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Philosophy Fun
I used to study philosophy, so I can't help but gin up a Schiavo-related thought experiment. I'm not a neurologist, but my understanding is that what's wrong with Terri is that her cerebral cortex has been destroyed. For the purposes of this discussion, at least, let's let "cerebral cortex" stand for whatever the destroyed part of her brain is. Now say I go to sleep tonight, and when my alarm starts ringing tomorrow morning my body doesn't wake up. It doesn't wake up because overnight my cerebral cortex has stopped functioning. I've lost the part of my brain that permits for thinking, feeling, consciousness, deliberate control over my body, etc. I'm in, in other words, a persistent vegetative state. But I'll stay alive on my own for a little while now even if nobody gives me a feeding tube or any such thing. At the same time, Terri Schiavo's body suddenly springs to life. A quick examination makes it seem as if her cerebral cortex has been miraculously restored. But upon further examination, that's not what's happened at all. Instead, my cortex had gotten into her head. Terri's body starts speaking, and has Matt Yglesias' memories, opinions, affections, tastes, etc.
Now what would we say about this? What I think we wouldn't say is that "Matt Yglesias fell into a persistent vegetative state and Terri Schiavo magically recovered from her PVS." The revived Schiavo-body would be me not her. But I think we wouldn't say that Terri and I had switched bodies. I think the right thing to say would be that Terri was dead, the Yglesias-body was in a PVS, and Matt Yglesias now inhabited the former body of Terri Schiavo.
March 22, 2005 | Permalink
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» The Uses of Philosophy from Opiniatrety
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O Solon está com um bom post sobre o caso Schiavo, com alguns links. Tenho que complementar apenas o que ele escreve sobre a cobertura do caso feita pelos blogs. Mr. Brochado diz que: (...) descobri que, em certos momentos,... [Read More]
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» "What a terrible thing it is to lose one's mind" from A Level Gaze
Matthew Yglesias' fascinating thought experiment, in which his higher brain function is nefariously swapped with that of Terri Schiavo, inspires me to take a new perspective on the pro-life mind. [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 22, 2005 11:58:47 PM
Comments
You need to get out more. It's a nice day. Take a walk.
Posted by: Pudentilla | Mar 22, 2005 11:08:56 AM
As Dan Dennett says, a brain transplant is the only operation where it's better to be the donor than the recipient.
Posted by: Thad | Mar 22, 2005 11:09:22 AM
Aha! Would you then be a woman or a man? Answer carefully.
Posted by: Roxanne | Mar 22, 2005 11:11:40 AM
Well, it's better than cloning.
Posted by: Nick Kaufman | Mar 22, 2005 11:17:32 AM
Now I know why I skipped philosophy. Matt, you've lost it.
Posted by: John Kubie | Mar 22, 2005 11:18:08 AM
I assume the upshot of all of this is to argue that Terri Schiavo is dead, even thogh her body is still functional? Not that I disagree...
Posted by: Kevin Brennan | Mar 22, 2005 11:20:20 AM
You need to get out more. It's a nice day. Take a walk.
Or post on someone elses weblog.
Posted by: WillieStyle | Mar 22, 2005 11:24:24 AM
Prof. Pryor would be proud. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch 12 Monkeys again and see if I can remember how he refuted fatalism...
Posted by: B | Mar 22, 2005 11:27:47 AM
Not to get wierdly religious, but where is the soul in all this? I mean, I suspect Matt doesn't believe in them, but is Matt's soul in Terri's body (seems right), or is it in Matt's body (seems wrong), or is it in both of them (also might be right)? Remember, souls don't have to follow normal rules of physics. Also, where's Terri's soul? One reason I have a living will, among many, many good reasons, is that I worry that the end of my brain functioning wouldn't be sufficient to end my soul's connection to my body. I wonder if the soul would stick around until the body was dead too. That would be hideous. Personally, I'm somewhat excited about being incorporeal.
Posted by: MDtoMN | Mar 22, 2005 11:28:08 AM
Schiavo is like a car permanently without a drive train. The essence of a car is movement. Is such a car still a car?
Posted by: Michael7843853 | Mar 22, 2005 11:29:18 AM
I like this pitch (I see a good tie-in with the CSPAN-clock radio people). What are you thinking of for a third act? Tom DeLay (Powers Boothe) trying to get you to switch back?
Who do you see as "Matt"? House number: Jason Lee.
