Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2023 - December)
(Text as at 01/04/2024 20:08:10)
*** 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. But 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 here1.
- The jumping-off point for my thesis is here2, though follow the links from the Chapter Abstracts for the real work, and a (currently not very helpful) progress dashboard is here3.
Summary of Progress during October - December 2023
- I spent 315 hours in 23Q4 on this Project, or related work (315 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2023). That's 92.9% of the planned effort (92.9% YTD). Overall, 44.3% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 44.3% YTD) - as against 49.1% planned (49.1% YTD).
- The – then upcoming – King’s College Cambridge 50th Anniversary Reunion (12th August 2023) put in my head the question ‘what have I done with my life?’. One thing I’ve not done is complete my researches into Personal Identity. Nor will I ever complete a PhD without a radical change of priority. So, I decided at the end of July effectively to mothball, the important or enjoyable distractions – Bridge4, Languages5, Philosophy of Religion6 – and try to focus exclusively on my Thesis, though with increased attention in the short term to my Web Tools project insofar as it is necessary to support my philosophy.
- I’ve retained the above bullet from last quarter’s report as a reminder, because – yet again – while I am indeed focusing more on my Thesis, things haven’t quite gone to plan.
- As can be seen, I fell somewhat – 7% – short of my time allowance, but this was partly due to some ‘accounting changes’, as is noted in my summary report, namely to incorporate my project on Consciousness Studies7 into this project and to remove most of whatever used to under ‘background tasks’ – but was really nothing to do with my Thesis – to a new project General Culture8.
- My immediate focus has been on a very detailed analysis of
→ "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology",
- I at least finished reading the book but got slightly stuck on the analysis of Chapter 3 ("Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution") because I think Olson has Baker all wrong (not that Baker is right, of course).
- So, there was a continued diversion into the works of Lynne Rudder Baker, namely:-
→ "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face".
I completed a thorough analysis of this Paper, but the lessons learnt need to be applied both to my thesis text and Notes and to Olson’s Chapter 3 referenced above.
- A major diversion – albeit a useful one – came from a detailed consideration of Teletransportation9 as exemplified in Star Trek.
- It’s never possible to do it justice to Aeon, when a dozen or so interesting papers turn up every week. I continue to lose the fight to restrict the top priority to 10 items. I’ve now stopped importing everything into my database, restricting myself to what is really relevant. I still need to be more strict.
- To control the various links within my Thesis, I’ve created and maintained a PID Note Usage10 Page, though this didn’t get much of a look in this Quarter.
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List11.
- A full list of items worked on in the quarter appears below:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 303.75)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 302)
- "Aeon - Video - Dying for beginners" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - Holy Cowboys" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - How AI learns to see without eyes" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - Three ways to think about free will" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - Under G-d" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Aeon - Video - What science tells us about the afterlife" (Read / Write, 6 hours)
- "Andersen (Timothy) - All possible worlds" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Andersen (Timothy) - Quantum Wittgenstein" (Read / Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Aune (Bruce) - Universals and Predication" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - Composition and the cases" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - Material through and through" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - Our animal interests" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - Review - Snowdon, Paul F., Persons, Animals, Ourselves" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - You are an animal" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - You could be immaterial (or not)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & Pruss (Alexander R.) - Human Beings Among The Beasts" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & Rasmussen (Joshua) - How valuable could a material object be?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & Rasmussen (Joshua) - How Valuable Could a Person Be?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & Thornton (Allison Krile) - The feeling animal" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) & van Elswyk (P.) - Generic animalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bailey (Andrew M.), Thornton (Allison Krile) & van Elswyk (P.) - Why animalism matters" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face" (Write, 22.5 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Why Constitution is Not Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Ball (Philip) - The final ethical frontier" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "BBC, Fry (Hannah) - In the Habit" (Read / Write, 4.5 hours)
- "Beddington (Emma) - Animals that work for a living: from mine-sniffing rats to hawk bouncers" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Bennett (Jonathan) - What Events Are" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Bradak (Balasz) - Panspermia" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Brandom (Robert) - Overcoming a Dualism of Concepts and Causes: The Basic Argument of 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind'" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Burke (Michael) - Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper: A Challenge to the Standard Account" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Burke (Michael) - Persons and Bodies: How to Avoid the New Dualism" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Butchvarov (Panayot) - Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Butterworth (Brian) - A basic sense of numbers is shared by countless creatures" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Callcut (Daniel) - Wrestling with relativism" (Read / Write, 4.75 hours)
