Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2019 - March)
(Text as at 05/04/2019 10:36:29)
*** 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 best place to find my current views is here2.
- The jumping-off point for my thesis is here3, and a progress dashboard is here4, though neither of these has changed for some considerable time.
Summary of Progress during January - March 2019
- I spent 198 hours in 19Q1 on this Project, or related work (475.25 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2018). That's 62.2% of the planned effort (82.1% YTD). Overall, 31.8% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 39% YTD) - as against 46.3% planned (41.6% YTD).
- My planned effort was 25 hours / week5. Unfortunately, this quarter I nowhere near achieved this. This was primarily due to the (perceived) need to focus attention on preparing a timeline for Coxes Farm6 as part of my Web-Tools7 project. However, much of the effort actually expended against this project was on items relevant to my Thesis!
- Continued with a few Notes associated with my Thesis.
- Started looking at "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds. - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul".
- My main focus this time round was the work of Elselijn Kigma, in particular:-
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Lady Parts: The Metaphysics of Pregnancy", and
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Were You Part of Your Mother?".
I attended a lecture with the above title she gave at Birkbeck on Friday 15th March, and asked a question on whether conjoined twins share parts – and whether this says anything about the gravida / foster relationship. She said she had a post-doc researching the matter, but encouraged me to do likewise.
- I saw my former supervisor Jennifer Hornsby at the above seminar. We had a quick chat, and she seemed aware of my website8 without prompting, but I didn’t receive encouragement to return to Birkbeck, not that I raised the matter.
- I made no further progress with "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History - A Philosophical Inquiry with Dr Sophie Botros", but completed reading "Orwell (George), Davison (Peter), Taylor (D.J.), Ed. - Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Annotated Edition", where O’Brien expounds his views on the unreality of the past.
- Tragically, Oliver Black died on Wednesday 28th March 2019, so the future of his Salon is very much in doubt.
- As background tasks, I read
→ "Welch (Robert) - York Notes: George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four",
→ "Campbell (Aifric) - The Semantics of Murder",
→ "Amis (Kingsley), Lodge (David) - Lucky Jim" (nearly, but not quite, finished),
→ A few papers on Aeon.
- Substantially caught up with 2019 posting on Philos-List.
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List9. More detail follows:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 126)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 106.75)
- "Andersen (Ross) - What Happens If China Makes First Contact?" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Awad (Edmond), Etc. - The Moral Machine experiment" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Barker (Jonathan) - Debunking Arguments and Metaphysical Laws" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Baxter (Donald L.M.) - Temporary and Contingent Instantiation as Partial Identity" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Ben-Menahem (Yamima), Ed. - Hilary Putnam" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History - A Philosophical Inquiry with Dr Sophie Botros" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Button (Tim) - Wittgenstein on Solipsism in the 1930s: Private Pains, Private Languages, and Two Uses of ‘I’" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Callcut (Daniel), Ed. - Reading Bernard Williams" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Cameron (Ross P.) - Truthmaking and Metametaphysics" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Chisholm (Roderick) - On Metaphysics" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Chisholm (Roderick) - Theory of Knowledge" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Cohnitz (Daniel) & Smith (Barry) - Assessing Ontologies: The Question of Human Origins and Its Ethical Significance" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Crittenden (Charles) - Unreality - The Metaphysics of Fictional Objects" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Damschen (Gregor), Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) & Schonecker (Dieter) - Sixteen Days? A Reply to B. Smith and B. Brogaard on the Beginning of Human Individuals" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "DeGrazia (David) - Must We Have Full Moral Status Throughout Our Existence? A Reply to Alfonso Gómez-Lobo" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "DeGrazia (David) - The Moral Status of Animals and Their Use in Research: A Philosophical Review" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Reflections on Borges's 'The Circular Ruins'" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Reflections on Douglas Hofstadter's 'The Turing Test: A Coffeehouse Conversation'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Fairchild (Maegan) & Hawthorne (John) - Against Conservatism in Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Finn (Suki) - Bun or bump?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Finn (Suki) & Bueno (Otávio) - Quantifier Variance Dissolved" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) - Sortals and Human Beginnings" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Haber (Matt) - Colonies Are Individuals: Revisiting the Superorganism Revival" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hale (Bob) - The Basis of Necessity and Possibility" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Harris (John) - Clones, Genes and Immortality: Ethics and Genetics" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Haslanger (Sally) - What is a Social Practice?