Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2019 - September)
(Text as at 10/10/2019 23:58:34)
*** 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 July - September 2019
- I spent 193.75 hours in 19Q3 on this Project, or related work (921 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2018). That's 70.8% of the planned effort (80.3% YTD). Overall, 28.9% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 36.9% YTD) - as against 41.2% planned (40.7% YTD).
- My planned effort was 22 hours / week5, reduced slightly from the 25 hours I’d like. In any case, this quarter I only achieved just over 70% against plan, mainly on account of predations from the project’s traditional enemy – bridge! However, much of the effort actually expended against this project was on items relevant to my Thesis!
- A full list of items appears below, but the major points are:-
- Completed reading:-
→ "Sagan (Carl) - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candel in the Dark".
- Continued reading:-
→ "Al-Khalili (Jim) & McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology",
- Started reading:-
→ "Hanson (Robin) - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth",
→ "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence",
- Updated sundry PID Notes, and collated associated papers. Other than those listed immediately below, Dicephalus6 got the biggest look-in on account of a Craniopagus case in the news.
- In addition to reading the two AI books above, I continued reading various papers associated with Transhumanism7:-
→ Discovered Michael Madary,
→ Dug out more papers by Nick Bostrom, and
→ Started serious investigation of "Searle (John) - Minds, Brains, and Programs" and fallout therefrom.
- Started to focus on Time8, and discovered Natalja Deng and Daniel Deasy.
- Communicated with Nicholas Maurer.
- Continued with
→ "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds. - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul",
→ A few papers on Aeon,
→ Philos-List
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List9. More detail follows:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 151.25)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 128.75)
- "Abelson (Raziel) - Searle's argument is just a set of Chinese symbols" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Alexander (Denis) - Healing, enhancement and the human future" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Al-Khalili (Jim) & McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology" (Read, 4.25 hours)
- "Anthony (Andrew), Midgley (Mary) - Mary Midgley: a late stand for a philosopher with soul" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Arikha (Noga) - The Interoceptive Turn" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Backmann (Marius) - I Tensed the Laws and the Laws Won: Non-Eternalist Humeanism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Reply to Oaklander" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Balashov (Yuri) - Time, Fission, Fusion: An Argument against the Block Universe with Endurance" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Ball (Philip) - Sim ethics" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Barrett (Lisa Feldman) & Bar (Moshe) - See it with feeling: affective predictions during object perception" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Baxter (Donald L.M.) - Aspects and the Alteration of Temporal Simples" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bevir (Mark) - The Logic of the History of Ideas" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Block (Ned) - What Intuitions about Homunculi Don't Show" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Boccardi (Emiliano) - Recent Trends in the Philosophy of Time: An Introduction to Time and Reality - I" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Boccardi (Emiliano) - The Passage of Time and its Enemies: An Introduction to Time and Reality - II" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Dignity and Enhancement" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Infinite Ethics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant" (Read, 1.5 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - The Future of Humanity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Where Are They? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) & Savulescu (Julian) - Human Enhancement Ethics: The State of the Debate" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) & Sandberg (Anders) - The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) & Yudkowsky (Eliezer) - The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick), Dafoe (Allan) & Flynn (Carrick) - Policy Desiderata for Superintelligent AI: A Vector Field Approach" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Botting (Eileen Hunt), Wollstonecraft (Mary) - Mary Wollstonecraft : Bringing down the patriarchy" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bourne (Craig) & Bourne (Emily Caddick) - The Art of Time Travel: A Bigger Picture" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bourne (Craig) & Bourne (Emily Caddick) - The Art of Time Travel: An 'Insoluble' Problem Solved" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bridgeman (Bruce) - Brains + programs = minds" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Buchanan (Rachael) - The battle to separate Safa and Marwa" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
