Alvin Plantinga is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian philosophers. Watch the video below and ask yourself, WTF?
So as not to spoil your fun, I’ll refrain from offering my take on the argument until readers have had a chance to comment.
Not really, no – they are active systems of matter. For instance they include, at least in part, contextual associations. That is, the chemo-electrical impulses that make up memories require the initial context stimulation and then require associative pathway stimulations to keep them “available”. As such, it’s highly improbable that even a partial set of previous memories could be instantiated in matter at random and as there is no substrate and active system to maintain memories intact after death, I can’t imagine how they could be “stored” and then conveniently absorbed into the new instantiation of a previous perspective identity.
No, I’d never heard of that. Interesting. I’ll have to read the entire entry. Thanks!
Yes, this is what I’ve been tossing around. I suspect that even if I were a completely different person in a completely different body (or even a completely different organism for that matter) and new about my previous incarnation, I would not particularly care so long as I got to “look out on the world again”, so to speak.
Of course, if that is how things work, it does raise some interesting questions about morality…:)
Because memories are (at least in part) an associative system within a specific space-time. I just can’t come up with a way for memories to remain intact after death and/or re-emerge from a random establishment of matter with the proper pathways pre-stimulated without the associated stimuli and events. But hey…it would be cool if that could happen.
Nice summary of Plantinga’s argument, Bruce.
Here’s the fatal flaw:
We can conceive of a difference where there is none in reality, in which case the difference lies entirely in the mind of the conceiver, not in the things he’s thinking about. It’s a property of the conceiver.
Since conception is fallible, Plantinga’s argument fails.
I should answer this question another way as well – as we have no memories when we are born and as there are plenty of drugs and trauma that can erase memories, I hold that memories are independent of the specific arrangement of matter that makes up any given perspective identity. So while I hold that the “me” that looks out from these eyes on the world may well crop up again, that “me” is not dependent upon nor does it require the life experience (and consequential associated memories) I’ve had. And as I can’t come up with a way for the memory system to retain across time and space, I suspect that when the arrangement that makes up my perspective comes around again, it will do so as a clean slate with no memory of my existence in this world/universe.
But if everything is physically the same in the history of the universe, down to the quantum level, then you must have the same memories. Unless you believe there is something other than physical making up the universe and you in particular. Which is OK, but I think you need to believe that to believe that memories would not be duplicated.
If you are interested, the latest book I read on this was
Many Worlds in One
I should also clarify that he talks about two situations: other universes which have the same physical constants as us (where you could be repeated) and other physical universes whether the physical constants are different. It’s the second one that some use against fine tuning arguments.
I agree that the argument fails and your reasons make sense to me.
But it’s fun to explore other problems with the argument. I’d particular like to understand walto’s explanation. But I think I’d better wait till tomorrow morning when I am fresh before tackling that again.
Here’s an argument ad absurdum to emphasize the flaw in Plantinga’s thinking.
Let me go borrow my stuffed Snoopy from the other thread.
(Sound of footsteps leaving the thread, then returning a short time later. We see a man in a blue jacket holding a banana in one hand and a stuffed dog in the other. )
When I was a child, I conceived of my stuffed Snoopy as having a consciousness apart from the fabric, stuffing and thread that constitute his body. I knew that thread, fabric and stuffing are not themselves conscious, even if they are formed into something that looks like a (cartoon) dog, but I could certainly conceive of my stuffed Snoopy’s being conscious.
If I could conceive of a conscious Snoopy, then Snoopy can’t be identical to the materials that make up his body.
By Plantinga’s logic, my Snoopy cannot be merely a material thing. Snoopy has a soul!
(Banana man looks at stuffed dog with newfound appreciation and plants a kiss on its bulbous nose.)
Are you saying drugs and trauma don’t make physical changes in the brain?
I think we are just not expecting the same thing when we say physical.
Watched the video.
Argument appears to be
“I am more than my body – therefore God!”