- "Cassidy (Steve) - Is Quantum Computing Ready for Prime Time?" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Chisholm (Roderick) - The First Person: Essay on Reference and Intentionality" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Clark (Andy) - The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Cleary (Anne) - Déjà vu" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Curry (Devin Sanchez) - Why academia should embrace ‘Grandma’s metaphysics’" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Davidson (Donald) - Essays on Actions and Events: Preface/Introduction" (Write, 3 hours)
- "Davidson (Donald) - Inquiries into Truth & Interpretation: Preface/Introduction" (Write, 4 hours)
- "Doyle (Tom) - Physician, invade thyself" (Read / Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Edmonds (David) - Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality" (Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Evans (Gavin) - Skin Deep: Dispelling the Science of Race" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Evans (Gavin) - The myth of mirrored twins" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Forsey (Jane) - Humans and Dumb Animals" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Gale (Richard) - Time, Temporality, and Paradox" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Gibbard (Allan) - Contingent Identity" (Write, 6.75 hours)
- "Godfrey-Smith (Peter) - Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life" (Read / Write, 17 hours)
- "Godfrey-Smith (Peter) - Philosophers and other animals" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Green (Jaime) - Uncertain contact" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Haldane (John) - A Thomist Metaphysics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Epilogue: The Future" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Insufficient Data" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Introduction: The Philosophic Enterprise" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Personal Growth" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Prime Suspects" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Pro Creation" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Temporal Distortions" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?" (Read / Write, 19.5 hours)
- "Hassett (Brenna) - How to grow a human" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Hedden (Brian) - Rationality and Synchronic Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hoeg (Mette Leonard) - Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Huang (Yasheng) - The exam that broke society" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Huang (Yasheng) - The Rise and Fall of the EAST" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Jenkins (Robert) & Jenkins (Susan) - The Biology of Star Trek" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Johnston (Mark) - Constitution is Not Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Future: The Inventions That Will Transform Our Lives" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: Teleportation" (Read / Write, 7 hours)
- "King (Barbara J.) - Human exceptionalism imposes horrible costs on other animals" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "King (Rachael Scarborough) & Rudy (Seth) - The ends of knowledge" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek: Atoms or Bits?" (Read / Write, 8.75 hours)
- "Liggins (David) - This essay isn’t true" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Lim (Joungbin) - Various Papers" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Loke (Andrew Ter Ern) - The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Love (Shayla) - Digging for answers in a cave filled with Neanderthal skeletons" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Lupyan (Gary) - What colour do you see?" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
- "Lycan (William) - The Metaphysics of Possibilia" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Whither Philosophy?" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Marshall (Tim) - The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Merson (Francis) - Recognise free will is an illusion and reap the emotional benefits" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Moreland (J.P.) & Craig (William Lane) - Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview: Personal Identity and Life after Death" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Mulhall (Stephen), LRB - Non-Identity Crisis" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Noonan (Harold) - Constitution Is Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Brains" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Bundles" (Read / Write, 5.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Contents + References" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Nihilism" (Read, 3.25 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Souls" (Read, 3.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Temporal Parts" (Write, 4.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? What Now?" (Read / Write, 6.75 hours)
- "Oppenheimer (Stephen) - Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Ori (Jack) - Adapting to the neurotypical world is not the same as conforming" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Penrose (Roger) - The Emperor's New Mind" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Phillips (Patrick) - Talking to the Animals" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Pruss (Alexander R.) - The Actual and the Possible" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Puntel (Lorenz B.) - The Concept of Ontological Category: A New Approach" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Requarth (Tim) - Our chemical Eden" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Rescher (Nicholas) - An Idealist Realism: Presuppositional Realism and Justificatory Idealism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Rosen (Gideon) & Dorr (Cian) - Composition as a Fiction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Salmon (Wesley) - Causation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Science Unbound - Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want" (Read / Write, 10.75 hours)
- "Shapiro (James A.) - Evolution without accidents" (Read / Write, 4.25 hours)
