15; in particular fill out those sections that I can write something on without further research.
- Make progress on specific Chapters, using the materials below →
- Chapter 216 (What Are We?). Focussing on:-
- Human Beings: "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal".
- Selves:-
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit",
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person".
- Chapter 517 (Persistence and Time). Focussing on:-
- "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History: A Philosophical Enquiry",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity",
- Complete "Lebens (Samuel) & Goldschmidt (Tyron) - The Promise of a New Past", and send to Sophie Botros & Michael J. Alter.
- Chapter 618 (Animalism). Focussing on:-
- "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", my core text,
- "Merricks (Trenton) - Objects and Persons",
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument",
- "Olson (Eric) - On Parfit's View That We Are Not Human Beings",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Metaphysical Implications of Conjoined Twining",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Role of the Brainstem in Personal Identity",
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves",
- Review the work of Elselijn Kingma.
- Chapter 719 (The Constitution View):-
- Start a serious review of "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", my other core text.
- Read and review "Corcoran (Kevin) - Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul".
- Write a Note on "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief".
- Chapter 1020 (Thought Experiments):-
- Investigate Transhumanism21.
- In particular,
→ Briefly review "O'Connell (Mark) - To be a Machine",
→ Read "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies",
→ Review "Rowson (Jonathan) - Deep Thinking?",
→ Complete "Silver (David), Hassabis (Demis), Etc. - Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm" and related papers,
→ Detailed review of "Graziano (Michael) - Endless fun".
- Chapter 1122 (Resurrection):-
- Start a thorough review of "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death",
- Start a review of "Luper (Steven), Ed. - The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death", especially
→ "Olson (Eric) - The Nature of People",
- Start a review of "Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death", especially
→ "Zimmerman (Dean) - Personal Identity and the Survival of Death",
- Read and review
→ "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife", and
→ "Corcoran (Kevin) - Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival".
- As background tasks:-
- Convert old PDF-précis, Etc23 to Notes,
- Complete cataloguing the books downloaded from Springer,
- Continue with "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers",
- Complete "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- Continue reading "O'Neill (Cathy) - Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy",
- Complete my Note on "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" and discuss with Pete & Mike.
- Continue reading and reviewing24 papers issued by Aeon,
- Attend Oliver Black’s Salon,
- Read "Edmonds (David) & Eidinow (John) - Wittgenstein's Poker",
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR25 & Cambridge Core.
Summary of Progress to Date
This was hived off to a separate Note26 back in 2010, and hasn’t changed much since.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 11:
- Hopefully, I may complete, or get stuck, earlier.
- By “current academic year”, I mean the period ending on my 65th birthday – ie. 13/11/2018. This is not to slip!
- On the plus side, I’m already much further advanced than would be expected of someone commencing a PhD.
- On the minus side, I want to go into much greater depth, and have other projects on the go – most notably Music, Philosophy of Religion and my Web-tools project.
- The reason for deferring to my 65th birthday is that this is when I get my State Pension. This may not be much, but it’ll make a significant contribution towards the fees and expenses, which I can’t currently afford.
Footnote 12:
- This used to say “complete a thesis …”, which is obviously impossible, given that my idea of a thesis is way in excess of what is required.
Footnote 24:
- Try to keep up to date, but only read those that are strictly relevant – ignore the rest!
- At present I have a relatively small reading-backlog, and a much larger reviewing-backlog.
- Try to add a brief comment for each paper – maybe at the expense of reading the full text!
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 67)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 31)
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
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Summary of Note Links to this Page
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026