Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2019 - December)
(Text as at 19/01/2020 23:41:17)
*** 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 October - December 2019
- I spent 240 hours in 19Q4 on this Project, or related work (240 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2019). That's 84.3% of the planned effort (84.3% YTD). Overall, 35.4% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 35.4% YTD) - as against 36.7% planned (36.7% YTD).
- A full list of items worked on in the quarter appears below. Previous reports have itemised where my focus has been, but I only intend to do this annually from now on. Enough to note that I spent rather too long catching up with Aeon.
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List5. More detail follows:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 85.25)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 81.75)
- Aeon: Stark - My autism journey: how I learned to stop trying to fit in (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Lemonick - Living in the now (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Tesfaye - What amnesiacs tell us about memory: Q&A with Brenda Milner (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Irish - The self in dementia is not lost, and can be reached with care (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Hekman - Canine exceptionalism (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Julian Barbour: what is time? (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
→ See "Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul) - Aeon: 2019+" (3.5 hours)
- "Al-Khalili (Jim) & McFadden (Johnjoe) - Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology" (Read, 4.25 hours)
- "Baillie (James) - We all know that we will die, so why do we struggle to believe it?" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - A Semantic Solution to the Problem of Coincident Objects" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - Anti-Metaphysicalism, Necessity, and Temporal Ontology" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - Conceptual analysis and x-phi" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - How to Be a Fictionalist About Material Constitution (And Just About Anything Else)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - Why metaphysical debates are not merely verbal (or how to have a non-verbal metaphysical debate)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Balaguer (Mark) - Why the debate about composition is factually empty (or why there’s no fact of the matter whether anything exists)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Barbour (Julian) - The Nature of Time" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Conn (Christopher Hughes) - Locke on Essence and Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Correia (Fabrice) & Rosenkranz (Sven) - Eternal Facts In An Ageing Universe" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Cortes (Marina) & Smolin (Lee) - Reversing the Irreversible: from limit cycles to emergent time symmetry" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dolev (Yuval) - Dummett's Antirealism and Time" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Falk (Dan) - A Debate Over the Physics of Time" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Gallup (Gordon G.) & Povinelli (Daniel) - Can Animals Empathize?" (Read, 1.5 hours)
- "Garfield (Jay L.) - Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Glover (Jonathan) - I: Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity: Introduction" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Glover (Jonathan) - I: Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity: Preface" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Prelude … Ant Fugue" (Read, 1.25 hours)
- "Isaac (Sasha) - Is artificial-womb technology a tool for women’s liberation?" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Keim (Brandon) - I, cockroach" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Kutach (Douglas N.) - The Asymmetry of Influence" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Lachmann (Michael) & Walker (Sara) - Life ≠ alive" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - The Measure of All Things" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: Preface" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Loux (Michael) - Causation" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Loux (Michael) - The Nature of Time" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "McKinnon (Neil) - Presentism and Consciousness" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Midgley (Mary) - Biotechnology and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the 'Yuk Factor'" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Mitchell (Kevin J.) - Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Monk (Ray) - Time Reborn by Lee Smolin – Review" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Moore (Adrian W.) - Is the quest for immortality worse than death?" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Morell (Virginia) - What do mirror tests test?" (Read / Write, 5 hours)
- "Nikolic (Hrvoje) - Block time: Why many physicists still don’t accept it?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Petkov (Vesselin) - Is There an Alternative to the Block Universe View?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Rea (Michael) - Four-Dimensionalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Schneider (Susan) - Artificial You" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Smith (Wilfred Cantwell) - The Promise of Artificial Intelligence" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Smolin (Lee) - Temporal naturalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Smolin (Lee) - Temporal relationalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Stone (Alison) - Thinking about one’s birth is as uncanny as thinking of death" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (Read, 7.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Animalism - Objections" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Animalists" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Brain Criterion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Buddhism" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Consciousness" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Constitution View" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Death" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Existence" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Hylomorphism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Interregnum" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Locke" (Write, 3.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Makropulos Case" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Matter" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Memory" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Narrative Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Numerical Idenity" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Occasional Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Ontology" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Parfit" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Partial Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Persistence" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Pregnancy" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Reincarnation" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Resurrection" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Self" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Self-Consciousness" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Thought Experiments" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Time" (Write, 5.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Transhumanism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Vague Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wuthrich (Christian) - The fate of presentism in modern physics" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold" (Read / Write, 3.75 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions
- Thesis - Research Repositioning
- Thesis - Seminars (Reading)
- Thesis - Seminars (Writing)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 67)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 58.75)