- "Correia (Fabrice) & Rosenkranz (Sven) - Presentism without Presentness" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Correia (Fabrice) & Rosenkranz (Sven) - Unfreezing the Spotlight: Tense Realism and Temporal Passage" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Costa (Damiano), Gilmore (Cody) & Calosi (Claudio) - Relativity and Three Four-Dimensionalisms" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Cottingham (John) - Why we are not 'persons'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Danto (Arthur) - The use and mention of terms and the simulation of linguistic understanding" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Davies (Sally) - Women’s minds matter" (Read, 2 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - Advanced Temporalising" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - Permanents: In Defence of the Moving Spotlight Theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - Philosophical Arguments Against the A-theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - Skow on Robust Passage and the Moving Spotlight Theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - The Moving Spotlight Theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deasy (Daniel) - What is Presentism?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - 'Beyond A- and B-Time' Reconsidered" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Fine’s McTaggart, Temporal Passage, and the A Versus B-Debate" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - How A-theoretic Deprivationists Should Respond to Lucretius" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Making Sense of the Growing Block View" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Metaphysics, science, and religion: a response to Hud Hudson" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - On Explaining Why Time Seems to Pass" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - On Whether B-theoretic Atheists Should Fear Death" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - One Thing After Another: Why the Passage of Time is Not an Illusion" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Our Experience of Passage on the B-theory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Questions about 'Internal and External Questions about God'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Religion for Naturalists" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Religion for Naturalists and the Meaning of Belief" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Response to 'Fear of Death and the Symmetry Argument'" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Review of L. Nathan Oaklander, Ed. Debates in the Metaphysics of Time" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Temporal Experience and the A versus B debate" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Time, metaphysics of" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - What is Temporal Ontology?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dennett (Daniel) - The Milk of Human Intentionality" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Dieks (Dennis), Ed. - The Ontology of Spacetime" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "DiFrisco (James) & Mossio (Matteo) - Diachronic Identity in Complex Life Cycles: An Organizational Perspective" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Absolute becoming, relational becoming and the arrow of time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Presentism / Eternalism and Endurantism / Perdurantism: why the unsubstantiality of the first debate implies that of the second" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Presentism and the Experience of Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Review of Simon Prosser's 'Experiencing Time'" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - The Irrelevance of the Presentist / Eternalist Debate for the Ontology of Minkowski Spacetime" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dowe (Phil) - A and B Theories of Closed Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - A Challenge to Anti-Criterialism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - A Renewed Challenge to Anti-Criterialism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - Dualists Needn’t Be Anti-Criterialists (Nor Should They Be)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - I Think, Therefore I Persist" (Read / Write, 7 hours)
- "Duncan (Matt) - We are acquainted with ourselves" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Dyke (Heather) - The Evolutionary Origins of Tensed Language and Belief" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Eccles (John) - A dualist-interactionist perspective" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Fausto-Sterling (Anne) - The Bare Bones of Sex: Part 1 - Sex and Gender" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Figg (Travis Matthew) - How To Understand The Debate Over Presentism And Eternalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Fine (Kit) - Tense and Reality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Fine (Kit) - The Reality of Tense" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Fiocco (Marcello Oreste) - What Is Time?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Fischer (Florian) - Philosophy of time: A slightly opinionated introduction" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Fodor (Jerry) - Searle on What Only Brains Can Do" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Friebe (Cord) - Eternalism and the Temporal Content of Persistence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Friebe (Cord) - Metametaphysics: the Ontology of Spacetime and the Presentist/Eternalist Debate" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Frischhut (Akiko M.) - The Experience of Temporal Passage" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Hanson (Robin) - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth" (Read / Write, 8.5 hours)
