Thinkby Simon Blackburn

Chapter 4d Self

Reid’s critiqueThomas Reid (p.131-132) made a famous criticism of Locke’s view with a thought experiment about an officer in the military.Essentially he asked us to imagine this man at three different times in his life: as a young boy, as a military officer, and as an old general. Call these times A, B, and C respectively. Reid asks us to imagine the following things to be true of A, B, and C

A: The boy is flogged at school.B: The officer captures the enemy’s flag in battle. At this time, he can still remember when he was flogged in school.C: The old general still remembers capturing the flag, but has no memory of the flogging.

Reid points out that Locke’s view implies that A=B and B=C, but A ≠ C. This is a problem because it violates the transitivity of identity.

Locke’s defense

Reid’s criticism seems crushing, but there is a fairly simple response to it. Locke can point out that in the real world (as opposed to the purely mathematical one) whether a thing is the same over a certain period of time is going to be a matter of convention.To explain this point Blackburn asks us to imagine a law that gives Theseus a tax break on his ship as long as it remains physically identical to the one he bought. The government decides that the ship is the same at two different points in time A and B, just in case 55% of the physical material is the same.

Personhood as a forensic notion

This criterion will also fail transitivity. Suppose:A= newly purchased ship.B= 10 years old, 40% of original material replaced.C= 15 years old, 60% of original material replaced.

So again, A = B, B = C, but A ≠ C. But Blackburn’s point is: who cares? This is not really a mathematical or metaphysical identity, it is just identity for practical legal purposes. Locke’s theory of identity has the same defense. It is identity for practical/moral purposes, not mathematical or scientific purposes.

Blackburn’s defense of Locke’s concept of personhood implies that

A. there is really no way to determine whether someone is the same person over time.

B. no human could possibly be the same person over time.

C. most humans are many different persons at the same time.

D. whether we regard a human being as the same person over time is more of a practical matter than a scientific one.

Hume’s bundle theory of the selfAs we saw earlier, Hume argued that the self, considered as a simple entity that ‘owns’ perceptions and experiences is unobservable, and that we should be skeptical of it’s existence.It is often said that Hume subscribed to a different view of the self, namely that it is not the owner of our perceptions, but simply the collection or ‘bundle’ of perceptions itself. That’s one way of putting Hume’s view. The other way of putting it, perhaps more charitable, is that Hume didn’t believe in a self at all.

Kant’s critique of HumeThe main problem with Hume’s view is that it is very difficult for us to make sense of perceptions that don’t have an owner.

As Blackburn points out, imagining a perception without a perceiver is like trying to imagine a dent without a surface, or a smile without a face.

Kant puts the point this way. Hume is right that the self is unobservable, and right to reject the self as a simple, immaterial entity that collects experiences in some way that is completely beyond empirical examination.

Where Hume goes wrongBut Kant thinks Hume is wrong to conclude that the term “I” could only refer to a particular bundle of perceptions. The bundle view does not account for the fact that we do not experience the world as a jumble of perceptions, but rather as a highly unified and integrated set of experiences from a particular point of view.Just think about what is happening, for example, when you pick up your pen and look at it. You aren’t just having a bundle of tactile perceptions and visual perceptions. Rather, your tactile perceptions and your visual perceptions are exquisitely integrated to give you the information that you are holding the pen.

The rubber hand illusion

An interesting way to appreciate what the brain does along these lines is to look at how it can be tricked.Take a look at the rubber hand illusion, for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQbygjG0RU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQbygjG0RUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQbygjG0RU

The self as an organizing principle 1

One way to see what Kant is saying is to adopt what we now sometimes call the “design stance.”What would it be like to design a robot that had some minimal form of self-consciousness?Focusing on visual experience, Blackburn imagines a robot fitted with a camera. The robot can record visual images on a screen, and in this sense a “bundle of perceptions” is present. But these perceptions are not of any real use to the robot at this point, because it has no way of knowing what it is looking at.

The self as an organizing principle 2

For example, if a round shape is moving across the screen, the robot does not know whether it is looking at something small moving slowly nearby, or something larger moving more quickly far away, or even whether the shape itself is moving, rather that the robot.