I’m unconvinced.
Now will read other comments.
Agree.
It seems an argument that only works if you already hold what you want to prove. It’s the same circular/default argument from Paley, multiple ID proponents, Craig etc.
I think the experiments conducted during the Terror following the French Revolution pretty much settled the idea of being able to exist after having significant parts of one’s anatomy trimmed off.
walto,
I think Robert Kuhn did a fine job.
He appears to have been hearing Plantinga’s argument for the first time, yet he immediately recognized the problem with it, as I think most of us did.
I have to wonder whether Plantinga actually ran the argument past any of his colleagues before going public with it.
Alan,
No, it’s more like this:
I think your critique of Plantinga’s argument is spot on. Unfortunately Kuhn didn’t seem to understand that problem and instead kept saying things like “I get that they’re possibly different, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually different, does it?” That misses Plantinga’s point.
Re: running his argument by others, it probably wasn’t necessary, since basically the same argument has been made by many philosophers (though not in exactly the same terms), at least since Descartes. (I can doubt my body exists but I can’t doubt I exist, therefore, I am not my body.)
I think his inability to conceive something constitutes a convincing argument.
It’s in the same basket as all the other arguments from incredulity. Irreducible complexity, explanatory filter, etc.
Ah, I see I was a little dismissive. Did I imagine the “therefore God” bit?
And another thing. This “therefore God” bit. There’s another assumption, perhaps unspoken, tacked on the end. The “god” referred to is assumed to have the attributes of the particular God the proposer of such argument chooses. “My God” rather than “any God”.
I wonder who these arguments are for? They only seem to satisfy those who already have a belief in some God or other.
Exactly!
Umm…well…I don’t know, nor do I predict that everything will be physically the same in the histories of all multiverses. In other words, even if the constituent makeup of any given universe is exactly the same as this universe, there’s no guarantee that events will unfold exactly the same way post-Big Bang. In other words, I don’t think that when my perspective identity comes up again, it will be the product of the same parents I have. In fact, I see no reason why this perspective identity could not in fact come about in a fruit fly, shark, or yellow-rumped warbler. Hence the reason I kind of doubt that my memories will go along with this identity.
Cool! I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!
Oh indeed they do. However, those changes to the brain do not seem to have any direct effect as well on the perspective identity. When one’s brain chemistry and neurons are changed by drugs or trauma, they “person” still looks out from the same eye sockets.
That could very well be true.
At least Descartes realizes the conceivability doesn’t entail possibility. His argument requires the separate premise that a veracious God is able to bring about whatever it lies within Descartes’ ability to conceive.
True. It won’t same in all universes within the multiverse.
But if there are an infinite number of universes but only a finite number of states, then every possible state must occur an infinite number of times. And the state with you is a possible one.
Unless, of course, I am a brain in a vat which means you may not exist. But let’s put that possibility aside for this thread.
Same eyes, but different person looking out. Or a changed person.
I think we just aren’t talking about the same thing. I would argue that there is nothing to memory other than the configuration of molecules.
To argue otherwise is to argue for dualism.
Keith, I think the difference between your Snoopy argument and Plantinga’s argument is that his, while unsound (because it makes conceivability a perfect test of possibility), at least gets to the conclusion he wants using only Leibniz’ Law. That won’t do it with the Snoopy argument, I don’t think. From
I can conceive of my stuffed Snoopy.
I can conceive of my stuffed Snoopy’s mind.
using the conceivability = possibility assumption we can get
My stuffed Snoopy is not identical to my stuffed Snoopy’s mind.
The thing is, nobody but the young Keith believes that there IS a Snoopy mind at all. So the work isn’t done there.
Cartesians like Plantinga don’t have THAT problem. Pretty much everybody will agree that they exist and that their body exists. So that issue isn’t really in play. Only the question of identity remains, and he (along with many other Cartesians) thinks (lamely, I agree) that his argument takes care of that.
