 Hello, good afternoon. So today's class, I guess, is going to be a little bit spooky. Happy Halloween, everyone. This is actually quite a good day in which to be discussing body swaps and so on. So last time we were looking at Locke's example of the Prince and the Cobbler. Today, Bernard Williams' article, on Monday, on Tuesday next week, we are scheduled to look at Hume. But thinking about it, I actually think it would be good to just go back over some of the morals in the argument between Locke and Williams on Tuesday. So the reading for Tuesday is basically just to go back over the Locke and the Williams because they are both difficult pieces and the questions they are raising are difficult and take a lot of thought. So on Tuesday, I'll go over some of these questions about the memory and the self. And then on Thursday, we'll cut straight to the Parfit article. We'll do Parfit's article on Thursday and then maybe come back to the Hume the next week. OK, is that clear enough? I will write that on the website. OK, so today, Williams' Locke's version of the story of the Prince and the Cobbler is really resilient. I mean, it's been heavily discussed for 300 years now. And it really remains a very powerful, plausible kind of story that really seems to show that people can't be identical to human beings. You and the human being can't be one in the same thing because it makes sense for you to swap bodies, but not for a human being to swap bodies. Williams' challenge is, so far as I know, the only one that's regarded as a tall, successful, as any hopeful being successful, to Locke's way of telling the story in the last 300 years. Williams is one of the great essayists of the last century. So if you haven't looked at the article yet, I really recommend it. That's right, that isn't a good challenge, except Williams'. So Locke's, though? Yeah. Ah, yes, that we will come on to. Yes, but what I mean is to the Prince and the Cobbler story. I mean, challenging the Prince and the Cobbler story directly. I don't know of anything else that is really a strong challenge. So remember the Prince and the Cobbler story. Should the soul of a prince carrying with it the consciousness of the Prince's past life enter and inform the body of a Cobbler as soon deserted by his own soul, everyone sees he would be the person in the body of a Cobbler. Would be the same person with the Prince, accountable only for the Prince's actions. But who would say it was the same man, but it's the body of the Cobbler. So it's not the same human being as the Prince inhabited before, but it's the Prince there in the Cobbler's body. Yep, let's remember that, right? OK, and the way Locke puts it is in terms of soul there. The soul of a Prince carrying with it the consciousness of the Prince's past life. But it's really the consciousness that we see important things, but not the soul. Because if we transfer the memories between the body of the Prince and the body of the Cobbler, that's going to mean they sort bodies. But equally, a transfer of memories between the soul of the Prince and the soul of the Cobbler would mean that they'd swapped souls. Identity of person is not the same thing as that entity of body. It's not the same thing as identity of soul either, because a more abstract notion than that. Are we all comfortable with that at this point? Yeah? Why are we even talking about it? Absolutely. Look, I completely agree. But the reason is that, if you call this a reason, is that when you get an argument that people are not identical to the human body, that you are not identical to the human body you're occupying, then many people will instantly say, ah, so what you mean is there's a soul. That's the real me. You see what I mean? You must be something non-physical. You must have a kind of astral plane that you occupy and be a bit of ectoplasm on the astral plane. And the point of going through this here is that's not the right reaction. That's not the kind of concept person is. It's more abstract than the notion of any concrete substance, body, soul, whatever. These are not the relevant notions. Anything else? Are you all on a chance to think about it? Are you comfortable with the story? This all makes perfect sense. So here is, in Locke's story, the Prince and the Cobbler Bint actually meets. But this is them at a little known encounter, the Prince and the Cobbler. And Williams' version of the story, the Prince being told the following, their brains are going to be swapped into each other's bodies, and then one of the resulting bodies is going to be tortured, and the other one is going to be rewarded. One gets tortured, the other gets $100,000. I guess we would have just put in flesh. It would be a real lot of money. And the Prince is given the choice, which body will it be that gets tortured? Which body will it be that's rewarded? So you're the Prince. Here's the scenario. The memories of the brain are going to be swapped into that body there. And one of these bodies is going to be tortured, and one of these bodies is going to be rewarded. You're the Prince. And you have to choose on the basis of self-interest. I mean, it's all very well to care about Cobblers. But in this case, you're to look out for yourself. The Cobbler has to look out for himself. So which do you choose? One of them is going to be tortured. One of them is going to be rewarded. Think of it as if you choose it to be the left body that gets rewarded, sorry, that gets tortured, and the right body that gets rewarded. Yeah? I mean, this could be. We will take a random member of the audience and actually do this in a minute. Both. I mean, it's explicitly in terms of brain. But the discussion last time was about how that matters because of the transfer of memories. OK? Yes? The reason I think she's not quite the same thing, but the argument I was giving last time was swapping the brain matters because of the swapping of memories. You are swapping the brain, and thereby swapping the memories. OK, so those who are the Prince, would you choose for this body to be the one that's rewarded and this body to be the one that's tortured? Anyone? OK, that's pretty overwhelming. A number