Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2022 - March)
(Text as at 11/04/2022 00:01:26)
*** 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 get an overview of my current views is here2.
- The jumping-off point for my thesis is here3, though follow the links from the Chapter Abstracts for the real work, and a progress dashboard is here4.
Summary of Progress during January - March 2022
- I spent 184.5 hours in 22Q1 on this Project, or related work (484 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2021). That's 60.8% of the planned effort (78.5% YTD). Overall, 26.3% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 34.8% YTD) - as against 40% planned (38.1% YTD).
- I didn’t anywhere near fulfil the time-allowance for this quarter, for two reasons. Firstly – a good one – making significant progress on the cross-referencing project on my website, which is a prerequisite for the documentation of my philosophical researches to work smoothly. Secondly – a bad, perennial one – because of time needed on my Bridge project (for Secretarial work rather than playing, which remains under control).
- What progress I did make was mostly on incorporating the ‘text snippets’ from my Notes into the Main text for each Thesis Chapter. I’ve completed Chapter 1 and am half-way through Chapter 2. It’s going quite well. Completing this will be my main task in the coming Quarter.
- To control the various links, I’ve created and maintained a PID Note Usage5 Page.
- I’ve got yet further behind on reading Aeon, despite spending a fair amount of time reading and on write-ups. It’s never possible to do it justice when a dozen or so interesting papers turn up every week.
- As major background tasks, I completed:-
→ "Sowell (Thomas) - Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy", and
→ "Harris (Robert) - Munich"
And continued with
→ "Jansen (Marius B.) - The Making of Modern Japan"
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List6.
- A full list of items worked on in the quarter appears below:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 87.75)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 73.5)
- "Aeon - Video - A is for autism" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - How does a quantum computer work?" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - In a lion" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Aeon - Video - Letting you go" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - The Black cop: a victim, a villain and a hero" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - The happiest guy in the world" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - The many disguises of Australian walking sticks" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Barash (David P.) - Be they friend or foe, animals share our blood and our planet" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Barash (David P.) - Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Carroll (Sean M.) - Consciousness and the Laws of Physics" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Carroll (Sean M.) - The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Collins (Barry) - Can AI Solve Chess's Stalemate" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Derbew (Sarah) - Blackness in antiquity" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Doyle (David Matthew) - Affirming transgender people’s identities is more than politeness" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Falk (Dan) - The philosopher’s zombie" (Read / Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Friston (Karl) - Karl Friston: Embodied cognition" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Frith (Christopher D.) & Frith (Uta) - Mechanisms of Social Cognition" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Goff (Philip) - Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Goff (Philip), Seager (William) & Allen-Hermanson (Sean) - Panpsychism" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Harden (Kathryn Paige) - The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality" (Read, 2 hours)
- "Jones (Janet) - Becoming a centaur" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Kahn-Harris (Keith) - The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Kahn-Harris (Keith) - The pleasure in not understanding a language can be awesome" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Koch (Christof), Tononi (Giulio), Etc. - Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kuhn (Robert Lawrence) - Aeon - Video - Jeff Tollaksen - quantum mechanics experiments" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Law (Stephen) - Aeon - Video - The 'evil god challenge'" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Lewis (David) - Survival and Identity" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "McGlokin (Mitch) - Aeon - Video - Forever" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Metzinger (Thomas) - Are you sleepwalking now?" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Nathan (Marco J.) - Knowing your true age requires more than a swab and calendar" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Rowland (Katherine) - We are multitudes" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Ruggles (Laura) - The minds of plants" (Read, 2 hours)
- "The Week - Octoculture" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "The Week, Rufford (Nick) - Could the woolly mammoth be brought back from the dead?" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Bodily Continuity" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Body" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Body Criterion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Brain" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Brain Criterion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Brain Death" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Brains in Vats" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Cartesian Ego" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Cerebrum" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)" (Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Descartes" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Dualism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Forensic Property" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Human Beings" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - I" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Leibniz" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Lewis" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Memory" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Methuselah" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Narrative Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Parfit" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychological Continuity" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychological Continuity - Forward" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychological Criterion" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychological View" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychology" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Quasi-Memory" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Self" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Sleep" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Soul Criterion" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Souls" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - What Are We?" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Weisberg (Jonathan) - Video - Bertrand's Paradox" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- Thesis - Discussions
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 12)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 62.25)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 59)
- Thesis Background - Status
Thesis (Aeon) (Total Hours = 34.5)
- Aeon: Blankinship - Tales of two jackals (Comments; Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Kang - The problem with ‘han’ 한 恨 (Comments; Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- Aeon: Montas - Great books are still great (Comments; Read / Write, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Tyldesley - Nefertiti’s bust (Comments; Read / Write, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Video - How to ride a pterosaur (Comments; Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Inka khipu (Comments; Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - People in order: age (Comments; Write, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Powers of ten, updated (Comments; Read, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Simulating star-destroying black holes (Comments; Write, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The Bombay highway code (Comments; Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The chimney swift (Comments; Write, 0.5 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The first Tuesday in November (Comments; Read, 0.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The invention of trousers (Comments; Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The Japanese sword as the soul of the samurai (Comments; Read, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Video - The power of diverse thinking (Comments; Write, 0.75 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Unsafe passage (Comments; Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- Aeon: Video - Virtual ancient Rome: walking from the Colosseum to the Forum (Comments; Read / Write, 1 hour)
- Aeon: Video - Zen koans (Comments; Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul) - Aeon: 2019+" (Comments; Write, 20 hours)
- "Smith (David Livingstone) - The essence of evil" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
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 hasn’t gone anywhere much in the last academic year.