- "Haugeland (John) - Programs, causal powers, and intentionality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hempel (Carl) - Philosophy of Natural Science: Scope and Aim of This Book" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reductionism and religion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Ingthorsson (Rognvaldur) - Challenging the Grounding Objection to Presentism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "James (William) - What is an Emotion?" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kaag (John) - The greatest use of life" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kent (Adrian) - Replication Ethics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kirchhoff (Michael D.) - Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition: an introduction to the special issue" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Lee (Eun Hee) & Schnall (Simone) - The Influence of Social Power on Weight Perception" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Screen Present and Fictional Present" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: Further Reading" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Libet (Benjamin) - Mental phenomena and behavior" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Loss (Roberto) - Fine’s McTaggart: Reloaded" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Ludlow (Peter) - Tense, Perspectival Properties, and Special Relativity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Lycan (William) - The Functionalist Reply (Ohio State)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "MacAulay (Melissa) - The Debate About Time: Examining The Evidence From Our Ordinary Experience Of Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - Intentionality and virtual objects: the case of Qiu Chengwei’s dragon sabre" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - Review of Istvan Aranyosi’s 'The Peripheral Mind'" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - Showtime at the Cartesian Theater? Vehicle Externalism and Dynamical Explanations" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - Specular highlights as a guide to perceptual content" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - The Puzzle of Perception" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) - The Dorsal Stream and the Visual Horizon" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Madary (Michael) & Metzinger (Thomas) - Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Marsh (Stefanie) - Extreme biohacking: the tech guru who spent $250,000 trying to live for ever" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Marshall (John C.) - Artificial Intelligence - the real thing?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Maudlin (Tim) - A Rate of Passage" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Maurer (Nicholas) - Too Many Persons, or None At All?" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Maxwell (Grover) - Intentionality: Hardware, not software" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "McCall (Storrs) - An Insoluble Problem" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "McCall (Storrs) - Note on 'The Art of Time Travel: An Insoluble Problem Solved'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "McCarthy (John) - Beliefs, Machines and Theories" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Menzel (E.W.) - Is the pen mightier than the computer?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Meyer (Ulrich) - Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Midgley (Mary) - Evolution as a Religion - Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Midgley (Mary) - Wickedness - A Philosophical Essay" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Midgley (Mary) - Wisdom, Information & Wonder - What is Knowledge For?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Miller (Kristie) & Loo (Jane Weiling) - Presentism, Passage, Phenomenology and Physicalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Minsky (Marvin) - Decentralized minds" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Natsoulas (Thomas) - The Primary Source of Intentionality" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Nguyen (Doyen) - Death: The Loss of Life-Constitutive Integration" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Noonan (Harold) - Identity, Constitution and Microphysical Supervenience" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Oaklander (L. Nathan) - Common Sense, Ontology and Time: A Critique of Lynne Rudder Baker's View of Temporal Reality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "O'Hear (Anthony) - Scientific Reductions" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person: Introduction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Orilia (Francesco) - On the Existential side of the Eternalism-Presentism Dispute" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Peebles (Graham) - Temporal Experience and Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Puccetti (Roland) - The Chess Room: Further Demythologising of Strong AI" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Pylyshyn (Zenon) - The 'causal power' of machines" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Rachlin (Howard) - The Behaviorist Reply (Stony Brook)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Riener (Cedar R.), Etc. - An effect of mood on the perception of geographical slant" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Ringle (Martin) - Mysticism as a philosophy of artificial intelligence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Robinson (Denis) - Human Beings, Human Animals, and Mentalistic Survival" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Rorty (Richard) - Searle and the special powers of the brain" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Savitt (Steven) - Closed Time and Local Time: A Reply to Dowe" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Savitt (Steven) - Kit Fine on Tense and Reality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Savitt (Steven) - Presentism and Eternalism in Perspective" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Schank (Roger C.) - Understanding Searle" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Searle (John) - Minds, Brains, and Programs" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Searle (John) - Minds, Brains, and Programs: Author's Response to Peer Review" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Shulman (Carl) & Bostrom (Nick) - How Hard is Artificial Intelligence? Evolutionary Arguments and Selection Effects" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Sloman (Aaron) & Croucher (Monica) - How to turn an information processor into an understander" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smythe (William E.) - Simulation games" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Sorabji (Richard) - Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Spolaore (Giuseppe) - Gunky time and indeterminate existence" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Stone (James L.) & Goodrich (James T.) - The craniopagus malformation: classification and implications for surgical separation" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Strawson (Galen) - 'The Secrets of All Hearts': Locke on Personal Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Strawson (Galen) - 'Where our responsibility lies': Locke on personal identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Suchow (Jordan) - Haven’t we met before? On doppelgängers and perception" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Tallant (Jonathan) - Temporal Passage and the ‘no alternate possibilities’ argument" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (Read / Write, 12.75 hours)
- "Tegmark (Max) & Bostrom (Nick) - How Unlikely is a Doomsday Catastrophe?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Tegtmeier (Erwin) - Time and Order" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Dicephalus" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Essentialism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Life" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Locke" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Logic of Identity" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Mereology" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Metamorphosis" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Reductionism" (Write, 7 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Time" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Transhumanism" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Torrengo (Giuliano) - Presentism and the Sceptical Challenge" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Torrengo (Giuliano) - Time and Simple Existence" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Turing (Alan) - Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (Read, 1.25 hours)
- "Valente (Mario Bacelar) - Einstein’s physical chronogeometry" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Walter (Donald O.) - The thermostat and the philosophy professor" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wikipedia - Craniopagus Twins" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Wilensky (Robert) - Computers, cognition and philosophy" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Yehezkel (Gal) - Fear of Death and the Symmetry Argument" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Zahavi (Dan) - Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions (Total Hours = 2.75)
- Interaction - Correspondence with Nicholas Maurer (2 hours)
- Interaction - Discussions with Costelloes (0.5 hours)
- Interaction - Discussions with Pete (0.25 hours)
→ See "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Current Position" (2.75 hours)
- Thesis - Lectures
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 17.75)
- Thesis - Seminars (Reading)
- Thesis - Seminars (Writing)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 37.75)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 35)
- "Brentano (Franz) - Descriptive Psychology" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Deng (Natalja) - Response to Jeffrey Bishop" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - How to Combine and Not to Combine Physics and Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - The Laws Of Nature And The Effectiveness Of Mathematics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Why Are (Most) Laws of Nature Mathematical?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dorato (Mauro) - Why Are Laws Mathematical?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Gallagher (Shaun) & Zahavi (Dan) - The Phenomenological Mind" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Interaction - Philos-List" (Read, 9.25 hours)
- "Kenny (Anthony) - Aquinas on Being" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kenny (Anthony) - Aquinas on Mind" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kenny (Anthony) - I was Boris Johnson's tutor at Oxford – but did I teach him the right lessons?" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Lombard (Lawrence B.) - Time for a Change: A Polemic Against the Presentism-Eternalism Debate" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Sagan (Carl) - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candel in the Dark" (Read, 14.25 hours)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Born On a Blue Day" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Embracing the Wide Sky: A tour across the horizons of the mind" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates Our Lives" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wikipedia, Etc. - Periodic Table On-Line" (Read, 1.5 hours)
- "Wood (James), LRB - How Eton’s cosseted world shaped Boris Johnson" (Read / Write, 4.25 hours)
- Thesis Background - Status
Thesis (Aeon)
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- One thing that has occurred to me is that I’ve got into the habit of collecting stuff – masses of it – and loosely engaging with it, but not doing so seriously enough because of a scatter-gun approach. Also, I very seldom write anything of my own without close reference to what others have written. In a sense this is a good thing, but is destructive of creativity.
- So, I intend to focus over the coming Quarter on Time10, and intend to spend at least an hour each and every day writing my own stuff. This isn’t really enough, but we’ll see how things go.
- Otherwise … as before … I have a clear idea of what I want to do over the coming 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 retained the plan at 22 hours / week14.
- 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 Beliefs15.
- Following that, the focus (if you can call it that) will be on the following bumper list16:-
- Continue with my Thesis17; in particular
- Spend at least an hour a day writing something original.