of you guys did not vote. Well, what uncertainty could you have? OK. So the popular choice is you're the Prince, right? You are the Prince's body being rewarded, and the Prince's body being tortured, and the cobbler's body being rewarded. Yeah? That's the one you choose. And that seems pretty sensible. I mean, afterwards, after all, the person speaking from the cobbler's body will say, boy, did I make the right choice there. That was a good call. And as you listen to the pittiest screams coming from the cell behind beside you, you say pity about the cobbler. Too bad, but there you go. And on the other hand, the person in this body, the person in the Prince's body, is going to be saying, if only they'd let me choose, I'd have put things around the other way. Yeah? So it seems like this must be the right call. And if you put it around the other way, on the other hand, after the, if you had chosen, as the Prince had chosen, for this one to be the one that's rewarded and this one to be the one that's tortured, then after the swap, the person in this body is going to be saying, wow, that was a serious mistake, right? And the person in the Prince's body is going to be saying, I can't believe he did that. That was stupid. Anyway, I'm so grateful. OK? That seems plenty enough. Yep. So that's right. The same as a person, this is the same human being here. And this is the same human being up here, but different people. Yep. If the Prince chooses, the Prince's body person, Prince's body's person will be tortured and the Bacobal body person rewarded. Then after the Bacobal body person will say, I remember that. I'm so glad I did. OK? Plain enough. OK, here's another case Williams describes. You're the Prince and you're told, you are going to be tortured. You are going to be tortured extensively. And you say, oh, will it hurt? That sounds awful. And they say, yes, it will hurt a lot, actually. It's torture. You won't like it a bit. It's pretty bad. So your reaction is, OK, let's suppose that you're pretty self-interested, but that sounds as bad as it could get, right? You're going to be tortured. I mean, that's awful. And you're also told, before you're tortured, you're going to be driven insane. Is that better or worse? There's not much of a choice. It seems to be worse, if anything, right? You're going to be driven insane. That's about a worst case scenario, right? I mean, what does insane mean? Well, as Polonia says, to be mad is to be nothing other than mad, right? You're not your right mind. Actually, the form of the insanity takes is that all your current memories are going to be driven out, just as people sometimes think that they are Napoleon or the Pope or something. They have always apparent memories. All your current memories are going to be driven out, and they're going to be replaced by impressions of having had quite a different past life, right? You're going to think that you're Napoleon or you're going to think that you're a cobbler or something like that, right? But that's still awful, yes? Torture and insanity. Delusions of having been someone else. And suppose you're told over in another part of the castle that someone else, the cobbler, is also going to be driven insane. But unlike you, the cobbler is not going to be tortured. The cobbler is going to be handsomely rewarded. And you say, well, as someone just said, what do you mean insane? Well, the cobbler is going to be made to think they're someone else, just as you might make them think they're Napoleon or the Pope or something. We're actually going to make the cobbler think that he's you. The fake memories that the princes are going to match the cobbler's past life, the fake memories that you are given are going to match the cobbler's past life. And actually, this won't be an accident. They're going to take the cobbler's biography and read off incidents from that and put that into your head before you're tortured. You think you're this guy, yeah? So it's not an accident that it matches the cobbler's life. We want you to think you're this humble cobbler. And similar things are going to be done to the cobbler. It's going to read off the details of the prince's past life, make the cobbler think that he used to be a prince, but then more humanely not torture him, but give him a stack of money. Yes? So you're the prince, and this is what's going to happen to you, and that's what's going to happen to this other guy. Is that awful, or is that not too bad? Yeah? Death. No, just torture. It might be easy. You might prefer death, but well, you might wish it was so. But as you yell in agony, it's going to be apparent that it's not so. Well, you physically don't die. Right, you physically don't die. You might say that, but actually, you've just gone mad. Going mad isn't the same thing as dying. Again, it might feel like it, but you might prefer death. Sorry, is what? Both. I mean, we're going to take the humble cobbler. We're going to take the humble cobbler. Nobody's swapping body here. We're going to take the humble cobbler. We're going to drive him crazy, and then we're going to give him a stack of money. I'm going to take you, the prince, drive you mad, and then torture you horribly. Yeah? The physical structure of the brain? Sure. You're going to shape. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Of course, the physical structure of the brain is going to change. The physical structure of your brain, all right, but I mean, just getting the structure of your brain changed is not going to threaten your identity. I mean, the structure of your brain changes just as we're having this little chat. You hear me? The structure of your brain changes the whole time. That's your brains for? Everything at once. Everything at once. Uh-huh, OK. But philosophies like that, right? I mean, you hear one of Locke's ideas, and it just goes off like a bomb and changes everything, right? I never used to think about the world that way. That can happen. No, it's in this class. What do you mean? It can happen that your whole psyche is transformed. OK, with this? We've been tortured. OK, bravely said. Bravely said. OK, so you've been tortured. You've been driven mad, and that's fine. OK, that's OK. I've just been clear about what the view is. OK, yes? Are you told? Yeah, you told that the cobbler's going to. I mean, it's not really essential to the story, but the way you've set it up, you've told, yeah, this cobbler's going to have that happen to them. But I mean, what do you care about that? All this terrible stuff is happening to you, yes? Meanwhile, in another dungeon in the castle, terrible things are being done to this poor cobbler, though he does get a stack of money at the end. But in a way, that's completely irrelevant. Uh-huh. Well, that's very good. OK, I mean, the thing is, the way I put it initially, this sounds awful, right? I said this sounds like the worst case. Tortured and driven mad. But when you think about it, this is exactly the same as Locke's Prince and cobbler's case. It's just as you say, it's not just that it's a bit like Locke's Prince and the cobbler's case. It is Locke's Prince and the cobbler's case. It's the same case. It's just been described in two different ways. So these two cases are exactly the same. But in Locke's Prince and the cobbler's case, when you choose this scenario and you say, I wanted to go like this, you think, yeah, that's all right. I don't know how to escape there. Whereas when you describe it like this, the very same situation, this sounds like the worst case. You have two completely different. When I first described this scenario to you, I said that's the worst case. And people said, sure, that's pretty bad. And when I described the Locke scenario, I said, well, you'd say that was a close call. I'm glad I got out of that one. That wasn't as bad as it could have been. But you have two different attitudes. But it's exactly the same situation you're describing in two different ways. Right. Very good. That's very good. The point here is they're being described differently in terms of identity. You're being told you've swapped bodies or you've held on to the same body. So in those terms, they're being described differently. And that's why your attitude to them is so different. But when you think about what the hard facts are, the details of what is going on with the brains here, these two situations are, how should I put it, one level down, one level more specific, a description of what's happening to all the particular cells in the two bodies. These two sets of scenarios down one level are exactly the same. Do you see what I mean? From the prince's perspective. Yeah, well, the thing is, you seem to have the same set of hard facts in the two scenarios, this one and this one. It's the same set of hard facts, but the prince takes two different perspectives on them. On what scenario, the prince says, that's going to be me over there. On William's scenario, the prince's perspective is, that's going to be me. But it seems completely optional, which perspective you take. It's just the same situation being described in two different ways. But it seems so important, whether you're dealing with a worst case or whether you're dealing with an ingenious escape that you had. Like wow. What? I see what you mean, yes. In this case, no, no, no, no, no, no. Die in a way, you don't get to say that. I mean, that's a cheat. The hard question is, am I still going to be around? And what is going to be happening to me? That's the puzzling question. And you can't just say, oh, well, I die in a way. But in a way, not. That doesn't answer the question you want to know the answer to. What's going to be happening to me? That's what you want to know the answer to. None of these brains are dead. These are not vegetative states. Even if his mind is warped. Yes, right, right. Yes, right, right. Right. On the scenario, yeah. Oh, yes, very good, very good. There's no overlapping chain of memories. Through his descent into madness, yes, very good. It's a person. Yes. Right, OK, that's excellent. So if there's a chain of overlapping minute by minute memories through the descent into madness and into the talk show, yeah, then it's the same person. Yeah, that's a great point. I guess one possibility, well, yeah. I guess the thing is that when you think of it like this, when this guy is being driven mad, another way to think of it is that there's also a chain of overlapping memories going on across here. Because everything that's happening in the way this guy is being driven mad is being caused by what was going on with this guy. Do you see what I mean? Sure. Let's suppose we're one minute into the process. So one minute into the process right here, this guy has an impression. Hey, someone just brought me tea. Yeah, one minute into the process of being driven mad. This guy for the same cause is getting the impression. Hey, someone just brought me tea. Yeah, and if we're on second minute into the process, this guy's going to be thinking, I just stirred my tea. He's going to be thinking, I just stirred my tea. You see what I mean? The same stream. Yeah, the question. Yeah, very good. Yeah, that's very powerfully put. Yeah, that's a very good point. I don't really want to try and cancel out. That's great. OK. You speak with a special authority. Yeah. Yes. You could say, I sort of like replacing the culprits there. And then you get tortured. And there's this other version of you that gets rewarded. That's right. Oh, there's another version of you. But is it you or not? It's not you. You with your brain just got put. That's another of these dodges. I mean, parentheses, coffee. I'll come on in a moment. But to say more about that. But the thing is, what you want to know is, is it going to be me? What's going to be happening to me? And to be told, well, it's going to be happening to you, parentheses, coffee. That's not what you wanted to know. Is it me or isn't it? I know you're not going to be driven mad. You don't get driven mad. Your brain states get copied, put over in a blank human being, and then you're tortured. I see. But you're still there. You were never deleted. You're still over here. You're on both sides. I'm on both sides. You started, where's in the other version? I see you could set it up like that. And that would make the thing