- Aeon: Baggott - But is it science? (Read, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Pigliucci - Richard Feynman was wrong about beauty and truth in science (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Burton - To make laziness work for you, put some effort into it (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Smith - Aristotle was wrong and so are we: there are far more than five senses (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - ‘You wanna get rid of me?’ When the time comes to move mom into assisted living (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: McAndrew - Houses of horror (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Sebens - What’s everything made of? (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Frisch - Why things happen (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Demuth - Turn and live with animals (Read, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Mitchell - Wired that way: genes do shape behaviours but it’s complicated (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Baggott - What Einstein meant by ‘God does not play dice’ (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Baggini - Hume the humane (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Hall - Why read Aristotle today? (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Video - Do you think science can understand everything? (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Isbell - How seeing snakes in the grass helped primates to evolve (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The Feynman Series - Beauty (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Pettinen - Will we ever know the difference between a wolf and a dog? (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Sayare - Consider the axolotl: our great hope of regeneration? (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Egan - Is there anything especially expert about being a philosopher? (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Lyons - Philosopher of the human (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Gross - How pottering about in the garden creates a time warp (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Spinoza's 'Ethics' - what do you mean by 'God' (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
→ See "Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul) - Aeon: 2019+" (15 hours)
- "Carey (John), Ed. - The Faber Book of Science" (Read / Write, 10.75 hours)
- "Carroll (Sean M.) - Beyond Falsifiability: Normal Science in a Multiverse" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dawid (Richard) - Delimiting the Unconceived" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Devlin (Bernie), Fienberg (Stephen E.), Resnick (Daniel P.) & Roeder (Kathryn) - Intelligence, Genes & Success - Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve" (Write, 3.5 hours)
- "Dyson (Freeman) & Robbins (Jeffrey), Ed. - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: Prefaces, Etc." (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - Cargo Cult Science: Some Remarks on Science, Pseudoscience, and Learning How to Not Fool Yourself" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - Computing Machines in the Future" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - Los Alamos from Below" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - Richard Feynman Builds a Universe" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - Richard Feynman's Minority Report to the Space Shuttle Challenger Inquiry" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - The Relation of Science and Religion" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - The Smartest Man in the World" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - The Value of Science" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Feynman (Richard) - What Is Science?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Gardner (Howard) - Frames of Mind - The Theory of Multiple Intelligences" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Gould (Stephen Jay) - The Mismeasure of Man" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Interaction - Philos-List" (Read / Write, 7.25 hours)
- "Shepherd (Richard) - Unnatural Causes" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Born On a Blue Day" (Read / Write, 10.25 hours)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Embracing the Wide Sky: A tour across the horizons of the mind" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Tammet (Daniel) - Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates Our Lives" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- Thesis Background - Books Admin (Total Hours = 4.5)
- Thesis Background - Status
Thesis (Aeon) (Total Hours = 87.75)
- Aeon: Smith - For centuries European aristocrats proudly claimed foreign ancestry (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Bari - What do clothes say? (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Ward - Mistaken (Read, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Victoria - Zen terror (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Video - X-Ray Man (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Robinson - Thus spake Albert (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Vallgarda - Keeping secrets (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Degroot - Little Ice Age lessons (Read, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - I came from the unknown to sing (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Hall - Classics for the people (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Walter Lippmann - public opinion and propaganda (Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Matthews - What is to be done about the problem of creepy men? (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Pyne - The planet is burning (Read, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Jarrett - Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material (Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Hekman - Canine exceptionalism (Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Labaree - Pluck versus luck (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Video - The driver is red (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Mary Beard: women and power (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Lane - Rules or citizens? (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul) - Aeon: 2019+" (Write, 73.5 hours)
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 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. Sadly, it didn’t go anywhere last quarter.
- Otherwise … as before … I have a clear idea of what I want to do over the current academic year6, which is to complete a skeleton thesis7 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 Beliefs8 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 / week9.
- 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 Beliefs10.
- Following that, the focus (if you can call it that) will be on the following bumper list11:-
- Continue with my Thesis12; 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 Beliefs13 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 Beliefs14,
- Those without a reading list: Olson15, Ontology16, Organisms17, Perdurantism18, Person19, Personality20, Physical Continuity21, Physicalism22, Probability23, Psychological Continuity – Forward24, Psychological View25, Psychology26, Reductionism27, Religion28, Semantics29, Siliconisation30, Similarity31, Soul Criterion32, Souls33, Statue and the Clay34, Substance35, Survival36, Taking Persons Seriously37, Unity of the Person38.
- Those not yet in the latest standard format.
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the materials below →
- Chapter 139 (Introduction). Focussing on:-
- Locke40
→ "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 Identity41
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Identity, Constitution and Microphysical Supervenience", Write-up42
- Chapter 243 (What Are We?). Focussing on:-
- Brains44: "Mitchell (Kevin J.) - Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are", Read & review
- Human Beings45: 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
- Persons46: "Cottingham (John) - Why we are not 'persons'", Complete Write-up
- Selves47:-
- "Arikha (Noga) - The Interoceptive Turn", Read and Write-up
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit", Read and Write-up
- "Glover (Jonathan) - I: Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity", Read and Write-up
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person", Complete Reading and Write-ups
- Chapter 348 (What Is A Person49?).
