“Suppose first that I am one of a pair of identical twins, and that both
my body and my twin’s brain have been fatally injured. Because of
advances in neuro-surgery, it is not inevitable that these injuries will
cause us both to die. We have between us one healthy brain and one
healthy body. Surgeons can put these together.
If all of my brain continues both to exist and to be the brain of one
living person, who is psychologically continuous with me, I continue to
exist. This is true whatever happens to the rest of my body. ...
It is in fact true that one hemisphere is enough. There are many people
who have survived, when a stroke or injury puts out of action one of
their hemispheres. With his remaining hemisphere, such a person may need
to re-learn certain things, such as adult speech, or how to control both
hands. But this is possible. ... [So] I would survive if my brain was
successfully transplanted into my twin’s body. And I could survive with
only half my brain, the other half having been destroyed. Given these
two facts, it seems clear that I would survive if half my brain was
successfully transplanted into my twin’s body, and the other half was
destroyed.”
- Parfit, Reasons and Persons
“I enter the Teletransporter. I have been to Mars before, but only by
the old method, a space-ship journey taking several weeks. This machine
will send me at the speed of light. I merely have to press the green
button. Like others, I am nervous. Will it work? I remind myself what I
have been told to expect. When I press the button, I shall lose
consciousness, and then wake up at what seems a moment later. In fact I
shall have been unconscious for about an hour. The Scanner here on Earth
will destroy my brain and body, while recording the exact states of all
of my cells. It will then transmit this information by radio. Travelling
at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach the
Replicator on Mars. This will then create, out of new matter, a brain
and body exactly like mine. It will be in this body that I shall wake
up.
Though I believe that this is what will happen, I still hesitate. But
then I remember seeing my wife grin when, at breakfast today, I revealed
my nervousness. As she reminded me, she has been often teletransported,
and there is nothing wrong with her. I press the button. As predicted, I
lose and seem at once to regain consciousness, but in a different
cubicle. Examining my new body, I find no change at all. Even the cut on
my upper lip, from this morning’s shave, is still there.
Several years pass, during which I am often Teletransported. I am now
back in the cubicle, ready for another trip to Mars. But this time, when
I press the green button, I do not lose consciousness. There is a
whirring sound, then silence. I leave the cubicle, and say to the
attendant: ‘It’s not working. What did I do wrong?’ ‘It’s working’, he
replies, handing me a printed card. This reads: ‘The New Scanner records
your blueprint without destroying your brain and body. We hope that you
will welcome the opportunities which this technical advance offers.’
The attendant tells me that I am one of the first people to use the New
Scanner. He adds that, if I stay for an hour, I can use the Intercom to
see and talk to myself on Mars.
‘Wait a minute’, I reply, ‘If I’m here I can’t also be on Mars’.
Someone politely coughs, a white-coated man who asks to speak to me in
private. We go to his office, where he tells me to sit down, and pauses.
Then he says: ‘I’m afraid that we’re having problems with the New
Scanner. It records your blueprint just as accurately, as you will see
when you talk to yourself on Mars. But it seems to be damaging the
cardiac systems which it scans. Judging from the results so far, though
you will be quite healthy on Mars, here on Earth you must expect cardiac
failure within the next few days.’”
- Parfit, Reasons and Persons
“My Division. My body is fatally injured, as are the brains of my
two brothers. My brain is divided, and each half is successfully
transplanted into the body of one of my brothers. Each of the resulting
people believes that he is me, seems to remember living my life, has my
character, and is in every other way psychologically continuous with me.
And he has a body that is very like mine.”
- Parfit, Reasons and Persons
“At the near end of this spectrum is the normal case in which a future
person would be fully continuous with me as I am now, both physically
and psychologically. This person would be me in just the way that, in my
actual life, it will be me who wakes up tomorrow. At the far end of this
spectrum the resulting person would have no continuity with me as I am
now, either physically or psychologically. In this case the scientists
would destroy my brain and body, and then create, out of new organic
matter, a perfect Replica of someone else. Let us suppose this person to
be Greta Garbo. We can suppose that, when Garbo was 30, a group of
scientists recorded the states of all the cells in her brain and
body.
[One] assumes that, in each of these cases, the resulting person either
would or would not be me. This is not so. The resulting person would be
me in the first few cases. In the last case he would not be me. In many
of the intervening cases, neither answer would be true. I can always
ask, ‘Am I about to die? Will there be some person living who will be
me?’ But, in the cases in the middle of this Spectrum, there is no
answer to this question.”
- Parfit, Reasons and Persons