X-Message-Number: 26667
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 22:15:04 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Survival of "Identity"
References: <>

Richard B. R. writes

>This is something that puzzles me about you: you can plainly see
>your view is incompatible with survival of identity, but you speak
>as if it isn't (by redefinition and equivocation, depending on the
>circumstance). Moreover, you *live* as if you do believe in
>survival of identity.

I should be clearer about my notion of "identity" which is different from 
yours. And I will try harder in the future. Sorry for any problems that may 
have been caused by my choice of terminology and/or lack of explication. I 
believe (not dogmatically, but have strong hopes and confidence) in 
"survival"--in the sense of afterlife--of what I consider "identity"--this 
of course is from a patternist view, in contrast to your view, which is 
what I would call a tokenist view.

Now, it might be objected that I shouldn't be using the term "identity" at 
all. In mathematics and some other settings, "identity" holds between two 
objects if and only if they are the same in all respects. In the world of 
personal affairs, though, we speak of "identity" more loosely. You are not 
the same in all respects as a past version of yourself, yet you say you 
share "identity" with this past version. This is true both from a tokenist 
and a patternist view. "Identity" indicates a kind of link between one 
version of a self-at-a-partcular-time or "person-stage" and another, but 
not sameness in all respects. (The absence of sameness in all respects 
occurs in other settings too where we speak of "identity"--an object can 
undergo physical changes and still be considered the "same" object.) If the 
term can be used acceptably by tokenists, it seems to me it should be 
acceptable for patternists also to use it, granted it must be understood in 
a different sense, which should be made clear.

There is one property I should mention: a patternist view of identity 
forgoes transitivity. B and C could both be continuers (normally, later 
versions) of A thus share "identity" with A, but neither is a continuer of 
the other and do not share "identity" with each other. Thus B and C could 
exist side-by-side, something forbidden in a tokenist view. But 
intuitively, it seems reasonable for me to say I share identity with myself 
of yesterday, even though there may be other, coexistent beings who also 
share this identity, from which I today feel separate and distinct. This 
would follow from many-worlds splitting, for instance. Once again I'll 
express the view I hold that proper notions of "identity" and "survival" 
should be robust enough that a person would survive many-worlds splitting, 
should that happen to be true.

Mike Perry

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