- "Singer (Peter) - Applied Ethics (Oxford Readings in Philosopy)" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Singer (Peter) - The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty" (Read / Write, 14.75 hours)
- "Sklar (Lawrence) - Physics, Metaphysics, and Method in Newton's Dynamics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Skrzypek (Jeremy) - Personal Identity, Sexual Difference, and the Metaphysics of Gender" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Skrzypek (Jeremy) - What Happens When the Zygote Divides? On the Metaphysics of Monozygotic Twinning" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Skrzypek (Jeremy) & Mangino (Dominic R.) - Should Animalists Be 'Transplanimalists'?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Sprigge (Timothy L.S.) - Idealism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Stampe (Dennis W.) & Gibson (Martha I.) - Of One's Own Free Will" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)" (Write, 0.25 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 - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Mataphilosophy" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Preface" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - References" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Teletransportation - Discussion with Tim (Write, 1 hour)
→ See "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Teletransportation" (1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Thought" (Write, 4 hours)
- "Uzan (Elad) - Moral mathematics" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Walker (Matthew P.) - Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams" (Read / Write, 7.75 hours)
- "Wells (J'aime) - Language-Using Apes" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Whiting (Jennifer E.) - Personal Identity: The Non-Branching Form of 'What Matters'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wikipedia - Large language model" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Williams (Bernard) - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy: Preface" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Williams (Bernard) - Interlude: Relativism" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Williams (Bernard) - Morality: Preface" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Williams (Bernard), LRB - On Hating and Despising Philosophy" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Wilson (N.L.) - Substances without Substrata" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Wyatt (Jeremy) & Ulatowski (Joseph) - How to think about truth" (Read / Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Young (Nick) - Time doesn’t flow like a river. So why do we feel swept along?" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "YouTube - Video - The Trouble with Transporters" (Read / Write, 7.75 hours)
- "Zeman (Adam) - When the mind is dark, making art is a thrilling way to see" (Read / Write, 1.25 hours)
- Thesis - Research Repositioning
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 11.25)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 1.5)
- Thesis Background - Books Admin (Total Hours = 2.25)
- Thesis Background - Status (Total Hours = 7.5)
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- One thing that repeatedly occurs 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 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 continuity12. Sadly, this hasn’t got far yet. I also want to write a full length paper on the persistence of Androids13, which might be easier to accomplish.
- I have a skeleton thesis14 in place. This now needs to be filled out.
- Continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs15 on the topic of Personal Identity, and ensure the associated Notes have some text. Maybe expand it into a proper paper, let Sophie have a look at it and consider submission to Aeon.
- In the coming quarter I hope to
- Ensure that all recently acquired Books and pdfs are logged to my database and appear in the relevant Thesis Chapters, as appropriate.
- Complete my commentary on "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology".
- Complete outstanding work on Teletransportation16.
- As far as effort is concerned, I’ve had to reduce the plan slightly to 25 hours / week17.
- Most of what I’m working on appears in the reading lists for the Thesis chapters. Items below18 are either those that don’t, or which require particular focus:-
- Detailed Task List
- Continue with my Thesis19; in particular
- Spend at least an hour a day writing something original; namely, essays on:-
→ The difference between Forward and Backward Psychological Continuity20.
→ The persistence of Androids21.
- Continue filling out those sections of my Thesis that I can write something on without further research, using books / papers already analysed.
- Continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs22 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 Beliefs23.
- Adjust, Create and Complete new PID Notes as seems necessary:-
- Language of Thought24: Convert to Language (with LOT as a subsection)
- Metaphilosophy25: Complete draft
- Names: Set up
- Thought26: Complete draft
- Truth: Set up
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the tasks outlined in my Thesis Dashboard27, using the materials listed28 in the Chapters and underlying Notes.
- Ensure the following foundational Books29 required for my Thesis are fully annotated30. In particular:-
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", and
- "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology".
- Read / review the following fall-out items from my review of "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face":-
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Why Constitution is Not Identity"
- "Burke (Michael) - Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper: A Challenge to the Standard Account"
- "Burke (Michael) - Persons and Bodies: How to Avoid the New Dualism"
- "Forsey (Jane) - Humans and Dumb Animals"
- "Gibbard (Allan) - Contingent Identity"
- "Johnston (Mark) - Constitution is Not Identity"
- "Noonan (Harold) - Constitution Is Identity"
- "Olson (Eric) - Reply to Lynne Rudder Baker"
- "Phillips (Patrick) - Talking to the Animals"
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, and Ourselves"
- "Wells (J'aime) - Language-Using Apes"
- Draw up a further SHORT list of books that MUST be studied in great detail. I'll add them in as they arise in the analysis of the above books.