Where are the molecules arrangements of our memories?
I think that nobody gets the argument right. The argument seems to me this:
If B=A then every true statement for B should be true statement for A.
B can immagine that B exists without A
A cannot immagine that A exists without B
Then A≠B
If I am my body every true statement for I should be true statement for my body
I can immagine that I exists without my body
My body cannot immagine that body exists without me.
Then I´m not my body.
If your body isn’t doing the imagining, then what is?
walto,
You’re right. What Plantinga’s “logic” really says is that if Stuffed Snoopy has a mind, it must be immaterial. That’s still funny, but it’s not as absurd as saying unconditionally that Stuffed Snoopy has an immaterial soul.
What’s interesting is that any sentient animal must possess an immaterial soul, according to Plantinga’s logic. I wonder how that comports with his religious beliefs.
Hi Blas:
You can find that summary already in some posts, in particular those by walto, KN, KeithS. They all go on to give criticisms too.
Do you have any counter arguments to what any of those have said against Plantinga’s logic? I don’t mean just simple statements of disagreement or bare questions you think need to be answered.
But something that shows you understand what they are saying and then points out flaws in their argument.
Of course, just because I’d like be interested in you doing that is no particular reason for you to do it. But I thought I’d ask.
Since I take the soul to be metaphor, and I take metaphors to be immaterial, I guess that doesn’t raise any flags here.
Interesting; in my experience #2 is wrong.
If that’s what Plantinga says, he’s tragically small minded. I not only can conceive of, I do experience that “my body is more than my body“. I think that P’s dismissive limitation of bodies is a complete misconception of the nature of physical reality.
Everything is electric, magnetic, vibratory; forces don’t have boundaries; we are interpenetrating with everything from cosmic rays being absorbed under our skins to low-frequency quake waves vibrating our feet. Meanwhile we are radiating long-wavelength energy, enough to be imaged from outside a solid building, and shedding molecules of ourselves from our apparently-solid skins, enough to be personally tracked through the world weeks later.
Reality seems to include “solid things”, but it’s bizarrely reductionist to conceive – as P does – that bodies are disconnected solids, inert, and therefore never (conceivably) more than “just a body”. Unless, by “just a body” he means the same thing as “just a universe”. Or “just energy”.
My body is not merely connected to the universe — the word “connected” could imply some possibility of disconnectedness otherwise — but is inherently and inseparably a facet of the whole. Yes, of course, on a daily basis I think of myself as “inhabiting a separate body” and I acknowledge the limitations of my skin – it’s really impractical to try to interact with rocks and watches and people if I don’t. I’m not saying I have to pretend that I’m separate and solid … that’s genuinely how I feel most of the time. But alternately I can access the experience that I/you/each of us is a wave of the deep ocean, arising at some time and place, traveling while energy pushes through the sun-planet system, eventually subsiding back into still water. What a shame for poor old Plantinga, stuck in his tiny mind.
Meditation practice or psychedelic drugs may help with this experience. Or maybe just Shawn Mullins:
Bruce, to Robin:
That’s not actually true. It depends on both the size and the variability of the individual universes.
As an extreme example, suppose the multiverse consisted of our universe, plus an infinite number of identical small universes, each containing one lifeless star system.
Each of us would be unique in such a multiverse.
Doesn’t Plantinga’s argument also establish
1. That a mouse is not just a material object?
2. That the bench (I think a pew) that he is sitting on in the video is also not just a material object?
So if you accept his argument there is reductio ad absurdum.
As I understand it, there are two types of infinity of universes. One type is an infinite number with the same physical laws and constants as ours and the other type has different physical constants. Read the book to get a better explanation of that than I can give.
Now the type I am referring to is the type with the same physical constants as ours.
Further, by “possible”, I mean “with probability greater than zero”.
So the argument is that, for x>0, infinity times x is infinity. Or better, in infinite number of trials, any outcome with non-zero probability has to occur an unlimited number of times. (BTW, I think the physics says it is a countable infinity, but I am not sure).