less puzzling if you did it like that. Because there's only one candidate for being you in your scenarios. Yeah, you only got one candidate. And then you might say, well, I'll go for that being me, then. The trouble is, why should it matter whether there's somebody else over here? Do you see what I mean? If it's really just you, if we're really talking about one person here, it shouldn't matter what's going on with some other guy in some distant dungeon. But this isn't important. Again, I don't want to just close this off, if you see what I mean. We'll come back to this, that kind of idea. Yes? Absolutely. Uh-huh. Can we kill the first person? Yes, very good. Yes? Just the second person, for example. OK, just hold those thoughts. These are all interesting lines of thought. And I don't want to just give decisions on them, right? They are all interesting ways of thinking about this thing. But is it clear what Williams's basic point here is? He is saying, a lot describe the prince and the cobbler case as a body swap. But there is another equally valid description of the case. You could describe it as two people going mad. Yeah? Why say it's a body swap rather than just two people going mad? That is the basic challenge to luck. So the challenge for you is, if you said Williams's case for you, the prince are driven mad and tortured and so on, that's the worst case. And the luck case for the prince and the cobbler swap bodies is not such a bad case for the prince. Then why are you having such different attitudes? The challenge is, how can you justify taking different attitudes towards those two cases when really what's going on is exactly the same? It's just a verbal difference in how you describe them. So I hope, if this is not perfectly plain, this is your chance to, I mean, what I mean is, the puzzle is extremely confusing, I think. But I hope that what the puzzle is is perfectly plain. Let's just hold a second. OK, before people were suggesting slightly complicated ways of resolving it, there's one of the things that is so interesting about Williams's article is that he brings out the kind of importance that this kind of thing would have and that the way in which what happens to your future self is something that we all think really matters. So just to get into this, let's think about how you care about your future life. Why does Williams focus on torture? It's not really a great example to just use for play. So why home in on torture? Well, the thing is, suppose you think about your concerns about your future life, what's going to be happening with you in a week or in a month. Suppose you're told right now, in a month, Jim will completely ignore you. And you think, my God, that would be awful if Jim ignored me, right, in a month. That would be just terrible. That would be the end of the world. Jim means more to me than anything else. But maybe in a couple of weeks, you would give two hoots about Jim. Jim, Jim who? Who's this? I mean, your concern with Jim ignoring you in a month or two, it depends what happens to your psychological life in between now and then. In a month or so, you might have completely forgotten about Jim. So it just doesn't matter whether Jim ignores you. So if you're told at some point in the future, Jim will completely ignore you. Well, that might matter, and it might not. So if you've told in a month you'll have forgotten all about Jim, and then Jim will completely ignore you, well, who cares about that? And I suppose, for example, you're told, in fact, you'll have delusions that you're a cobbler by that time. Then it's still not going to matter whether Jim completely ignores you, right? That's the least of your troubles at that point. But the thing about torture and pain is suppose you're told in a month you're going to experience great pain, you'll experience agony. Then as you're told, well, lots of other stuff is going to happen in the meantime. Who you care about will be different. You'll have become a Buddhist. You'll have taken up hand gliding. It doesn't matter all that stuff. Still, your fact that you're going to experience great pain really is a concern. It doesn't go away just because other stuff in your psychological life has changed. Do you see what I mean? Things like caring about who ignores you, that can really change a lot with other changes in your mental life. But caring about being in great pain in the future, that really matters no matter what. So even if you're going to have delusions that you're a cobbler by the time you experience the great pain, that is still terrible. That is still a real big concern. So the way Williams puts it is, your concern about your future pain reaches through the change in your psychological state. Whereas your concern about whether Jim ignores you doesn't reach through your concern about your, your concern about whether Jim ignores you isn't going to reach through the change in your psychological state. So this change, forgetting all about Jim is like a wall. Your concern about your future life just on whether Jim ignores you in the future doesn't reach through that change in your psychological life. But your concern about great pain reaches through all kinds of changes in your psychological life. Okay, let's come back to that. Why is that defending a lot? Yeah, that's right, you did say that, yeah. Oh, I see. Right, so that would mean, just to spell this out, that would mean I'm going to have changed bodies. Right, there's not going to be me, but back in this body, there'll be great pain and suffering. Yeah, well, I mean, from Locke's point of view, why would I care about that? I mean, is it just sentimental attachment to the old body? I say, boy, look at that poor body there. You know what, that gave me a good time, that body. I'm sorry to see it going through that. The same way that a house you once lived in, you might be sorry to see it being demolished, something like that. You know, there's the old body over there, all this agony, too bad. That's all the difference in the world between that and being concerned about my pain. I didn't give him time, but we're talking here about concern about your future pain, yeah. I