Bernard Williams & genidentity

Genidentity is the notion that a thing which persists through time, or which is assumed to do so, in some sense generates itself from moment to moment.

 However, for any practical purpose, it is always possible to say that a thing's 'genidentity' is outsourced. or generated by some distributed process generated by cellular automata of some type. Like the Vienna Circle, the Berlin Circle could not find any 'ultimate fact of nature' corresponding to an 'atomic proposition'. This does not mean there might not be an 'Absolute Proof' at the 'end of Mathematical Time'. It just means that positivism of any sort is a pipe dream. Pragmatism is the first step to not bothering with Philosophy at all. 

Since Hume, the Anglophone sphere has always been sceptical of 'genidentity'. We understand that a work colleague or a guy we elect to Parliament may display a discontinuous saltation in identity- today our colleague sucks up to the Boss. Tomorrow he sides with those trying to get the Boss sacked. Today, our MP is against the war. Tomorrow he says any pacifist is a traitor to the country. 

Obviously, for the Oxbridge elite of the 'great and the good', such saltations were even more extreme. Today the guy who heads MI5 has an identity as a Red baiter. Tomorrow he is in Moscow, getting the highest award for which a KGB officer is eligible. 

Bernard Williams- who was married to a lady who was once on the left of the Labour party but who suddenly went so far to the Right as to quit Labour and join the SDP which merged with the Liberals and which ended up in a coalition with the Tories- gives the following thought experiment in a paper titled 'The Self and the Future'.  

SUPPOSE that there were some process to which two persons, A and By could be subjected as a result of which they might be said-question-beggingly-to have exchanged bodies.

Then we could never be sure that we have 'genidentity'- i.e. continuity through time. After all, this same process could be used to swop you out of your body while you sleep into one of a different gender and a different endocrine system such that when you are swopped back a few hours later your mind is different because your brain and limbic system has been bathed in different chemicals and been affected by different configurations of neurons. 

That is to say-less question-beggingly-there is a certain human body which is such that when previously we were confronted with it, we were confronted with person A, certain utterances coming from it were expressive of memories of the past experiences of A, certain movements of it partly constituted the actions of A and were taken as expressive of the character of A, and so forth; but now, after the process is completed, utterances coming from this body are expressive of what seem to be just those memories which previously we identified as memories of the past experiences of B, its movements partly constitute actions expressive of the character of B, and so forth; and conversely with the other body.

This does not fit with what we currently know about neurochemicals and neural nets and so forth.  

There are certain important philosophical limitations on how such imaginary cases are to be constructed, and how they are to be taken when constructed in various ways. I shall mention two principal limitations, not in order to pursue them further here, but precisely in order to get them out of the way. There are certain limitations, particularly with regard to character and mannerisms, to our ability to imagine such cases even in the most restricted sense of our being disposed to take the later performances of that body which was previously A's as expressive ofB's character; if the previous A and B were extremely unlike one another both physically and psychologically, and if, say, in addition, they were of different sex, there might be grave difficulties in reading B's dispositions in any possible performances of A's body. Let us forget this, and for the present purpose just take A and B as being sufficiently alike (however alike that has to be) for the difficulty not to arise; after the experiment, persons familiar with A and B are just overwhelmingly struck by the B-ish character of the doings associated with what was previously A's body, and conversely. Thus the feat of imagining an exchange of bodies is supposed possible in the most restricted sense.

In other words, we are merely speaking of some people saying this guy is like that other guy. But folks say the darndest things. I frequently accuse the neighbour's cat of having swopped bodies with President Biden. Sadly, it shows no inclination to swop back and so the Free World remains under the leadership of a pussy. 

But now there is a further limitation which has to be overcome if the feat is to be not merely possible in the most restricted sense but also is to have an outcome which, on serious reflection, we are prepared to describe as A and B having changed bodies-that is, an outcome where, confronted with what was previously A's body, we are prepared seriously to say that we are now confronted with B.

I am prepared to seriously say POTUS swopped bodies with a pussy. Indeed, I might even be prepared to say it in a preternaturally grave manner. But that doesn't make my claim any more true.  

It would seem a necessary condition of so doing that the utterances coming from that body be taken as genuinely expressive of memories of B's past.

Don't you hate it when utterances are fake expressive?  I mean a perfunctory 'miaow, miaow' doesn't really convey with sufficient seriousness and gravitas the proposition that the neighbour's cat hasn't swopped bodies with POTUS. 