- 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 Beliefs18 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 Beliefs19,
- Those without a reading list: Locke20, Matter21, Memory22, Numerical Identity23, Olson24, Ontology25, Organisms26, Perdurantism27, Person28, Personality29, Physical Continuity30, Physicalism31, Probability32, Psychological Continuity – Forward33, Psychological View34, Psychology35, Reductionism36, Religion37, Semantics38, Siliconisation39, Similarity40, Soul Criterion41, Souls42, Statue and the Clay43, Substance44, Survival45, Taking Persons Seriously46, Unity of the Person47.
- Those not yet in the latest standard format.
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the materials below →
- Chapter 148 (Introduction). Focussing on:-
- Locke49
→ "Duncan (Matt) - I Think, Therefore I Persist", Complete Write-up
→ "Maurer (Nicholas) - Too Many Persons, or None At All?", Write-up
→ "Strawson (Galen) - 'The Secrets of All Hearts': Locke on Personal Identity", Read
→ "Strawson (Galen) - 'Where our responsibility lies': Locke on personal identity", Read
- Logic of Identity50
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Identity, Constitution and Microphysical Supervenience", Write-up51
- Chapter 252 (What Are We?). Focussing on:-
- Human Beings: Review the Symposium between:-
→ "Robinson (Denis) - Human Beings, Human Animals, and Mentalistic Survival", Read and Write-up
→ "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal", Complete Write-up
- Persons: "Cottingham (John) - Why we are not 'persons'", Complete Write-up
- Selves:-
- "Arikha (Noga) - The Interoceptive Turn", Read and Write-up
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit", Read and Write-up
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person", Complete Reading and Write-ups
- Chapter 353 (What Is A Person?).
- "Nanay (Bence) - Catching Desires": Complete write-up
- "Noller (Jorg) - A Transformative Account of Personal Identity",
- "Noller (Jorg) - Person",
- Personites54, develop Note, using:-
→ "Olson (Eric) - Ethics and the Generous Ontology", then …
→ "Eklund (Matti) - The Existence of Personites",
→ "Johnston (Mark) - The Personite Problem: Should Practical Reason Be Tabled?",
→ "Johnston (Mark) - Personites, Maximality and Ontological Trash",
→ "Kaiserman (Alexander) - Stage Theory and the Personite Problem",
→ "Pautz (Adam) - Johnston’s Puzzle about Personites".
- Chapter 455 (Basic Metaphysical Issues). Focus on:-
- Existence: "Williams (Christopher) - Death and Other Difficulties"
- Logic of Identity56
→ "Baxter (Donald L.M.) - Temporary and Contingent Instantiation as Partial Identity"
- Parfit57
→ "Colen (J.A.) - In Memoriam Derek Parfit (1942-2017)",
→ "Funkhouser (Eric) - Notes on Parfit, 'Personal Identity'",
→ "Korsgaard (Christine) - Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit",
→ "Perry (John) - Time, Fission, and Personal Identity",
→ "Parfit (Derek) - Personal Identity",
→ "Parfit (Derek) - Prudence, morality, and the prisoner's dilemma", Note58
→ "Parfit (Derek) - Who do you think you are?",
→ Complete run-through of the Parfit reading-list
- Simple View59
→ "Duncan (Matt) - A Challenge to Anti-Criterialism"
→ "Duncan (Matt) - A Renewed Challenge to Anti-Criterialism"
→ "Duncan (Matt) - Dualists Needn’t Be Anti-Criterialists (Nor Should They Be)"
- Vague Identity60
→ "Broome (John) - Indefiniteness in Identity",
→ "Hawley (Katherine) - Almost Identical, Almost Innocent",
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Vague Identity Yet Again"
- Chapter 561 (Persistence and Time). Focussing on:-