agree. Look, none of these lines of thought that you guys are coming up with are just daft or something, you see what I mean? They are all good lines to think through. What I want to do here is something more basic and just get at the kind of concern we have with these kind of factors. So that's clear, right? That's why pain is important. That, I mean, if you're told that in the future you'll be paying very high taxes. You say, well, I don't care about that because I don't care much about money. You're told, well, in the future, you'll care very much about money. You might equally say, well, who cares? You see what I mean? You can be distanced from your future self. But no matter what changes you feel you're going, you go through, if you're told you're going to have a medical procedure that will cause you enormous pain, that's always going to be a matter of legitimate concern. Now, when you get this puzzle case first, when you're told here's Williams's case, here's Locke's case, it's the same facts, but we're describing them in two different ways. It's a really natural reaction to say, well, look, this is just philosophers with their verbal puzzles. Say what you like, right? It doesn't matter what you say. It gets indeterminate, which one is you? There's no fact to the matter here. Just, you can talk however you like, this is just philosophers juggling with words. Oh, I thought I'd put that very badly. Okay, let me vary the example of it and make it coherent. Suppose you're told in the, suppose you care a lot about money right now and you're told in the future you're going to be extremely poor. And you say, but that's awful. And then you're told, well, that will be because you've become a Buddhist and given away all your cash. And you say, okay, well, you know, a legitimate choice. You see what I mean? So your initial concern about loss of money isn't something that reaches through that changing your picture of what matters. Okay. That's a good American reaction. And there's not so much that I want to question that, right? It's, you can hold on to the idea that your concern with money is a visceral thing that will reach through any changing your psychological set. That's right. You can throw out my example. The point is only, the reason for focusing on pain and torture was that it's like that too. It's like that plus, you know, if you're told that you've got a degenerative condition that is going to cause you a great deal of pain, then there's nothing like becoming a Buddhist or something that is going to make that okay or not caring about Jim, that is going to make that okay. And that's really the key thing. That's fine. Good for you. Yeah. Okay. William just think of pain as something primal about that. So that's important to bear in mind when you're asking, isn't this just juggling with words? Does it really matter what you say? The facts are the same. So if you're being given the scenario where this body is going to be taught for months, it's going to be rewarded, and you say, well, it's indeterminate, right? You're puzzled at which one's going to be me. Is it going to be me that's being taught or me that's being rewarded? The thing is, it's very hard to know what to make of it. If someone says to you, this is just a semantic matter. You can say what you like, because there's no fact to the matter about whether you're the prince body person or the cobbler body person. Because look, what you want to know is, should I be afraid? Is this going to happen to me? And that doesn't really answer by being told, well, say what you like, so long as you know what the facts are, it's a matter for verbal stipulation. That's not the answer. That doesn't address your concerns at all. What's concerning you is, there's a fact to the matter. Am I going to feel great pain or not? Williams puts it like this, the subject has an incurable difficulty in how we may think about the future person, the future subject. If you're thinking about, say, the future prince and thinking that's me there, then that's awful, that's something to be afraid of. If you're thinking of it, that's me there, getting rewarded, that's not something to be afraid of. So if you take it that this is the future person, the future S that we're thinking of here, the subject has an incurable difficulty in how to think about S. If the subject engages in projective imaginative thinking about how it will be for me in that future scenario being tortured, then you implicitly answer the unanswerable question. You're saying that's going to be me there yelling, that'll be terrible. On the other hand, if you hold back from that and say, well, maybe not me there, then you will also answer the question. If you say I'm not afraid, then you've answered the question, that's not you if you're not afraid of that scenario. So you can't not answer the question when you're trying to think what emotional reaction should you have to what happens to this body in the future. Do you care whether this one gets rewarded or tortured? Well, if you care about that, that's because it is you. And if you don't care, that can only be because it's not you. I mean, it can happen that if you take something like, I don't know, my father gave me this ring. It's really important to me. It really means my father to me this ring, but then it needs repaired and it gets new stones put in it. And then the band of metal itself, that needs to be replaced. And after a bit, I'm not really sure if this is the ring my father gave me anymore. You can feel kind of ambivalent about something like that. You think, well, I feel a bit sentimental about this ring, but not that sentimental, it's not clear, it's the same. But can you feel like that ambivalent like that about this guy in the prince's body? You are the prince. This guy's being tortured. Does it matter? Can you be looking at this body the way you look at the ring and saying, well, in a way, yes, and in a way, no. I mean, that's the thing about, that's why it's a cheat to say, I'm dead in one sense, but not in another. What you want to know is, who's that doing the yelling? Is that me or is that not me? And if you feel ambivalent about it, well, in