But memory is a causal notion;

No. It is a cognitive notion. We know about 'confabulation' and will become increasingly subject to such false memories as we approach senile dementia.  

and as we actually use it, it seems a necessary condition on x's present knowledge of x's earlier experiences constituting memory of those experiences that the causal chain linking the experiences and the knowledge should not run outside x's body.

So, here again we find that Philosophy's 'thought experiments' are based on ignorance of developments in the natural sciences. 

Hence if utterances coming from a given body are to be taken as expressive of memories of the experiences of B, there should be some suitable causal link between the appropriate state of that body and the original happening of those experiences to B. One radical way of securing that condition in the imagined exchange case is to suppose, with Shoemaker that the brains of A and of B are transposed.

After the bodies were swopped to prevent organ rejection- right? I think this is what happened to Biden and my neighbour's cat. This doesn't change the fact that the POTUS is a pussy. 

We may not need so radical a condition. Thus suppose it were possible to extract information from a man's brain and store it in a device while his brain was repaired,

one way of extracting information is by talking to people. Brains get repaired during sleep. Sadly, if you had an alcoholic blackout you may need to have a lot of information replaced by in your brain by the desk serjeant or the public prosecutor or your ex on whose doorstep you threw up.  

or even renewed, the information then being replaced: it would seem exaggerated to insist that the resultant man could not possibly have the memories he had before the operation.

The truth, for many of us, is that we are highly suggestible. We can be made to remember things which didn't happen.  

With regard to our knowledge of our own past, we draw distinctions between merely recalling, being reminded, and learning again, and those distinctions correspond (roughly) to distinctions between no new input, partial new input, and total new input with regard to the information in question; and it seems clear that the information-parking case just imagined would not count as new input in the sense necessary and sufficient for "learning again."

Actually, memories firm up or get edited without our being conscious that there is new input. It may be that what we call memory is the repurposing of a database of smells. At any rate, what is certain is that we call memory isn't some Aristotelian database of experience which can be accessed in the way stuff on a hard-drive can be accessed. 

We imagine the following. The process considered above exists; two persons can enter some machine, let us say, and emerge changed in the appropriate ways. If A and B are the persons who enter, let us call the persons who emerge the A-body-person and the B-body-person: the A-body-person is that person (whoever it is) with whom I am confronted when, after the experiment, I am confronted with that body which previously was A's body-that is to say, that person who would naturally be taken for A by someone who just saw this person, was familiar with A's appearance before the experiment, and did not know about the happening of the experiment. A non-question-begging description of the experiment will leave it open which (if either) of the persons A and B the A-body-person is; the description of the experiment as "persons changing bodies" of course implies that the A-body-person is actually B. We take two persons A and B who are going to have the process carried out on them. (We can suppose, rather hazily, that they are willing for this to happen; to investigate at all closely at this stage why they might be willing or unwilling, what they would fear, and so forth, would anticipate some later issues.) We further announce that one of the two resultant persons, the A-body-person and the B-body-person, is going after the experiment to be given $ 100,000, while the other is going to be tortured. We then ask each A and B to choose which treatment should be dealt out to which of the persons who will emerge from the experiment, the choice to be made (if it can be) on selfish grounds. Suppose that A chooses that the B-body-person should get the pleasant treatment and the A-body-person the unpleasant treatment; and B chooses conversely (this might indicate that they thought that "changing bodies" was indeed a good description of the outcome). The experimenter cannot act in accordance with both these sets of preferences, those expressed by A and those expressed by B. Hence there is one clear sense in which A and B cannot both get what they want: namely, that if the experimenter, before the experiment, announces to A and B that he intends to carry out the alternative (for example), of treating the B-body-  person unpleasantly and the A-body-person pleasantly-then A can say rightly, "That's not the outcome I chose to happen," and B can say rightly, "That's just the outcome I chose to happen.'' So, evidently, A and B before the experiment can each come to know either that the outcome he chose will be that which will happen, or that the one he chose will not happen, and in that sense they can get or fail to get what they wanted. But is it also true that when the experimenter proceeds after the experiment to act in accordance with one of the preferences and not the other, then one of A and B will have got what he wanted, and the other not? There seems very good ground for saying so.

Fuck off! Suppose some nutter kidnaps you and ties you up and says 'I'm going to toss a coin. If it is heads, I will release you and make you rich. If it is tails I will torture and kill you. There is one proviso, to get released you have to say you freely chose to undergo this process.'

Would anybody in their right mind say that you had any choice or expressed any preferences? No! It is true that after you are released and get the money you may have a motive to deny you were kidnapped. You may say 'I voluntarily took part in a psychology experiment. It is not the case that I had no capacity to consent to what was in any case a repugnant, unconscionable and wholly illegal contract.  Thus I am entitled to the money though I would have no objection if you just beat that nutter to death.' A more sophisticated version of this story might reference 'Kavka's toxin' or Newcombe problems. 