The point here is that the bundle of perceptions is not at all useful to the robot unless it has a set of rules for interpreting their significance with respect to it.

The self as an organizing principle 3In other words, ideas like

near, distant, left, right, above, below, before, behind, big, little, fast, slow, etc.

all express relations to a particular observer. These relationsexpress the observer’s point of view, and they need to be determined in order for the observer to know how to respond appropriately to it’s perceptions.

So Kant’s idea is that anytime we refer to an “I” we are not referring to some kind of immaterial substance, or anything we could discover in experience, but rather to the set of principlesby which we interpret these experiences from a particular perspective.

Notice that this does not necessarily mean that we are aware of having that perspective. This would occur at an even higher level in which the organizing principle allows for imagining theperspective of others.

From a Kantian point of view, for a robot to have a self it would minimally need an organizing principle that provided it with

A. conscious thoughts.B. conscious feelings.C. a perspective.D. the ability to reflect on its own thoughts

and feelings and perspective.

Kant was critical of Hume’s bundle theory of perception because it fails to recognize that our perceptions

A. have many different qualities besides mere ‘bundleness’.

B. are better known than our feelings.C. are integrated from a particular

perspective.D. are not organized.

Other points of viewIf a simple robot like the one described is outfitted with a set of organizing principles it will have a point of view, though it won’t actually know it has a point of view; i.e., it will have a self, but it won’t actually be self-conscious.Self-consciousness is partly the recognition that our own point of view can be different from others; because of your particular circumstances you perceive an environment we both occupy differently that I do.Blackburn suggests that it is this ability to look at things from another person’s point of view that gives rise to certain delusions, such as that we might survive bodily death.

DelusionsFor example, because you can imagine different points of view, you have the capacity to imagine what it would be like to be at your own funeral.You can imagine seeing your body in a coffin, and it is very natural to describe this activity as your self seeing your body in a coffin. Similarly you can imagine living in a different place or time, which you naturally describe as imagining your self living at a different place or time.Blackburn’s point here is just that imagining your self doing this or that is an expression that shouldn’t be taken too literally. All you are doing is recognizing the existence of points of view besides your own.

Blackburn thinks that our ability to imagine points of view besides our own makes it very likely that an immaterial self exists and that we could be reincarnated at a different place and time.

A. TrueB. False

God

The next chapter examines arguments for and against the existence of God. Blackburn takes seriously the idea that religious people have beliefs that are meant to be evaluated in terms of their truth and falsity.For instance, he assumes that people who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ believe this in a literal sense, not just in some metaphorical or literary sense.

The ontological argument

This chapter begins with an examination of what is known as the ontological argument for the existence of God, which was developed by St. Anselm around 1050 A.D. The ontological argument is an attempt to provide an absolute proof of the existence of God. Descartes employs a version of the proof in his Meditations.Today the argument is primarily of historical interest, though it is also a very useful tool for exposing the defects of rationalism, the view that genuine knowledge must come from reason alone.

The basic idea of the ontological proof

The ontological proof is seductive, but deeply flawed in ways that Blackburn explains very clearly.In this class we won’t spend time with the details of the proof. But the basic idea is quite simple.Anselm essentially claims that it is part of God’s very nature to exist. Usually this claim is expressed as follows: God’s essence implies God’s existence.

The greatest conceivable being

Anselm’s proof begins with the claim that God is, by definition, the greatest conceivable being.He then claims that a being that exists is greater than a being that doesn’t exist. Hence it follows that if something really is the greatest conceivable being it necessarily exists.

Gaunilo’s refutation

Probably the best refutation of the ontological argument was provided by a contemporary of Anselm, a monk named Gaunilo.Gaunilo simply pointed out that if Anselm were permitted to argue in this way then he could prove the existence of the most perfect anything.For example, the greatest conceivable beer would also have to exist, since existing is one of the properties it would have to have in order to be the greatest.

Hume’s critique

One of the mistakes that Anselm and Descartes make in the ontological proof is in thinking that a thing’s existence can be a matter of logical necessity.As Hume, Kant, and many other philosophers have argued since then, whether a being exists is a contingent, empirical matter, and this can only be established by experience.This is the point of Blackburn’s Dreamboat analogy. You can not bring your perfect lover into existence simply by defining him or her as something that exists. The same holds true of God.