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Almost Identical, Almost Innocent" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on D.E.Harding's 'On Having No Head'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Dawkins's 'Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Harold J. Morowitz's 'Rediscovering the Mind'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Lem's 'The Princess Ineffabelle'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Miedaner's 'The Soul of Martha, a Beast'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Miedaner's 'The Soul of the Mark III Beast'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reflections on Wheelis's 'Spirit'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel) - Reflections on Alan Turing's 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel) - Reflections on 'Borges and I'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Howsepian (Avak Albert) - Four queries concerning the metaphysics of early human embryogenesis" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Huneman (Philippe) & Wolfe (Charles T.) - The Concept of Organism: Historical, Philosophical, Scientific Perspectives: Introduction" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Insole (Christopher J.) - Realism and Anti-Realism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Jenkins (Mark P.) - Bernard Williams" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kavka (Gregory S.) - The Paradox of Future Individuals" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kingma (Elselijn) - BUMP: Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy (B1)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kingma (Elselijn) - BUMP: Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy (B2)" (Read / Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Kingma (Elselijn) - Lady Parts: The Metaphysics of Pregnancy" (Read / Write, 5.75 hours)
- "Kingma (Elselijn) - Nine months" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kingma (Elselijn) - Were You Part of Your Mother?" (Read / Write, 26 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Almost Indiscernible Objects and the Suspect Strategy" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Constitution and Similarity" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Essence and Identity" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - In Defense of Substance" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Mereological Sums and Singular Terms" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Questions of Ontology" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Substance, Independence and Unity" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - The Semantics of Mass-Predicates" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Towards a Hylomorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Koslicki (Kathrin) - Varieties of Ontological Dependence" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Kripke (Saul) - Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Lechthaler (Manuel) - Composition and Identities" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Lechthaler (Manuel) - No universalism without gunk? Composition as Identity and the universality of identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Leech (Jessica) - Essence and Mere Necessity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Lewis (David) - Composition As Identity" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Lyerly (Anne Drapkin), Little (Margaret Olivia), Etc. - Risk and the pregnant body" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Mackie (Penelope) - Compatibilism, Indeterminism, and Chance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Marshall (Richard) & Woollard (Fiona) - Fiona Woollard: On Doing and Allowing Harm" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Maxmen (Amy) - A moral map for AI cars" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Mellor (D.H.) - Micro-composition" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Nielsen (Lasse) - Reconstructing Thought Experiments in Personal Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Pradeu (Thomas) - What is An Organism? An Immunological Answer" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Putnam (Hilary) - Is There a Fact of the Matter About Fiction?" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Roselli (Andrea) - How Long is Now? A New Perspective on the Specious Present" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Ross (Don) - Consciousness, language, and the possibility of non-human personhood: Reflections on elephants" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Rush (Penelope) - Metaphysical Optimism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Sadler (Matthew) & Regan (Natasha) - Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Sattig (Thomas) - The Paradox of Fission and the Ontology of Ordinary Objects" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Schaffer (Jonathan) - Laws for Metaphysical Explanation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Barry) & Brogaard (Berit) - Sixteen Days" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Barry) & Varzi (Achille) - Fiat and Bona Fide Boundaries" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Smith (Barry) & Varzi (Achille) - The Niche" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smith (Joel) - The First-Person Plural and Immunity to Error" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Snyder (Eric), Shapiro (Stewart) & Samuels (Richard) - Cardinals, Ordinals, and the Prospects for a Fregean Foundation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Spolaore (Giuseppe) & Torrengo (Giuliano) - The Moving Spotlight(s)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Thomas (Alan), Ed. - Bernard Williams" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Thomasson (Amie L.) - Changing Metaphysics: What Difference does it Make?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Thompson (Naomi) - Irrealism about Grounding" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Fiction" (Write, 10.