- "Boccardi (Emiliano), Ed. - Manuscrito vol. 39 no.4: Recent Trends in the Philosophy of Time: An Introduction to Time and Reality - I", and
- "Boccardi (Emiliano), Ed. - Manuscrito vol. 40 no.1: The Passage of Time and its Enemies: An Introduction to Time and Reality - II"
- "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History: A Philosophical Enquiry", and especially
→ "Botros (Sophie) - Truth, Time and History - A Philosophical Inquiry with Dr Sophie Botros"
- "Bourne (Craig) - A Future for Presentism",
- "Correia (Fabrice) & Rosenkranz (Sven) - Unfreezing the Spotlight: Tense Realism and Temporal Passage",
- "Costa (Damiano), Gilmore (Cody) & Calosi (Claudio) - Relativity and Three Four-Dimensionalisms",
- Natalja Deng: Various papers, starting with
→ "Deng (Natalja) - One Thing After Another: Why the Passage of Time is Not an Illusion",
- Mauro Dorato: Various papers,
→ "Dorato (Mauro) - Presentism / Eternalism and Endurantism / Perdurantism: why the unsubstantiality of the first debate implies that of the second",
→ "Dorato (Mauro) - Presentism and the Experience of Time",
→ "Dorato (Mauro) - The Irrelevance of the Presentist / Eternalist Debate for the Ontology of Minkowski Spacetime".
- Robert O. Doyle: Complete running through relevant pages, ie:-
→ "Doyle (Robert O.) - Change (Being and Becoming)"
→ "Doyle (Robert O.) - Persistence (Perdurance and Endurance)"
→ "Doyle (Robert O.) - David Wiggins" (part)
- "Fischer (Florian) - Philosophy of time: A slightly opinionated introduction",
- "Friebe (Cord) - Eternalism and the Temporal Content of Persistence", and
- "Friebe (Cord) - Metametaphysics: the Ontology of Spacetime and the Presentist/Eternalist Debate".
- "Haslanger (Sally) & Kurtz (Roxanne), Eds. - Persistence : Contemporary Readings",
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Persistence and Determination",
- "Lebens (Samuel) & Goldschmidt (Tyron) - The Promise of a New Past": Complete and send to Sophie Botros & Michael J. Alter,
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time",
- "LePoidevin (Robin) & MacBeath (Murray), Eds. - The Philosophy of Time: Oxford Readings in Philosophy",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Orwell (George), Davison (Peter), Taylor (D.J.), Ed. - Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Annotated Edition",
- "Roselli (Andrea) - How Long is Now? A New Perspective on the Specious Present",
- "Rovelli (Carlo) - The Order of Time",
- "Sattig (Thomas) - The Flow of Time in Experience",
- "Savitt (Steven) - Presentism and Eternalism in Perspective",
- "Sider (Ted), Hawthorne (John) & Zimmerman (Dean), Eds. - Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Objective Becoming",
- "Torrengo (Giuliano) - Time and Simple Existence",
- "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity", especially
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Review of Wiggins's 'Continuants'"
→ "Wiggins (David) - Identity, Individuation, and Substance", and
- Chapter 662 (Animalism). Focussing on:-
- "Al-Khalili (Jim) & McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology",
- "DiFrisco (James) & Mossio (Matteo) - Diachronic Identity in Complex Life Cycles: An Organizational Perspective",
- "Hershenov (David) - Review of David DeGrazia’s Human Identity and Bioethics",
- "Merricks (Trenton) - Objects and Persons",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", my core text,
- "Ross (Don) - Consciousness, language, and the possibility of non-human personhood: Reflections on elephants",
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves",
- Chapter 763 (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.