(Hopefully, if he is watching, Neil will let that preceding math handwaving slip by.)
I don’t actually know if a single-star system universe is compatible with the laws and constants of our universe, but if it is, there would be an infinite number of such universes as well as of the universes where you occurred.
In keeping with the spirit your OP: this sort of thing reminds me of the theologian and debater Craig’s arguments that physical infinities are clearly absurd. It’s ironic that physicists non-nonchalantly discuss possibilities he considers absurd.
And lastly, there are complications with respect to time since that depends on the point of view one takes with respect to all those universes. I have not got into them because I did not understand that part of the book very well.
I see the question of whether I am identical to my physical body as ultimately a scientific question.
Now Feymann made the point that today’s brains are just yesterday’s mashed potatoes, so in that obvious sense I am not my physical body. (ie the atoms are not the same day to day). But we can explain that one by talking about the right causal connections over time.
So what are the right causal connections?
This scientific experiment of the future will answer:
1. Grow a body from one of my cells.
2. Transfer the exact configuration of my neurons from my current body to the new one.
3. If there was some other person created as an artifact to the process of growth of 1, then an ethical scientist would transfer him or her to the original body. Otherwise, destroy that original body.
4. Ask the person in the new body who they are.
LOL.
But perhaps we should call it “Murphy’s law for the multiverse” — anything that can happen will happen infinitely often.
I’m inclined to say that its a philosophical question, because philosophers are the ones who argue about the meaning of “identity” and “identical.”
Interesting; in my experience #2 is wrong.
If that’s what Plantinga says, he’s tragically small minded.I not only can conceive of, I do experience that “my bodyis more than my body“.I think that P’s dismissive limitation of bodies is a complete misconception of the nature of physical reality.
Everything is electric, magnetic, vibratory; forces don’t have boundaries; we are interpenetrating with everything from cosmic rays being absorbed under our skins to low-frequency quake waves vibrating our feet.Meanwhile we are radiating long-wavelength energy, enough to be imaged from outside a solid building, and shedding molecules of ourselves from our apparently-solid skins, enough to be personally tracked through the world weeks later.
Reality seems to include “solid things”, but it’s bizarrely reductionist to conceive – as P does – that bodies are disconnected solids, inert, and therefore never (conceivably) more than “just a body”.Unless, by “just a body” he means the same thing as “just a universe”.Or “just energy”.
My body is not merely connected to the universe — the word “connected” could imply some possibility of disconnectedness otherwise — but is inherently and inseparably a facet of the whole.Yes, of course, on a daily basis I think of myself as “inhabiting a separate body” and I acknowledge the limitations of my skin – it’s really impractical to try to interact with rocks and watches and people if I don’t.I’m not saying I have to pretend that I’m separate and solid … that’s genuinely how I feel most of the time.But alternately I can access the experience that I/you/each of us is a wave of the deep ocean, arising at some time and place, traveling while energy pushes through the sun-planet system, eventually subsiding back into still water.What a shame for poor old Plantinga, stuck in his tiny mind.
Meditation practice or psychedelic drugs may help with this experience.Or maybe just Shawn Mullins:
I enjoyed this post, hotshoe. Thanks.
keiths:
Neil:
Really? Plantinga doesn’t think the soul is a metaphor.
It sounds like you’re saying that you don’t care what Plantinga actually means, as long as you can interpret his words in a way that is compatible with your own beliefs.
Bruce:
Neil:
I think you’re both right. It takes philosophy to properly frame the question(s), and science to provide the answer(s).
I don’t have a problem with Plantinga’s claim, as explicitly stated. But it was obvious that he intended more than that narrow statement so I disagree with that.
I’m suspecting that he is playing word games — stating his claim narrowly so that it is hard to find a serious problem, but with accompanying assertions that appeal to a Christian audience and seem to imply far more.