Posted by: Delicious Pundit | Mar 22, 2005 11:30:07 AM
Neuroscience thought experiments are more useless than most. Resolving neuroanatomical distinctions (our starting point here) with their associated functional distinctions is a difficult proposition and questions related to it are unlikely to be resolvable by intuition.
Posted by: tom | Mar 22, 2005 11:32:01 AM
Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have, I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, invironed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.
Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.
Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, ch. 36
Posted by: Anderson | Mar 22, 2005 11:32:20 AM
Damn italics.
Posted by: Anderson | Mar 22, 2005 11:33:29 AM
Assuming that the Terri-body with the Matt-cortex woke up with a bunch of smart things to say about Social Security and political strategy, with a strong desire to write Clash parody lyrics about US Iraq policy, and with memories of yummy popcorn chicken, I'd say that the person named Matt Yglesias was occupying the body of Terri Schiavo.
Posted by: Ethical Werewolf | Mar 22, 2005 11:36:41 AM
You are suffering from the fallacy of the software analogy. If personality were software applications, we could run the Matt spreadsheet on the Terri OS just fine. But the accurate analogy would be more like each application and OS driver is a separate hardware part of the CPU that has to be programmed for years. And the hardware modules are so densly connected with the rest of the CPU that replacement is impossible. Destruction, but not replacement. So your hypothetical is no different from asking about Terri waking up with a heart transplant from you.
Even if you believe in a soul distinct from the body, it needs a physical substrate to exist. At least that was Aquinas's view. A materialist might say that the illusion of consciousness is there for good evolutionary reasons, like the illusion of a continuous visual field without the easily demonstrated blind spot.
You may now return to your Chinese Room.
Posted by: Roger Bigod | Mar 22, 2005 11:37:25 AM
Well, MDtoMN, I suppose that it would depend on whether your soul thinks like you or has its own opinions.
I wonder why the parents don't push for Schiavo to be cryonically frozen. If they really think there is any chance in hell of someone coming back from a loss of a cerebrum in some far future, they should take steps to preserve as much of it as possible.
Posted by: Tim H. | Mar 22, 2005 11:37:59 AM
Thought experiments can be fun, but this one, under the circumstances, strikes me as being in bad taste -- or even a bit worse than that. Speaking as someone who teaches the subject for a living, I wish that philosophy did more to encourage a humane sensibility and a bit less to encourage conceptual puzzle-mongering. Let the woman RIP.
Posted by: Tcatch | Mar 22, 2005 11:39:40 AM
As I understand it, while the cerebral cortex controls higher level cognitions, one’s emotional reactions are mediated by more ‘primitive’ parts of the brain, like the amygdyla. So the new Terri (you?) would probably have some mix of Matt’s thoughts and Terri’s emotions.
Posted by: RC | Mar 22, 2005 11:40:38 AM
I think even in the social construct identity is a little more complicated than this. We do not equate identity completely with the contents of the cerebral cortex. Should you suddenly lose your memories of Norfolk, you are not a partial Matt Yglesias. Reagan after Alzheimers was both Reagan and not-Reagan.
I revolt over this creeping Neo-Descartianism! My big toe is not less "me" than my memories or affects. I am nothing but a body with an illusion of conciousness. Ask "epistemology"
"Terry Schiavo" has some posthumous rights over the "Terry Schiavo" that is not really "Terry Schiavo". We actually don't know what we are talking about.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Mar 22, 2005 11:41:54 AM
italics off!
What Roger said, although I said it first, but type more slowly.
And true bad taste would involve a Chianti and fava beans.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Mar 22, 2005 11:45:14 AM
Well, Bob, I think that if I lose my memories I am a partial Matt Yglesias.
Posted by: Matthew Yglesias | Mar 22, 2005 11:45:51 AM
Sounds like an awful hybrid of one of those typical Hollywood "switched" movies and a horror movie about an a transplant taken from a terrible deceased criminal taking possession of the transplant recipient. (Although I'm not fond of this post, and do agree with the first commenter that Matt would benefit from a good, long walk, I'm not trying to suggest that Matt is guilty of blogcrime.)
Posted by: Bragan | Mar 22, 2005 11:47:43 AM
Who needs the damn brains when they pump all that yammy stuff right into your stomach? You don't even have to chew. That's life!
Posted by: abb1 | Mar 22, 2005 11:51:20 AM
If only it were so.
Off. Off, damn you!
Hopefully, TypePad gets the idea now.
Posted by: Thad | Mar 22, 2005 11:51:36 AM