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Partial Identity" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Tollefsen (Christopher) - Animalism and the Unborn Human Being" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Toner (Patrick) - Emergent Substance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Toner (Patrick) - Independence accounts of substance and substantial parts" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Toner (Patrick) - Transubstantiation, essentialism, and substance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Creatures of Fiction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Existence, Ontological Commitment and Fictional Entities" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Voltolini (Alberto) - Ontological Syncretistic Noneism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Wiggins (David) - Identity, Individuation, and Substance" (Read / Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Williams (Bernard) - The Sense of the Past" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Williams (Christopher) - Death and Other Difficulties" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Williamson (Timothy) - Spaces of Possibility" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wilson (Jack) - Ontological Butchery: Organism Concepts and Biological Generalizations" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wilson (Robert A.) & Barker (Matthew) - The Biological Notion of Individual" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Woollard (Fiona) - Have We Solved the Non-Identity Problem?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Woollard (Fiona) - Most Ways I Could Move: Bennett's Act/Omission Distinction and the Behaviour Space" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Woollard (Fiona) - The New Problem of Numbers in Morality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Yablo (Stephen) - Go Figure: A Path through Fictionalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions (Total Hours = 1.5)
- Interaction - Correspondence with Zenen Kristensen (0.5 hours)
- Interaction - Discussions with Mike & Sylvia (0.5 hours)
- Interaction - Discussions with Pete (0.5 hours)
→ See "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Current Position" (1.5 hours)
- Thesis - Lectures
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 12)
- Thesis - Seminars
- Thesis - Seminars (Reading) (Total Hours = 2.5)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 67.5)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 47)
- "Amis (Kingsley) - Lucky Jim" (Read, 8.5 hours)
- "Blackburn (Simon) - How can we teach objectivity in a post-truth era?" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Borges (Jorge Luis) - The Circular Ruins" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Campbell (Aifric) - The Semantics of Murder" (Read, 10 hours)
- "Interaction - Philos-List" (Read, 11.5 hours)
- "Lodge (David) - Lucky Jim: Introduction" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Orwell (George), Davison (Peter), Taylor (D.J.), Ed. - Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Annotated Edition" (Read, 11.5 hours)
- "Welch (Robert) - York Notes: George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four" (Read, 3.5 hours)
- Thesis Background - Books Admin (Total Hours = 15.75)
- Thesis Background - Status
Thesis (Aeon) (Total Hours = 4.5)
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- I have a clear idea of what I want to do over the coming academic year10, which is to complete a skeleton thesis11 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 Beliefs12 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 had to reduce the plan slightly to 22 hours / week13.
- So, 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 list15:-
- Continue with my Thesis16; in particular
- Fill out those sections that I can write something on without further research.
- Rework the structure so that Level-1 or -2 print produces the thesis with the correct reading-list.
- Continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs17 on the topic of Personal Identity.
- Complete a full review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those directly referenced by my Current Beliefs18.
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the materials below →
- Chapter 219 (What Are We?). Focussing on:-
- Human Beings: "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal".
- Persons: "Cottingham (John) - Why we are not 'persons'".
- Selves:-
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit",
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person".
- Chapter 420 (Basic Metaphysical Issues). Focus on:-
- "Broome (John) - Indefiniteness in Identity",
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Almost Identical, Almost Innocent",
- "Noonan (Harold) - Vague Identity Yet Again"
- "Williams (Christopher) - Death and Other Difficulties"
- Chapter 521 (Persistence and Time). Focussing on:-
- "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History: A Philosophical Enquiry", and especially
→ "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History - A Philosophical Inquiry with Dr Sophie Botros"
- "Haslanger (Sally) & Kurtz (Roxanne), Eds. - Persistence : Contemporary Readings",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Orwell (George), Davison (Peter), Taylor (D.J.), Ed. - Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Annotated Edition",
- "Rovelli (Carlo) - The Order of Time",
- "Sider (Ted), Hawthorne (John) & Zimmerman (Dean), Eds. - Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Objective Becoming",
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Persistence and Determination",
- "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity", especially
→ "Wiggins (David) - Identity, Individuation, and Substance"
- "Lebens (Samuel) & Goldschmidt (Tyron) - The Promise of a New Past": Complete and send to Sophie Botros & Michael J. Alter,
- Robert O. Doyle: Complete running through relevant pages
- Chapter 622 (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",
- "Hershenov (David) - Review of David DeGrazia’s Human Identity and Bioethics",
- "Ross (Don) - Consciousness, language, and the possibility of non-human personhood: Reflections on elephants",
- Elselijn Kingma. Especially
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Lady Parts: The Metaphysics of Pregnancy", and
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Were You Part of Your Mother?".
→ Update my Note on Conjoined Twins23.
- Chapter 724 (The Constitution View):-
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View": My other core text. Start a serious review.