- So, I have set myself a challenge: write a full-length paper on what I consider to be the critical issue in the philosophy of personal identity: the difference between forward and backward psychological continuity7.
- Further, now I’ve got my skeleton Notes into some sort of shape, and have allocated them as links to the Thesis text, I need to complete adding sections of text appropriate for the Thesis text itself, using the ‘snippet’ technology recently developed. This will be my primary task this quarter.
- Otherwise … as before … I have a clear idea of what I want to do over the current academic year8, which is to complete a skeleton thesis9 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 Beliefs10 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 from the ideal 24 hours / week11 to 18 hours / week for the next quarter (only!) until the Bridge-clubs merger is effected. It will be re-instated in 22Q3.
- So, the primary tasks for the next quarter will be to complete a full review of my Thesis12 in the light of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those directly referenced by my Current Beliefs13.
- I’ve drastically pruned the task list below, having checked that all items appear under the relevant PID Note. Items below are those that don’t :-
- Continue with my Thesis14; 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 Beliefs15 on the topic of Personal Identity.
- Regularly review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those directly referenced by my Current Beliefs16.
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the tasks outlined in my Thesis Dashboard17, using the materials listed18 in the Chapters and underlying Notes.
- In particular, make use of my new 'Snippets' technology to introduce text from the Notes to the Thesis Chapters' Main Text.
- Follow up on Keith Augustine's comments on my review of "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'".
- 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 PDFs to Notes:-
- Review the two reports:-
→ PDF-précis,
→ PDF-essays19.
- Determine how the first is produced, and why the pdfs aren't highlighted, and compare with Write-ups Notes Jump Table
- Convert outstanding Essays & Précises.
- Complete cataloguing the books downloaded from Springer,
- Continue / complete reading various books that have landed in my in-tray:-
- "Ball (Philip) - How to Grow a Human: Reprogramming Cells and Redesigning Life",
- "Barash (David P.) - Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are",
- "Carroll (Sean M.) - The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself",
- "Chomsky (Noam) - What Kind of Creatures Are We?",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking",
- "Foroohar (Rana) - Don't Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles - And All of Us",
- "Goff (Philip) - Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness",
- "Harris (Robert) - Munich" (review write-up),
- "Jansen (Marius B.) - The Making of Modern Japan",
- "Kahn-Harris (Keith) - The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language",
- "Korsgaard (Christine) - Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals",
- "Levitin (Daniel) - The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well",
- "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers",
- "Ord (Toby) - The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity",
- "Seung (Sebastian) - Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are",
- "Wright (Craig) - The Hidden Habits of Genius: Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit - Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness",
- Complete reading (or make notes on):-
- "Borges (Jorge Luis) - Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings",
- "Bregman (Rutger) - Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction",
- "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- Complete my Note on "Smith (Martin) - Why Throwing 92 Heads in a Row Is Not Surprising" and discuss with Pete & Mike.
- Economics:-
- "Bregman (Rutger) - Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There"
- "Bregman (Rutger) - Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers"
- "Reiss (Julian) - Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction"
- "Sowell (Thomas) - Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy" (Answer the questions)
- "Susskind (Daniel) - A World Without Work: Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond"
- Continue reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon20,
- Follow up on Jennie Black's 'Saloom' on Meritocracy by completing reading
- "Wooldridge (Adrian) - The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World" , and - as a counter-argument
- "Harden (Kathryn Paige) - The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality".
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR & Cambridge Core.
- Update my Journals Note21: 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 Note22 back in 2010, and hasn’t changed much since.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 8:
- Another year has ticked by without this objective being achieved – but I feel in a much better place to achieve this goal in the current academic year started in October 2021. Let’s hope!
- 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 became 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 – now four – mortgages I’ve had to take out to cover the repairs to (not to say ‘rebuilding of’) Coxes Farm. We’ll be repaying that until 2031, by which time I’ll be 77.
Footnote 9:
- 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 11:
- 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 18:
- I used to itemise in this Note an ever-growing list of items accummulated over time, broken down by Chapter and Note.
- However, now both Chapters and Notes are getting into shape, there is no need to list these items again here, so they have been cut after checking they are covered in their place elsewhere.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 83)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 16)
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 11/04/2022 00:01:26 |
518 (Status: Personal Identity (2022 - March)) |
Status: Summary (2026 - March) |
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026