According to the ontological argument

A. God is the greatest conceivable being.B. A being that exists is greater than one

that doesn’t.C. The greatest conceivable being

necessarily exists.D. All of the above.

The cosmological argument

The cosmological argument is another argument for the existence of God. It was formulated by Aristotle (who did not himself believe in a personal god) and reformulated within the Christian tradition by the St. Thomas Aquinas.The cosmological argument is a rationalist argument in that it is ultimately based on the meanings of certain terms, not observation of the world.Unlike the ontological argument, however, it is not primarily based on the meaning of the term ‘God’. Rather, it is based on the meaning of the term ‘cause’.

The cosmological argument: simple version.

The basic idea behind the cosmological argument is that everything that exists, does so either contingently or necessarily.

Something exists contingently if it is caused by (or contingent upon) something else.Something exists necessarily if it is impossible for it not to exist, and impossible for it to be caused or brought into being by something else.

The simplest version of the cosmological argument assert sthat while physical events are clearly contingent, this chain of contingent causes can not extent back infinitely in time; at some point we must arrive at a first cause, which by definition would have to be a necessarily existing thing.It then asserts that this necessarily existing thing is God.

Problems with the simple version

There are two main problems with this version of the cosmological argument.

First, how do we know that a chain of causation can not extend infinitely back into the past? It is hard to grasp, but there is no obvious logical absurdity in assuming that it does.Second, supposing that the idea of a necessarily existing thing makes sense, what reason could we have for thinking that such a thing could be a being with the kinds of qualities we normally attribute to God?

Subtler version of cosmological argument

A subtler version of the cosmological argument does not rely on the rejection of an infinite past.It asserts that even if we allow that the chain of contingent causes is infinite in both directions (past and future) it still makes sense to ask what causes the entire chain of causes to come into existence.The idea here is that contingent causes occur within space and time. But when we ask where space and time itself came from, the answer can only be in terms of something that exists necessarily.

possibly infinite chain of contingent causes

Problems with the subtle version

This version of the cosmological argument is still beset by the following difficulties:

Given that we accept the existence of something that exists necessarily, how do we know that the universe itself is not such a thing?How do we know that there can not be an infinite chain of contingent causes of the universe itself?Does the idea of something that exists necessarily even make sense?

The argument to designThe design argument to the existence of God is distinct from both the ontological and the cosmological arguments in that it proceeds from experience.The design argument does not attempt to prove God’s existence with certainty. Rather, it hypothesizes God’s existence in an attempt to explain a certain kind of observation.The observation in question is that the universe is not chaotic, but rather highly ordered. The design argument seeks an explanation of this fact. The proposed explanation of the observed order in the universe is that the universe has designer, i.e., God.

Necessary existence reduxBoth Hume and Kant reject the idea of a necessarily existing entity on empiricist grounds, agreeing that existence is a factual matter, not a logical or conceptual one. Whatever we may conceive of as existing, said Hume, we may also conceive of as not existing.Kant, in particular, argued that the idea of a necessarily existing thing is just a confusion. Given that a certain kind of thing exists, certain truths about it are contingent and certain truths are necessary. For example, given that a spherical object exists, it may only be contingently true that it is bouncy, but it is necessarily true that it’s surface area is 4πr2.But it is wrong to infer from the existence of necessary truths about certain kinds of things, that there must be certain kinds of things whose existence is necessary.

Analogical nature of design argumentThe argument in favor of the design hypothesis is analogical in nature. The basic claim is that the order we observe in the universe is just like the order we observe in a well-designed man-made object, such as a watch.It is logically possible, but still incredibly unlikely, that something with the internal complexity of a watch could come into existence by a succession of ordinary physical interactions. The best explanation seems to be that the watch is creation of an intelligent being.Hence, if the universe displays the same kind of order as a watch, then we are justified in explaining it’s existence in the same way.

The argument to design formalized

Here is one way of formalizing the design argument.