a way, in a way, it's not you, right? If it was really you, you wouldn't be a bit ambivalent about it. If you feel ambivalent about the future person, and that's just to say, it's not you. William puts it like this, the subject's difficulty is in thinking either projectively or non-projectively about the future situation. If you think projectively about that person in the future, then you're thinking that's me, if you imaginatively project yourself into them. On the other hand, if you don't do that, and you don't have that kind of emotional concern for them, then they're not you. So as I said, it's a really natural idea that we can save what we like. We've got to stipulate, I mean, after all, you might say, what do we mean by person here? In one sense, it is you. In another sense, it isn't you. And sometimes that's the right thing to say. I suppose that in basketball, something, some player finds a new kind of shot. Presumably this has been thought of before, but suppose players think of something like throwing the ball very, very hard at an opponent's head, and you think, is that okay? Is there something in the rules? Can you do that? And you think, well, I don't know, we've got to make a new rule here, and say, when is that okay, when isn't it? It might just have been left open by the old rules, and now you've got to stipulate, is that okay or not? But when you say, well, we've got these weird experiments going on, and we're going to say, well, is that you or is that not you? Well, in one sense, yes, and in another sense, no, we can say in the copy sense, me or in the non-copy sense, not me, something like that. We can say in the copy sense, this one is me, in the non-copy sense, that one is me. That's not what you want to know. What you want to know, is it really me or not? You've been given the scenario. This is what we're going to do to these bodies. You want to know, is it going to be me that's going to be tortured? And that's just not like the basketball case. It's not as if you could just refer it to some committee somewhere and say, let's have the committee draw up rules as to what counts as the same person. You want to know, should I be scared? If the committee say, oh yes, actually, we've decided that is you. Oh no, I'm scared. Oh no, we decided it's not you. Actually, no, I'm not scared anymore. That is a much more visceral thing than that. The way you think about your future life is really central to all your plans and concerns. I mean, just anyway, if you're planning what courses to take, what you're going to do when you leave, Cal, all that stuff, any kind of plan or project you have is bound up with presupposing the identity of the self. And we take it for granted, there are facts of the matter about the identity of the self. The only thing is that in these cases, we really get puzzled. We think, I'm not sure if that's me there or not, but there is a fact of the matter. So much of what we care about, every concern of basic human life is tied up to questions about the identity of the self. It's impossible to accept that something that matters as much as the identity of the self could be just a matter of free decision by some committee just making up its mind in an arbitrary way. So if you have to choose, this is Williams, if you're the prince and you're choosing which body gets tortured and which body gets rewarded, Williams puts this by saying, there's an element of risk in your choosing which body gets tortured and which body gets rewarded. You don't want it to be you and there's a fact of the matter about whether it's you but you're just not dead sure about whether you're getting it right and making sure that it's you rather than not you that gets rewarded. Okay, so it's not a trivial verbal matter of this. It really gets at the things we care about most. Yep, yeah. There's no way I can control this so I just don't care. Oh, no, but the way it's set up is you do get to influence. Well, you can choose, let's suppose you get to choose whether this body gets tortured or this body gets rewarded. Yeah, sorry, whether this body gets tortured or this body gets tortured whether this body gets rewarded or this body gets rewarded. Suppose you'd given the choice there and you're trying to choose so it's you that gets tortured and it is you that gets rewarded. Yeah? Okay, the thing is once you grasp the similarity between this scenario and this scenario that in some sense they're exactly the same then you don't know how to describe the situation coming up. If you choose the scenario in which is this body that's getting tortured is what you're choosing that you get tortured after being driven mad or is what you're choosing that the other guy gets tortured and you get rewarded after a mere transfer of memories. These are the same scenarios being described in different ways but only one of those descriptions can be correct. I mean, if this is what's going on then that's not too bad. If this is what's going on, it's the end of the world and if you're not sure it is one of them rather than the other that's what's going on then Williams's point is that's why there's an element of risk here. No, no, yeah. Physicalism is not really to the point here, right? Because we can suppose that there's nothing going on but the physical. One way to think of it is the issue is log thinks that the identity of the self is really a kind of abstract description of what's going on. I can't remember, did we talk about tele-transportation last time? Tele-transportation. Okay, tele-transportation, right? Here is how you do faster than light travel. What you do is on Earth, suppose you wanna go to Mars, right? Mars takes a long time but if you're gonna use a tele-transporter and get there faster than light it would take you no time at all. Follow me very closely here. Hello? Then one way to do it is you have a scanner that scans your brain and body completely and then when you step into, it then it transmits that information to Mars and then when you step into the tele-transporter here on Earth, what happens is that powerful beams hit your body and its atoms are annihilated. They're spread to the four corners of