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder), Etc. - E-Symposium on 'Persons & Bodies: A Constitution View'": Write up reviews of papers,
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul": Read and review,
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief": Write a Note.
- Chapter 1025 (Thought Experiments):-
- Investigate Transhumanism26. In particular,
- "Awad (Edmond), Etc. - The Moral Machine experiment": Read,
- "Bridle (James) - New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future": Read,
- "O'Connell (Mark) - To be a Machine": Briefly review,
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies": Read,
- "Graziano (Michael) - Endless fun": Detailed review,
- "Midgley (Mary) - Biotechnology and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the 'Yuk Factor'": Complete,
- "Shipley (G.J.) - Review of Andy Clark's 'Natural-Born Cyborgs'": Complete review,
- "Harari (Yuval Noah) - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow": Review, especially Chapter 8,
- "Fry (Hannah) - Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine": Read & review.
- Chapter 1127 (Resurrection):-
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death": Start a thorough review,
- "Luper (Steven), Ed. - The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death": Start a review, especially
→ "Olson (Eric) - The Nature of People",
- "Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death": Start a review, especially
→ "Zimmerman (Dean) - Personal Identity and the Survival of Death",
- Read and review
→ "Badham (Paul) - Christian Beliefs About Life After Death",
→ "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife",
→ "Corcoran (Kevin) - Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival",
→ "MacIntosh (J.J.) - Reincarnation and Relativized Identity", and
→ "Noonan (Harold) - The Possibility of Reincarnation",
- "Barua (Ankur) - Revisiting the Rationality of Reincarnation-Talk": Write a file-note.
- As background tasks:-
- Ensure all items in:-
→ "Various - Papers on Desktop", and
→ "Various - Papers in Desk Drawer"
are either addressed or re-filed.
- Convert old PDF-précis, Etc28 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 reading:-
- "Amis (Kingsley), Lodge (David) - Lucky Jim",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction",
- "Everett (Daniel) - Did Homo erectus speak?",
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll",
- "Gazzaniga (Michael S.) - Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain"
- "Rosling (Hans) - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" (Note29)
- "Updike (John) - Self-Consciousness"
- Complete my Note on "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" and discuss with Pete & Mike.
- Continue reading and reviewing30 papers issued by Aeon,
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR & Cambridge Core.
- Update my Journals Note31: Review the journals I have access to; more are available as a Cambridge Alumnus.
- Keep up with the philosophical world by periodic reviews of "Interaction - Philos-List".
Summary of Progress to Date
This was hived off to a separate Note32 back in 2010, and hasn’t changed much since.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 5:
- 25 hours / week is approximately what I’d expect to put in to a part-time PhD, based on 5 hours / day, 5 days a week.
Footnote 8:
- I mentioned it received 4,000 hits a day but that I suspected robots.
- She doubted this, but subsequent investigations have confirmed my suspicions.
Footnote 10:
- Hopefully, I may complete, or get stuck, earlier.
- I had hoped to complete this phase of my research by my 65th birthday – ie. by 13/11/2018. Previously, I’ve remarked “This is not to slip!” Unfortunately, the distraction of the problems with Coxes Farm – as well as a general lack of focus – have meant that it has!
- 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, Bridge, Chess and – particularly – my Web-tools project.
- The original reason for deferring to my 65th birthday was that this is when I am eligible for my State Pension. This may not be much to live on – but it is a quite generous supplement which would make a significant contribution towards the fees and expenses, which prior thereto I couldn’t afford.
- Unfortunately, my state pension (and Julie’s, for that matter) has been more than gobbled up by payments on the mortgage I’ve managed to obtain for Coxes Farm. We’ll be repaying that until 2031, by which time I’ll be 77. Maybe litigation against a negligent surveyor will liberate some cash.
Footnote 11:
- 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 13:
- This is still ludicrously inadequate for what I want to achieve, but is approximately what would be expected of a part-time research student.
Footnote 15:
- This is obviously far too long, and keeps getting items “carried forward” tacked on to it.
- Maybe I’ll prune it next time.
Footnote 29:
- Read the Appendices, and extract the Chapter Summaries as learning-points.
Footnote 30:
- 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 72)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 27)
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 05/04/2019 10:36:29 |
518 (Status: Personal Identity (2019 - March)) |
Status: Summary (2026 - March) |
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026