- "Mellor (D.H.) - Micro-composition": Read
- Chapter 864 (Arguments against Animalism):-
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument",
- Dicephalus & Conjoined Twins65
→ "Buchanan (Rachael) - The battle to separate Safa and Marwa"
→ "Campbell (Tim) & McMahan (Jeff) - Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning"
→ "Olson (Eric) - The Metaphysical Implications of Conjoined Twining"
→ "Stone (James L.) & Goodrich (James T.) - The craniopagus malformation: classification and implications for surgical separation"
→ "Wikipedia - Craniopagus Twins"
- "Olson (Eric) - The Role of the Brainstem in Personal Identity",
- "Olson (Eric) - On Parfit's View That We Are Not Human Beings",
- Pregnancy66
- Elselijn Kingma. Especially
→ "Finn (Suki) - Bun or bump?",
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Lady Parts: The Metaphysics of Pregnancy", and
→ "Kingma (Elselijn) - Were You Part of Your Mother?".
→ Update my Note on Conjoined Twins67.
- "Damschen (Gregor), Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) & Schonecker (Dieter) - Sixteen Days? A Reply to B. Smith and B. Brogaard on the Beginning of Human Individuals",
- "Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) - Sortals and Human Beginnings",
- "Oderberg (David) - The Metaphysical Status of the Embryo: Some Arguments Revisited",
- "Smith (Barry) & Brogaard (Berit) - Sixteen Days".
- Chapter 1068 (Thought Experiments):-
- "Nielsen (Lasse) - Reconstructing Thought Experiments in Personal Identity",
- "Searle (John), Etc. - Minds, Brains, and Programs",
- Investigate Transhumanism69. In particular,
- "Alexander (Denis) - Healing, enhancement and the human future": Read,
- "Awad (Edmond), Etc. - The Moral Machine experiment": Read,
- "Ball (Philip) - Sim ethics": Write up,
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies": Read,
- "Bridle (James) - New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future": Read,
- "Davies (Sally) - Women’s minds matter" (and papers cited / resisted)
- "Fry (Hannah) - Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine": Read & review,
- "Graziano (Michael) - Endless fun": Detailed review,
- "Hanson (Robin) - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth", Read
- "Harari (Yuval Noah) - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow": Review, especially Chapter 8,
- "Kent (Adrian) - Replication Ethics": Read,
- "Madary (Michael) & Metzinger (Thomas) - Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct": Read,
- "Marshall (Richard) & Metzinger (Thomas) - Thomas Metzinger: All About the Ego Tunnel": Read,
- "Midgley (Mary) - Biotechnology and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the 'Yuk Factor'": Complete,
- "O'Connell (Mark) - To be a Machine": Briefly review,
- "Shipley (G.J.) - Review of Andy Clark's 'Natural-Born Cyborgs'": Complete review,
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence": Read.
- Chapter 1170 (Resurrection):-
- "Barua (Ankur) - Revisiting the Rationality of Reincarnation-Talk": Write a file-note.
- "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",
- "Luper (Steven), Ed. - The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death": Start a review, especially
→ "Olson (Eric) - The Nature of People",
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death": Start a thorough review,
- 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",
- 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, Etc71 to Notes: As an interim task, correct the dates + email address on the longer pdfs.
- Complete cataloguing the books downloaded from Springer,
- Continue with "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers",
- Complete reading:-
- "Barker (Jonathan) - Debunking Arguments and Metaphysical Laws",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction",
- "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- "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" (Note72)
- Complete my Note on "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" and discuss with Pete & Mike.
- Continue reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon73,
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR & Cambridge Core.
- Update my Journals Note74: Review the journals I have access to; more are available as a Cambridge Alumnus.
- Keep up with the philosophical world by regular reviews of "Interaction - Philos-List", but only seriously pursue items relevant to my research.
Summary of Progress to Date
This was hived off to a separate Note75 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 11:
- 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 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 14:
- 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 16:
- This is obviously far too long, and keeps getting items “carried forward” tacked on to it.
- Maybe I’ll prune it next time.
Footnote 51:
- This paper covers the "loose and popular" sense of identity, amongst much else.
Footnote 58: Footnote 72:
- Read the Appendices, and extract the Chapter Summaries as learning-points.
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