Donald Davidson's thought experiment, which I stole:
Suppose Davidson goes hiking in the swamp and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt. At the same time, nearby in the swamp another lightning bolt spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules such that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the same form that Davidson body had at the moment of his untimely death.
This being, whom Davidson terms 'Swampman', has, of course, a brain which is structurally identical to that which Davidson had, and will thus, presumably, behave exactly as Davidson would have. He will walk out of the swamp, return to Davidson's office at Berkeley, and write the same essays he would have written; he will interact like an amicable person with all of
Davidson's friends and family, and so forth.
Philosophers have come to decide how to evaluate Swapman:
Swampman will appear to recognise Davidson's friends and family but will not be able to recognise as it has never cognised.
Swampman's consciousness and subjectivity is considered to be unchanged.
Does Swampman have a mind?
Is Swampman even a person? Davidson refers to Swampman as "it" and not "he"
Does one's words determine the person or does there have to be a causal history of the speaker?
Anyway... blog all done now XD
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3 comments:
this is a variation of the cyberman paradox (i think it's called that though i have just been talking to my son about Dr Who) - the idea that if you replace brain cells one by one with machines, metal, computer chips etc that have an identical function (e.g. move electric impulses from one place to another) you might eventually replace 50% or more of the brain tissue with machines at which point is the person a human or a robot?
someone will have put this better than I have... maybe someone can find what it's really called...
it's a bit like the cybermen. however, the cybermen have a goal: they seek to replace all human (and otherwise) life with cybermen, which are 100% machine. i would question whether it's a paradox or a fully executable directive.
=D
I'm glad you like it...
i just liked the name =D
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