the universe. Meanwhile on Mars, the beam goes out and a replica of how you were on Earth physically is generated. Always happens in the twinkling of an eye. So from your point of view, you just step into the tele-transporter on Earth and then boom, a moment later, there you are on Mars, right? And let's suppose that we're in the future and that commuting to Mars is really desirable, right? It's great to have a method of transportation that works so fast. I mean, it beats getting into the city in the morning. So would you use that method of transportation? Locke says there is no problem about that because the self is a much more abstract concept than the notion of any substance. Williams is thinking, no, look, the self just is the human being and that's a different human being on Mars than it is here. Suppose if you're, here's an example of Derek Parfitt, suppose it's your first morning using the tele-transporter and you're really a bit apprehensive about this, right? Right? You would be apprehensive. This is what Williams means as an element of risk here. Then let's suppose your partner says to you, are you feeling nervous? And your partner says, don't be nervous. After all, I've been doing that commute for the last, every day for the last 20 years. Then you do it. You are nervous that morning. You cut yourself. You step out of the tele-transporter on Mars and there you still get that cut in the same place. So is that you or not? Now the thing is physicalism has got nothing to do. Whether you're a physicalist or a dualist is not really central to the issue here. The issue is, is the self, is the person an abstract thing that can make the journey? If you see what I mean? Or is the person a concrete object? That is the question. That is the puzzling thing. I need to be curious. Which of you would do the commute? Which of you would not do the commute? Okay, more wood than wood. Yeah, I'd say it's about two to one, that's significant. Uh-huh. That happens every moment, right? Just as you talk, you're affecting the structure of my brain and I have a different consciousness in that sense. That happens all the time. Okay, any questions? You want that? Yeah, yeah. He's saying both, actually, that William's view is that the human body is really the important thing. But he's also saying he's not certain about that. Yeah, he's saying this is a risky business. But yeah, I think you could put William's picture like this. This is a risky business if you're gonna choose to use the teletransporter or if you're gonna bet that you are in the prince's body or on the cobbler's body. But as you'll see in a moment, he's gonna be arguing the safest thing to do is to assume that the sameness of the body is the important thing. He's saying it's not completely safe by any means. You might be getting it wrong, but it's at least as sensible an option as what Locke is recommending. So with the teletransporter, I mean, Williams doesn't talk about teletransporters, but Williams would say, don't use it. Yeah, it might be okay, but it's likely not okay. But that's what he means. There's an element of risk here. There's something you really don't quite get, but you can't just say, oh, we'll say when you like. That's right, the structure is the same. That's right, that's the key thing. If the structure is the same, then it's still the same self. Well, because Williams is thinking that structure is not enough for it to be the same self. I mean, that's the thing about being driven mad. If my structure was imposed in your body, that'll be a way of driving you crazy. Not a way of me surviving. That's just as reasonable a description of what is going on. Oh, well, if, yeah, actually, let's just, so I got a bit confused there as to where I was in the thing, but you're raising exactly what I want to come on to. Let's just stay with this. Williams' basic idea is, Locke's case of the prince and the cobbler is one of, there are just a lot of different things that could go on. So if you take what that formulation has just used of imposing structure in your body, if you don't mind to use it, that's just an example, then there are actually lots of different ways that could go. You could take my love of, what's his name? The guy who did the third man, citizen Ken. Citizen Ken? Let's take George Orwell, who I also like, right? Sorry? I'll remember, it'll come back to me. Orson Welles, that's what I was thinking, all right. Suppose you take my love of Orson Welles, suppose you don't give a hoot about Orson Welles, right? And you take my love of Orson Welles and project it onto you, right? So now you come out of the machine and hey, you just can't wait to dig out those great old movies, yeah? That's still you, right? Something weird got done to you, yeah? Suppose we take your love of whatever movie director you like, yeah? And do that to me, then, okay? Now, suppose you keep doing this, right? There are lots of different things that could happen. Suppose we take stuff from a lot of different people and project that onto you, change your brain in those ways, then at a certain point, you might say, well, is this the same guy or isn't it? Well, we've got here a kind of monster. You know, really there's no saying what's going on. This is just a really strange situation, yeah? Oh, yeah, that we influence one another, sure. Sure, I might talk to you very passionately about Orson Welles and you say, yes, I can't wait, right? But let's just suppose this has been done directly by neural modification, yeah? The point is there are endlessly many possible cases here. Lots of different things that could happen. And in most of them, you have no inclination at all to talk about people swapping bodies, yeah? So just modifying someone's structure on the model of someone else's structure, that doesn't of itself give you any reason to say that they've swapped bodies. I mean, someone actually raised this in questions just a moment ago. Suppose that you had a situation where the prince was completely unaffected, nothing happened to the prince at all. The prince just carries on the regular life, but the evil neuroscientist copies what's going on in the prince's brain