- "Nanay (Bence) - Catching Desires": Complete write-up
- "Noller (Jorg) - A Transformative Account of Personal Identity",
- "Noller (Jorg) - Person",
- Personites50, 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 451 (Basic Metaphysical Issues). Focus on:-
- Existence52: "Williams (Christopher) - Death and Other Difficulties"
- Logic of Identity53 (Partial Identity54)
→ "Baxter (Donald L.M.) - Temporary and Contingent Instantiation as Partial Identity",
→ "Hawley (Katherine) - Almost Identical, Almost Innocent"
- Parfit55
→ "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", Note56
→ "Parfit (Derek) - Who do you think you are?",
→ Complete run-through of the Parfit reading-list
- Simple View57
→ "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 Identity58
→ "Broome (John) - Indefiniteness in Identity",
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Vague Identity Yet Again"
- Chapter 559 (Persistence60 and Time61). Focussing on:-
- General
- "Sider (Ted), Hawthorne (John) & Zimmerman (Dean), Eds. - Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics",
- Persistence62
- 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)
- "Haslanger (Sally) & Kurtz (Roxanne), Eds. - Persistence : Contemporary Readings",
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Persistence and Determination",
- "Wiggins (David) - Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity", especially
→ "Noonan (Harold) - Review of Wiggins's 'Continuants'", and
→ "Wiggins (David) - Identity, Individuation, and Substance"
- Time63
- "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".
- "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".
- "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",
- "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",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Objective Becoming",
- "Torrengo (Giuliano) - Time and Simple Existence",
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold"
- Chapter 664 (Animalism65). Focussing on:-
- Animals66:
- "Ross (Don) - Consciousness, language, and the possibility of non-human personhood: Reflections on elephants"
- Animalism67
- "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,
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves",
- Life68
- "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",
- "Lachmann (Michael) & Walker (Sara) - Life ≠ alive",
- "Schrodinger (Erwin) - What is Life?"
- Chapter 769 (The Constitution View70):-
- "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
- "Zahavi (Dan) - Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective": Write-up.
- Chapter 871 (Arguments against Animalism72):-
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument",
- Dicephalus & Conjoined Twins73
- "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",
- Pregnancy74
- "Damschen (Gregor), Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) & Schonecker (Dieter) - Sixteen Days? A Reply to B. Smith and B. Brogaard on the Beginning of Human Individuals",
- 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?".
- "Gomez-Lobo (Alfonso) - Sortals and Human Beginnings",
- "Isaac (Sasha) - Is artificial-womb technology a tool for women’s liberation?",
- "Oderberg (David) - The Metaphysical Status of the Embryo: Some Arguments Revisited",
- "Smith (Barry) & Brogaard (Berit) - Sixteen Days".
- Chapter 1075 (Thought Experiments76):-
- "Nielsen (Lasse) - Reconstructing Thought Experiments in Personal Identity",
- "Searle (John), Etc. - Minds, Brains, and Programs",
- Investigate Transhumanism77. 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,
- "Schneider (Susan) - Artificial You": Read,
- "Shipley (G.J.) - Review of Andy Clark's 'Natural-Born Cyborgs'": Complete review,
- "Smith (Wilfred Cantwell) - The Promise of Artificial Intelligence": Read,
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence": Read.
- Chapter 1178 (Resurrection79):-
- Death80
- "Baillie (James) - We all know that we will die, so why do we struggle to believe it?": Complete review
- "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",
- "Stone (Alison) - Thinking about one’s birth is as uncanny as thinking of death": review
- Makropulos Case81
- "Moore (Adrian W.) - Is the quest for immortality worse than death?": Detailed analysis
- "Moore (Adrian W.) - Williams, Nietzsche, and the Meaninglessness of Immortality": Read and review
- Reincarnation82
- "Barua (Ankur) - Revisiting the Rationality of Reincarnation-Talk": Write a file-note.
- "MacIntosh (J.J.) - Reincarnation and Relativized Identity": Read and review
- "Noonan (Harold) - The Possibility of Reincarnation": Read and review
- Resurrection83
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death": Start a thorough review,
- "Badham (Paul) - Christian Beliefs About Life After Death": Read and review
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife": Read and review
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival": Read and review
- As background tasks:-
- Ensure all items in:-
→ "Various - Papers on Desktop", and
→ "Various - Papers in Desk Drawer"
are either addressed or re-filed.
- Maintain "Various - Papers & Books Yet To Be Logged", and log papers therein if they become important.
- Convert old PDF-précis, Etc84 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",
- "Carey (John), Ed. - The Faber Book of Science",
- "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" (Note85)
- 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 Aeon86,
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR & Cambridge Core.
- Update my Journals Note87: 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 Note88 back in 2010, and hasn’t changed much since.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 6:
- 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 7:
- 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 9:
- 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 11:
- This is obviously far too long, and keeps getting items “carried forward” tacked on to it.
- Maybe I’ll prune it next time.
Footnote 42:
- This paper covers the "loose and popular" sense of identity, amongst much else.
Footnote 56: Footnote 85:
- Read the Appendices, and extract the Chapter Summaries as learning-points.
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Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 75)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 23)
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