- "Gale (Richard), Ed. - The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics",
- "Hawley (Katherine) - How Things Persist",
- "Heller (Mark) - The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four-Dimensional Hunks of Matter",
- "Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - Substance: Its Nature and Existence",
- "Hudson (Hud) - A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person",
- "Mellor (D.H.) - Real Time II",
- "Noonan (Harold) - Personal Identity",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings",
- "Sider (Ted) - Four-dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time",
- "Wiggins (David) - Sameness and Substance Renewed", and
- "Wilson (Jack) - Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities"
- Read and comment on31 the following remaining PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis:-
- "Baggini (Julian) - Psychological Reductionism About Persons: A Critical Development",
- "Eddebo (Johan) - Death and the Self: A Metaphysical Investigation of the Rationality of Afterlife Beliefs in the Contemporary Intellectual Climate",
- "Ferner (Adam) - Metaphysics and biology: a critique of David Wiggins’ account of personal identity",
- "Gendler (Tamar Szabo) - Imaginary Exceptions: On the Powers and Limits of Thought Experiment",
- "Keles (Serap) - Personal identity and persistence over time : the hybrid view with regard to hylomorphism",
- "Kotak (Aakash) - The Hybrid Theory of Personal Identity" (MPhil Thesis)
- "Lechthaler (Manuel) - Composition and Identities",
- "Lybaert (Fauve) - Personal Identity and the Formal Self",
- "Paez (Eze) - Abortion: What We Ought to Believe - An Ontological and Normative Analysis",
- "Parsons (Josh) - Theories of Persistence",
- "Rau (Philipp) - The Author, Not the Tale: Memory, Narrative, and the Self",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Once Upon a Spacetime",
- "Southgate (Susan Jane) - Personal Identity: The Simple View",
- "Trakas (Marina) - Personal Memories", and
- "Woods (Evan Thomas) - The Problems of the Many".
- Apply the issues raised by recently-read PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis to my various Notes:-
- "Atkinson (Thomas) - Human organisms and the survival of death: a systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism",
- "Hodson (Sommer) - A Hybrid View of Personal Identity",
- Follow up on Keith Augustine's comments on my review of "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'".
- Follow up on Wayne Stewart's comments on my Note on Closest Continuers32, including reading and reviewing the following:-
- "Clark (Tom) - Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity"
- "Clark (Tom) - A Notable Theoretical Convergence",
- "Epstein (Dmitry) - What if We’re Still Here? A Selfish Reason to Care for Future Generations",
- "Stewart (Wayne) - Metaphysics by Default",
- "Stewart (Wayne) - Metaphysics by Default - Chapter 09: Existential Passage",
- "Stewart (Wayne) - Uzgalis: Accidentally Opening a Transmigration Window by Nixing the Proper Continuer",
- "Robert (David) - The Existential Passage Hypothesis",
- "Uzgalis (William) - Review - Dainton - The Phenomenal Self",
- "Science Unbound - Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want": Complete reading / reviewing relevant passages in these follow-up items, incorporating lessons into my Note on Teletransportation33:-
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek"
- "Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality"
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel"
- "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek"
- "Penrose (Roger) - The Emperor's New Mind"
- "YouTube - Video - The Trouble with Transporters"
- Complete analysing the following papers34:-
- "Cofnas (Nathan) - Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry",
- "Corabi (Joseph) & Schneider (Susan) - The Metaphysics of Uploading",
- "Frary (Mark) - Beyond Repair",
- "Galton (Francis) - Visualised Numerals",
- "Giusti (Elena) & Derbew (Sarah) - Decolonizing Blackness, alongside the Classics Curriculum: A conversation with Dr Sarah Derbew",
- "Gradesaver - The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie: Study Guide - Introduction", Etc.
