ONTOLOGY IDENTITY BEING NOTHINGNESS EXISTENCE MIND SOULS PERSONAL

ONTOLOGY: IDENTITY, BEING, NOTHINGNESS, EXISTENCE, MIND, SOULS

PERSONAL IDENTITY Problem: There is a teleportation machine invented. People can now travel “instantaneously” halfway across the world. It is cheap, it is environmentally friendly, it has contributed to greater understanding and connections among all the peoples of the world, expanded horizons mental, physical and spiritual. However, as one young woman would discover, the machine did not maintain the body of the people it transported. It destroyed them utterly. Each and every atom of the body that is transported is destroyed. What comes out on the other side is a mere copy, but retains the memory of the “original”. It only appeared that you were transported because of the instantaneousness of the effect. What if the copy appeared a thousand years into the future? Would it still be thought to be the same person despite all the time spent (1000 years) in non-existence? What if the copy re-appeared at a time before the destruction of the “original”? And the copy could watch as the original entered the machine and it saw its original destroyed. It would be clear to the clone that he was only a clone. What would that do to his sense of personal identity? And this knowledge became public and everyone knew that if they used the teleportation machine, they willingly marched to their death. Or did they?

THEORIES OF CONTINUOUS IDENTITY Is there an essential, abiding or lasting property that maintains a continuous personal identity over time and space? Some say yes… BODY THEORY • What is it? • What are some criticisms of the Body Theory?

MEMORY THEORY What is it? What are some problems or weaknesses?

WHY DOES IT MATTER • All that matters is that on any given day, I have to go to school/go to work/eat my vegetables/clean my room/mow the lawn/buy stuff/throw stuff away… this question of personal identity and whether or how it is continuous or not does not matter… Or does it? • In what ways is the question of personal identity a potentially important one?