1. The universe is like a machine in that it displays a high degree of order.

2. The ordered nature of machines is due to the fact that they were designed by someone.

3. Therefore, the ordered of the universe is due to the fact that it was designed by someone.

General problems with analogical argument 1

The main problem with the design argument stems from the problematic nature of analogical argument itself. The problem is that just about any two things in the universe are similar in some respect, but this similarity is rarely if ever sufficient to justify the conclusion that they must be similar in some other as yet unobserved respect as well.Here, for example, is an argument with the same logical structure as the design argument:

1. A human is like a chimpanzee in that they share almost identicalDNA.

2. As a result of their DNA, humans are capable of advanced mathematics.

3. Therefore, chimpanzees are capable of advanced mathematics.

General problems with analogical argument 2

The point is not that the chimp argument is absurd. The similarity of our DNA may actually be a good reason for wondering whether chimps could understand mathematics. Rather, the point is that this argument is only successful in suggesting an interesting possibility, one that would have to be tested by further inquiry into the cognitive abilities of chimps.Unfortunately, there is just no way to do this with the design argument. The claim that a watch was designed can be tested: we can ask to see the designer and the plans she followed. But the claim that universe was designed cannot be tested in the same way. Neither the designer nor the plans can be revealed to us without violating the assumption that the designer and his plans are somehow external to the universe itself.Hence, as far as corroboration is concerned, the analogical argument can be nothing more than an interesting idea.

Specific problems with the design argument.

The design argument has some specific problems as well.1. Although the order of universe is similar to that of a machine, it is also similar to that of an animal. Animals arise from a process of cellular replication, so it seems at least as plausible to suggest that the universe arises from this kind of process as well.2. Complex designed objects like spaceships have many designers, not one. So even if we allow that the universe is designed, we have no reason to think that the universe had only one designer.3. In our experience, intelligence is always the result of the activity of a brain, which is a physical thing. Hence the design argument would seems to entail the view that the designer of the universe itself has a brain, meaning that the designer of the universe is itself a physical being.

The problem of evil 1Much philosophy of religion focuses on the following question. Why does God permit evil? The attempt to answer this question is known as Theodicy.The question arises because monotheistic traditions conceive of God as having three properties: omniscience, omnipotence, and omni-benevolence.The question, then, is how an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful creator can permit widespread human suffering.This is a very large subject and Blackburn deals with it fairly narrowly, in terms of the design argument alone. The question he poses is whether a person who is truly aware of the incredible degree of human suffering that exists in the world would ever hypothesize that the universe was created by a being with the properties noted above.

The problem of evil 2Classical Theodicy is the attempt to show that God’s existence is logically possible given the amount of suffering in the universe. Many scenario have been imagined that would make sense of this world being the best of all possible worlds. The problem is that classical Theodicy is only of interest to someone who already believe in God. In the absence of any prior belief in God’s existence, the amount of suffering in the world is actually very compelling evidence that that God lacks one of the properties noted above. For example, God may simply be an extremely powerful being, but not an omnipotent one. Hence, while he loves us and knows that we suffer, he can only do so much to prevent it without eliminating the universe as a whole.

Think�by Simon BlackburnReid’s critiqueLocke’s defensePersonhood as a forensic notionBlackburn’s defense of Locke’s concept of personhood implies thatHume’s bundle theory of the selfKant’s critique of HumeWhere Hume goes wrongThe rubber hand illusionThe self as an organizing principle 1The self as an organizing principle 2The self as an organizing principle 3From a Kantian point of view, for a robot to have a self it would minimally need an organizing principle that provided it witKant was critical of Hume’s bundle theory of perception because it fails to recognize that our perceptions Other points of viewDelusionsBlackburn thinks that our ability to imagine points of view besides our own makes it very likely that an immaterial self existGod The ontological argumentThe basic idea of the ontological proofThe greatest conceivable beingGaunilo’s refutationHume’s critiqueAccording to the ontological argumentThe cosmological argumentThe cosmological argument: simple version.Problems with the simple versionSubtler version of cosmological argumentProblems with the subtle versionThe argument to designNecessary existence reduxAnalogical nature of design argumentThe argument to design formalizedGeneral problems with analogical argument 1General problems with analogical argument 2Specific problems with the design argument.The problem of evil 1The problem of evil 2