What Is You?

I've been deliberating over this post for a while - having read Reasons and Persons (I skipped the first section 'Reasons' because I wanted to get straight into the 'Persons' stuff ;-) by Derek Parfit, I wanted to put down the points which impressed me the most, as would befit a book that turns your view of 'you' upside down...well, you know when I read a book and I find something that I really like, I turn down the corner of that page: I should have reversed the habit this time, and turned down pages on which I found nothing interesting! I really didn't know how to sum it all up - it's difficult to take any one argument out of context, as one is built on top of another, and another...and I won't kid myself here or try and fool you, dear reader - a lot of it was over my head.

But then, YouTube to the rescue! Derek Parfit himself, interviewed on a 1996 Channel 4 documentary, 'Brainspotting'. Please watch this, as the author introduces three ideas from his book which illustrate his view of the self: the brain transplant, the nation (Hume's idea) and teletransportation. I can't disagree with anything he says. Yet I must admit - I find myself agreeing (wanting to agree?) with the interviewers conclusion - I feel that there must be something that is really 'me' that cannot be described by memories or anything else, something 'over and above' the actual matter that makes me - I'm sure this desire springs from the same part of me that doesn't really believe that I'm going to be dead forever. It makes me wonder, is there a point at which we all stop and say 'I can't handle any more truth than this'? Some may draw the line further than others, but is there a point where the utility of a belief is more important than whether it's true or not?

I had this most existential of fears as a younger (another ;-) me, in another context: instead of teletransportation, read death and resurrection: I lost sleep wondering whether God would create a perfect copy of me in a future resurrection if I died, rather than 'me' - and what the hell was 'me' then if it was possible to create a perfect copy? You see I was raised in a religion which discounts the 'further fact' of a soul, which would be unique to an individual (would be that individual) and would do away with these fears...

This I do know: the seeming lack of anything that is truly 'me' gets filed right alongside death in my mind: I know these things are true, and I go to their files frequently, but I can't keep them open on my desk, I just couldn't cope...

Watch from 1:28 on the first one. If these go down or you find YouTube's copies too slow, I've put them on Dailymotion here and here.