- "Hume (David) - Treatise I.IV.VI: Of Personal Identity",
- "Kobie (Nicole) - Neuralink: an old idea that could be the future of medicine",
- "Korhonen (Anna), Woodward (Sarah) - This idea must die: 'AI will outsmart the human race'",
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Materialism Most Miserable The Prospects for Dualist and Physicalist Accounts of Resurrection",
- "Middleton (Anna), Welford (Megan) - The Ethics of Genomics"
- "Moreno Figueroa (Monica), Jolin (Lucy) - A world without oppression to you",
- "Mulhall (Stephen), LRB - Non-Identity Crisis", **New**
- "Olson (Eric) - The Central Dogma Of Transhumanism",
- "Paris (J.J.) & Elias-Jones (A.C.) - Do we murder Mary to save Jodie?",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - AI, humanity and Christian ministry",
- "Putnam (Hilary) - Brains in a Vat",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Materialism and the Psychological-continuity Account of Personal Identity",
- "Walker (Robert) - Mary And Jodie – The Case Of The Conjoined Twins",
- "Watkin (Christopher) - Christianity and critical race theory", and
- "Wikipedia - Large language model"
- Consciousness35
- Dismantle the above report
- Transfer historic Actuals to Thesis
- Transfer text to:-
→ This Status Report,
→ My Note on Consciousness36.
- Aeon37: Read & annotate papers as they arise, especially ...
- "Chittka (Lars) & Wilson (Catherine) - Bee-brained": Write-up
- "Frankish (Keith) - The Consciousness Illusion": Write-up
- "Frohlich (Joel) - Frames of consciousness": Read & write-up
- "Parks (Tim) & Manzotti (Riccardo) - You are the world": Read & write-up
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Consciousness is real": Read & write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - The real problem": Read & write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - How we build perception from the inside out": Write-up
- Action the following Books and Papers:-
- "Crane (Tim) - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind": Re-read and review notes.
- "Dehaene (Stanislas) - Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts": Read.
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness": Read.
- "Donald (Merlin) - A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness": Read.
- "Eliot (Lise) - What's Going On in There?: How the Brain And Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life": Read.
- "Godfrey-Smith (Peter) - Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life": Read on Kindle
- "Goff (Philip) - Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness": Read.
- "Kammerer (Francois) - The Hardest Aspect of the Illusion Problem - and How to Solve it": Read.
- "Metzinger (Thomas), Ed. - Conscious Experience": Burst out Papers and add Metzinger's Abstracts
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - Being You: A New Science of Consciousness": Read.
- "Shapiro (Lawrence) - The Mind Incarnate": Read.
- "Strawson (Galen) - The Consciousness Deniers": Read & write-up
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence": Write up Chapter 8: Consciousness
- Ensure the annotations from recently-read Papers are added to the relevant Notes:-
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke on Living Things"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Review of 'What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology' by Eric T. Olson"
- 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-essays38.
- 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 / annotating various books39 that have landed in my in-tray:-
- "Barash (David P.) - Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are",
- "Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies",
- "Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death",
- "Clark (Andy) - The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking",
- "Edmonds (David) - Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality",
- "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- "Evans (Gavin) - Skin Deep: Dispelling the Science of Race",
- "Green (Joel B.) - Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible",
- "Hasker (William) - The Emergent Self",
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds. - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul",
- "Kagan (Shelly) - How to Count Animals, more or less",
- "Korsgaard (Christine) - Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals",
- "Loke (Andrew Ter Ern) - The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation",
- "Levitin (Daniel) - The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well",
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics",
- "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers",
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Oppenheimer (Stephen) - Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity",
- "Ricard (Matthieu) - A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion",
- "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher and the Wolf",
- "Schneider (Susan) - Artificial You",
- "Seung (Sebastian) - Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are",
- "Walker (Matthew P.) - Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams",
- "Wyatt (John) - Matters of Life and Death".