Bruce,
All of the evidence I’ve seen suggests that the person will give the same name as before, and quite sincerely. But is he or she really the same person? It depends on precisely how you define “same” and “person”. Hence the need for philosophy.
My feeling is that you would have a new person, but one who thought he or she was the old person.
My reasoning:
A person’s most meaningful characteristic, in my opinion, is as a locus of subjective awareness.
Now suppose that you didn’t destroy the original body after your experiment. Then you would clearly have two distinct persons whose pre-clone memories were the same but whose present and future experiences differed. Even if you considered them to be the same person at the instant of cloning, their identities would quickly diverge because of their different experiences going forward.
Neil,
But Plantinga talks explicitly about existing when his body doesn’t. The soul ain’t a metaphor for him, and he isn’t hiding that fact.
He talks about being able to conceive of himself existing when his body doesn’t. But that’s no big trick. I can conceive of that, and then dismiss it as absurd even if conceivable.
Bruce,
Since Robin was asking about the possibility of an identical person arising somewhere in the multiverse, I am focusing on universes having the same physics as ours. It sounds like you agree.
That’s actually a mistake when dealing with infinities. For example, imagine that you randomly pick a real number in the interval [0,1]. There are infinitely many real numbers in that interval. The probability of getting 0.419 is zero, because there is only one way to get 0.419 and infinitely many ways to get a different number in the interval.
A probability of zero doesn’t imply that an event is impossible unless the outcomes are finite in number.
The single-star stuff isn’t essential to my argument. I just threw that out there so we’d have a concrete example to talk about.
The first part I agree with, but not the second. If the probability of universes identical to ours was zero, then there wouldn’t necessarily be an infinite number of them.
Where’s JoeG when you need him? Oh, that’s right, he got banned for posting a link to an obscene photo.
With respect to Robin’s question, I think the only thing that matters is whether an identical person arises at any point in the history of any of the universes.
Neil,
I think we all agree that his argument is bogus. The thread title is a clue to my opinion on that.
My point is in response to this statement of yours:
He’s not being coy. He states outright that he is talking about conscious existence independent of the body.
When you said that his argument didn’t “raise any flags” for you, I think it was because you didn’t understand what he was actually arguing. Hence my comment.
I think I understand what you’re saying here Petrushka. I’m not trying to argue for duelism. I just can’t image how an organism could be born with a “brain pre-stimulated” and with neurological pathways pre-activated. In other words, my understanding is that memory is not simply a state of matter, but rather an constantly evolving active system. Maybe my perspective identity is as well and thus can’t re-emerge either for the same reason
I hope not. People get killed in duels.
Neil:
Keith:
I agree with both of these points but then I’d add that when science reaches the point where its theories allow one to create an operational definition of some term within a confirmed theory, then the ownership of definition rights passes to science.
For example, any metaphysician who talks about what time and space are in terms only of Newtonian concepts is hard to take seriously, IMHO.
So my post was a claim that such an experiment would be a scientific definition of personal identity. I am sure there are lots of holes — for example,
I had the original body destroyed or overwritten to avoid getting into the argument about whether it really created two new identities that Keith raises.
One could also saying that just asking someone if he is the same person as he was yesterday is not enough but that is why I included all the details about how the person came to be. Does that combination suffice?
Of course, any dedicated Star Trek fan knows that Keith’s point about duplication has already been thoroughly explored on that show (Riker was duplicated in a transporter accident). Those script writers must read a lot of philosophy. Or maybe it is the other way around.
I am also bothered by the wording in #1, assuming one is trying to argue for immaterial souls in the end.
I have no trouble conceiving of me being more than this particular body in the sense of not requiring these particular atoms to be part of the definition of me.
But I could never conceive of me being separate from some physical substrate.
Anyone who can seems to be assuming dualism. And I am assuming physicalism, of course. So it seems the argument is already stuck by what you are assuming and cannot take you past that.