Editing Consciousness (section)

=== Identity ===
{{Main|Personal identity}}

An unsolved problem in the philosophy of consciousness is how it relates to the nature of personal identity.<ref>{{cite web |title=Personal Identity - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903032724/http://www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/ |archive-date=3 September 2017 |access-date=24 January 2025 |website=www.iep.utm.edu}}</ref> This includes questions regarding whether someone is the "same person" from moment to moment. If that is the case, another question is what exactly the "identity carrier" is that makes a conscious being "the same" being from one moment to the next. The problem of determining personal identity also includes questions such as Benj Hellie's [[vertiginous question]], which can be summarized as "Why am I me and not someone else?".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hellie|first=Benj|year=2013|title=Against egalitarianism|journal=Analysis|volume=73|issue=2|pages=304–320|doi=10.1093/analys/ans101}}</ref> The philosophical problems regarding the nature of personal identity have been extensively discussed by Thomas Nagel in his book ''[[The View from Nowhere]]''.

A common view of personal identity is that an individual has a continuous identity that persists from moment to moment, with an individual having a continuous identity consisting of a line segment stretching across time from birth to death. In the case of an afterlife as described in Abrahamic religions, one's personal identity is believed to stretch infinitely into the future, forming a ray or line. This notion of identity is similar to the form of dualism advocated by René Descartes. However, some philosophers argue that this common notion of personal identity is unfounded. [[Daniel Kolak]] has argued extensively against it in his book ''I am You''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kolak |first=Daniel |url=https://digitalphysics.ru/pdf/Kaminskii_A_V/Kolak_I_Am_You.pdf |title=I Am You: The Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics |date=2007-11-03 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-1-4020-3014-7 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906163443/https://digitalphysics.ru/pdf/Kaminskii_A_V/Kolak_I_Am_You.pdf |archive-date=2024-09-06 |url-status=live}}</ref> Kolak refers to the aforementioned notion of personal identity being linear as "Closed individualism". Another view of personal identity according to Kolak is "Empty individualism", in which one's personal identity only exists for a single moment of time. However, Kolak advocates for a view of personal identity called [[Open individualism]], in which all consciousness is in reality a single being and individual personal identity in reality does not exist at all. Another philosopher who has contested the notion of personal identity is [[Derek Parfit]]. In his book ''[[Reasons and Persons]]'',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parfit |first=Derek |url=https://archive.org/details/trent_0116300637661/page/n5/mode/2up |title=Reasons and persons |date=1984 |isbn=0-19-824615-3 |location=Oxford [Oxfordshire] |publisher=Clarendon Press |oclc=9827659}}</ref> he describes a thought experiment known as the [[teletransportation paradox]]. In Buddhist philosophy, the concept of [[anattā]] refers to the idea that the self is an illusion.

Other philosophers have argued that Hellie's vertiginous question has a number of philosophical implications relating to the [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] nature of consciousness. [[Christian List]] argues that the vertiginous question and the existence of first-personal facts is evidence against physicalism, and evidence against other third-personal metaphysical pictures, including standard versions of [[Mind–body dualism|dualism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/LISTFA |title=The first-personal argument against physicalism |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |access-date=3 September 2024}}</ref> List also argues that the vertiginous question implies a "quadrilemma" for theories of consciousness. He claims that at most three of the following metaphysical claims can be true: 'first-person [[Philosophical realism|realism]]', 'non-[[solipsism]]', 'non-fragmentation', and 'one world' – and at at least one of these four must be false.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/LISAQF |title=A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |publisher=The Philosophical Quarterly |access-date=24 January 2025}}</ref> List has proposed a model he calls the "many-worlds theory of consciousness" in order to reconcile the subjective nature of consciousness without lapsing into solipsism.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/LISTMT-2 |title=The many-worlds theory of consciousness |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |publisher=The Philosophical Quarterly |access-date=24 January 2025}}</ref> Vincent Conitzer argues that the nature of identity is connected to [[A series and B series]] theories of time, and that A-theory being true implies that the "I" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives.<ref>{{cite arXiv|last=Conitzer|first=Vincent |date=30 Aug 2020|title=The Personalized A-Theory of Time and Perspective|eprint=2008.13207v1|class=physics.hist-ph}}</ref> Other philosophical theories regarding the metaphysical nature of self are Caspar Hare's theories of [[perspectival realism]],<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hare |first=Caspar |date=September 2010 |title=Realism About Tense and Perspective |url=http://web.mit.edu/~casparh/www/Papers/CJHarePerspectivalRealism.pdf |journal=Philosophy Compass |volume=5 |issue=9 |pages=760–769 |doi=10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00325.x |hdl-access=free |hdl=1721.1/115229}}</ref> in which things within perceptual awareness have a defining intrinsic property that exists absolutely and not relative to anything, and [[egocentric presentism]], in which the experiences of other individuals are not ''present'' in the way that one's current perspective is.<ref name="JPhil">{{cite journal|last=Hare|first=Caspar|title=Self-Bias, Time-Bias, and the Metaphysics of Self and Time|journal=The Journal of Philosophy|date=July 2007|volume=104|issue=7|pages=350–373|doi=10.5840/jphil2007104717|url=http://web.mit.edu/~casparh/www/Papers/CJHareSelfBias2.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Hare|first=Caspar|title=On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects|year=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691135311|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8921.html}}</ref>