- Continue reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon40 (and the occasional spin-off). In particular, complete write-ups41 for:-
- "Andersen (Timothy) - All possible worlds", **New**
- "Andersen (Timothy) - Quantum Wittgenstein", **New**
- "Baggini (Julian) - Goodbye Pixel", **Newer**
- "Butterworth (Brian) - A basic sense of numbers is shared by countless creatures", **Newer**
- "Cain (Susan) - The immortalists have got it wrong – here’s why we need death", **Newer**
- "Callcut (Daniel) - Wrestling with relativism", **New**
- "Cleary (Anne) - Déjà vu", **New**
- "Curry (Devin Sanchez) - Why academia should embrace ‘Grandma’s metaphysics’", **Newer**
- "Evans (Gavin) - The myth of mirrored twins", **New**
- "Francione (Gary) & Charlton (Anna E.) - The case against pets"
- "Francione (Gary) - We must not own animals"
- "Friston (Karl) - Karl Friston: Embodied cognition"
- "Grant (Colin) - My blackness", **Newer**
- "Hassett (Brenna) - How to grow a human", **New**
- "Hershovitz (Scott) - How to do philosophy with kids", **Newer**
- "Hoeg (Mette Leonard) - Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me", **New**
- "Humphrey (Nicholas) - Seeing and somethingness"
- "Jaarsma (Ada) - Choose your own birth"
- "King (Barbara J.) - Human exceptionalism imposes horrible costs on other animals", **Newer**
- "King (Rachael Scarborough) & Rudy (Seth) - The ends of knowledge", **New**
- "Lachmann (Michael) & Walker (Sara) - Life ≠ alive"
- "Liggins (David) - This essay isn’t true", **Newer**
- "Lupyan (Gary) - What colour do you see?", **Newer**
- "Marino (Lori) - Happy the person"
- "Metzinger (Thomas) - Are you sleepwalking now?"
- "Nicholson (Arwen E.) & Haywood (Raphaelle D.) - There’s no planet B", **Newer**
- "Requarth (Tim) - Our chemical Eden", **Newer**
- "Schwenkler (John) - What does it take for someone to become a ‘different person’?"
- "Sebo (Jeff) & Schukraft (Jason) - Don’t farm bugs"
- "Sebo (Jeff) - Against human exceptionalism"
- "Shapiro (James A.) - Evolution without accidents", **New**
- "Simon (Ed) - If animals are persons, should they bear criminal responsibility?", **Newer**
- "Sunar (Neesa) - I have no mind's eye: let me try to describe it for you"
- "Terzian (Giulia) & Corbalan (M. Ines) - Do you have a duty to tell people they’re wrong about carrots?", **Newer**
- "Uzan (Elad) - Moral mathematics", **Newer**
- "Wyatt (Jeremy) & Ulatowski (Joseph) - How to think about truth", **Newer**
- "Young (Nick) - Time doesn’t flow like a river. So why do we feel swept along?", **Newer**
- "Zangwill (Nick) - Why you should eat meat"
- "Zangwill (Nick) - Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat"
- "Zeman (Adam) - When the mind is dark, making art is a thrilling way to see", **Newer**
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR & Cambridge Core.
- Update my Journals Note42: 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.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 7: Footnote 17:
- 25 hours / week – while still ludicrously inadequate for what I want to achieve – is approximately what would be expected of a part-time research student. So, planning to exceed this is ‘a good thing’ provided I use the time wisely and efficiently.
Footnote 18:
- This list is absurdly long, and cannot represent what I’m really working on. It’s really an aide memoir.
Footnote 28:
- 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.
Footnote 29:
- This list could get very long, so restrict it to 3 books!
- I'll replace these with new ones when completed.
Footnote 30:
- This is extremely time-consuming, and will not be possible for all books and papers of interest.
Footnote 31:
- There are rather a lot of these, so some will have to be skimmed.
- There were a few more on less central topics.
- I hope to whittle these down as time goes by!
Footnote 34:
- This list used to get inordinately long and has been culled.
- Ensure this doesn't happen again!
Footnote 39:
- This list is getting ludicrously long, and either needs addressing or pruning!
Footnote 41:
- I'm currently trying to reduce the backlog of 'Priority 1' items on my Aeon page, starting with the oldest.
- To achieve this in an acceptable timeframe, as well as restricting the new additions I've been either downgrading the priorities or reading the papers on my Kindle and then adding brief comments and logging them to my database.
- But they then get added to this list for more detailed investigation.
- Once I've got the 'Priority 1' list under control - that is, down to 10 items - I'll start whittling this list down.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 90)
Table of the 8 Later Versions of this Note
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 01/04/2024 20:08:10 |
518 (Status: Personal Identity (2023 - December)) |
Status: Summary (2026 - March) |
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