and imposes it on the structure of the cobbler's brain. Then has the prince changed bodies? Has the prince changed bodies class? No, the prince has not changed bodies. The prince is just doing the regular thing. It's the hapless cobbler who has been subjected to great torment, but the nobody's changed bodies. So even if the cobbler gets memories by them being copied over from the prince, it's still not a situation where the prince has changed bodies. It's just that the cobbler's delusional. That's very clear, right? So there are lots and lots of wild cases you can describe here, where people get copied from one another. If you suppose it was only the prince's love of Orson Welles or the prince's memories from when he was five or younger, they got copied over. You'd have no impulse to say that they were inhabiting different bodies. Williams' point is what you get in luck is a really very carefully chosen case out of this jumble of cases. There's a whole random stack of possible cases here. Once you've got the machinery that can start copying memories, there's a whole bunch of different things that could happen. But what goes on with the locks' cases, you get a very neat situation, I mean neat in the sense of neat and tidy, in that it's very carefully judged so that when you think of what is happening to one brain and you think of what is happening to the other brain, you get this natural description that people have changed bodies. You get this image of a spark going from one body to the other. And Williams says that neatness is basically artificial. It's the product of the will of the experimenter and the free will of the experimenter to produce a situation that would naturally elicit with minimum hesitation of that description. But when you think of it, if you think of two brains sitting there, suppose it's the year 3000 and the Apple Corporation has got it so that the prints and the cobbler can put on kind of head caps and then their brains just show up on the screen and you can move files from one to the other. And then once you've got the machinery there, you could easily leave off earlier or go on longer. You could move selectively things backwards and forwards and have no point of any impulse to say they've swapped bodies. But then the case here has been finely judged as the one trick case where you get that image of a spark going from one to the other. If we had some model of ghostly persons in bodies which were in some sense actually moved around by certain procedures, we could regard the neat and tidy experiment just as the effect of experiment, the one method that really did result in the ghostly persons changing places without being destroyed, dispersed or whatever. But you can't seriously use that model. We don't can't seriously think in terms of ghostly persons in bodies. The experimenter has not in that sense of the model induced a change of bodies. It's not that there's one key swap that makes the spark go from one to the other. It's the one that taps our reflexes. He's rather produced the one situation out of a range of equally possible situations which we should be most disposed to call a change of bodies. As against this, the principle that your fears can extend to future pain, whatever psychological changes precede it, that's always a legitimate concern. However you change in the meantime. So why get too fired up about this picture of a spark changing bodies in the prince and the cobbler case? Maybe that principle is showing what was wrong with it. Until we are shown what's wrong with that principle, you should care about what's happening to it. So that's the principle that we should be most disposed to call a change of bodies. If you're wrong with that principle, you should care about what's happening to you, whatever psychological changes are going on with you in the meantime. Maybe, this is what came up earlier, maybe we should decide that if you're the person A, then if you're to decide selfishly, if you're the prince, then you should pass the pain onto the person in the body of the cobbler. So you can't really be sure what to make of this picture of the spark travelling from the prince to the cobbler's body and from the cobbler to the prince's body. So if you're the prince and you're going to decide selfishly, then give the pain to the person who'll be in the cobbler's body. It would be risky. It is risky. But that there is room for the notion of risk is itself. You see what he's saying here? It's up, Glenn. So if you're choosing... At this point, let me ask. You're told this is the scenario. You're the prince. How are you guys thinking of this point? You're the prince. Who's going to get the torture? Who's going to get the reward? I'll figure it out if you want the prince's body to get the torture. Oh, sorry. Well, this is one scenario where the structure of this brain has been copied over here. Yeah? That's all right? And the structure of this brain has been copied over here. And you have to choose, does this body get rewarded or does this body get tortured? Does this body get rewarded or does this body get tortured? So you're the prince. You're going to choose selfishly. You don't want your own torture. You choose... Put up your hand if you choose for the prince's body to be the one that gets tortured. Yeah. And if you choose for the prince's body to be the one that gets rewarded. Okay. About two to one. Yeah, again. Right. Okay. Okay. So, Williams has not won out over Locke in this yet. You see that? If you vote for the prince's body to be the one that gets tortured, then you are voting with Locke. But what Williams was recommending is risky. But if you want to be in the safe side, maybe you should go with the prince's body being the one that gets rewarded. Yeah. That was a very good point you made earlier. Yeah. Williams would say... Yes, he would. Yes, because the identity of the self was going to go with the identity of the body. That's the safe bet. Okay. We could go on for a couple of minutes or we could pack up there. How are you feeling? Are your heads full? Yeah, your head's full. Okay. Let's leave it there. We'll come back over this territory on Tuesday. Okay.