The plain fact is, in Williams story, all people want to get money and don't want to be tortured. None has capacity to choose the body swap and though some desperate or irrational people may do so, still this provides no evidence about what they or anybody else believes about something which we currently believe to be impossible- viz. body swapping. 

For suppose the experimenter, having elicited A's and B's preference, says nothing to A and B about what he will do; conducts the experiment; and then, for example, gives the unpleasant treatment to the B-bodyperson and the pleasant treatment to the A-body-person. Then the B-body-person will not only complain of the unpleasant treatment as such, but will complain (since he has A's memories) that that was not the outcome he chose, since he chose that the B-bodyperson should be well treated; and since A made his choice in selfish spirit, he may add that he precisely chose in that way because he did not want the unpleasant things to happen to him. The A-body-person meanwhile will express satisfaction both at the receipt of the money and also at the fact that the experimenter has chosen to act in the way that he, B, so wisely chose. These facts make a strong case for

nothing at all. I distinctly remember your telling me to eat all the chocolate eclairs you bought to hand around at the office tomorrow. You distinctly remember telling me not to open the fridge because none of the food in there was bought by you. Why don't you get a fucking job you lazy sack of shit? I want a divorce.  

saying that the experimenter has brought it about that B did in the outcome get what he wanted and A did not. It is therefore a strong case for saying that the B-body-person really is A, and the A-body-person really is B; and therefore for saying that the process of the experiment really is that of changing bodies.

Why stop there? Why not say the Tichborne claimant really was a blue-blooded heir to a great fortune because he said he was? Why not believe that the Princess Anastasia hadn't been shot by the Bolsheviks because some crazy lady claimed to be that person? How about admitting that I really am Bill Gates and should have access to his Bank Accounts whereas Bill Gates is me and thus he, not me, is responsible for my alimony payments?  

...if I am appallingly subject to acrophobia, and am told that I shall find myself on top of a steep mountain in the near future, I shall to that extent be afraid; but if I am told that I shall be psychologically changed in the meantime in such a way as to rid me of my acrophobia (and as with the other prediction, I believe it), then I have no reason to be afraid of the predicted happening, or at least not the same reason. 

This is like a Newcombe problem or a Kavka Toxin. It may be that therapists say things of that sort to people with phobias. Imagine you are not scared of heights. Now think of yourself standing on the edge of a cliff. Imagine the delight you take in the sublimity of what you are able to gaze upon, secure and unafraid. 

Getting rid of phobias is one thing. Would such an approach also prevent cancer or your head being cut off by terrorists? 

Physical pain, however, the example which for simplicity (and not for any obsessional reason) I have taken, is absolutely minimally dependent on character or belief. No amount of change in my character or my beliefs would seem to affect substantially the nastiness of tortures applied to me; correspondingly, no degree of predicted change in my character and beliefs can unseat the fear of torture which, together with those changes, is predicted for me.

I don't understand this. Surely masochists gain pleasure from certain types of pain? It may also be that the great martyrs of the Church considered the tortures they were subjected to as a salutary purging of 'Original Sin' and gloried in their imminent entry into eternal Paradise.  

I am not at all suggesting that the only basis, or indeed the only rational basis, for fear in the face of these various predictions is how things will be relative to my psychological state in the eventual outcome.

Is it rational to fear something which doesn't yet exist? Why not take pleasure in the absence of that pain or misfortune? One may say one is not thrilled by a particular prospect- nobody wants to get old and physically and mentally feeble. Equally, is there any point to amplifying any pain you are suffering by fearing and loathing it?  

I am merely pointing out that this is one component; it is not the only one. For certainly one will fear and otherwise reject the changes themselves, or in very many cases one would. Thus one of the old paradoxes of hedonistic utilitarianism; if one had assurances that undergoing certain operations and being attached to a machine would provide one for the rest of one's existence with an unending sequence of delicious and varied experiences, one might very well reject the option, and react with fear if someone proposed to apply it compulsorily;

Perhaps because we know we can always find ways to turn every experience into a source of delight. After all, fear and pain and disgust are 'Darwinian algorithms of the mind' which have survival value. But once we note the information they seek to convey we may have enough mental plasticity to suppress them and to proceed rationally. True, this may take specialist training. My instinct is to run away from a fire. Perhaps, if I had joined the fire brigade my training would have enabled me to suppress this instinct and to heroically enter a burning building to rescue the occupants.  

In a sense, specialist training is about changing your identity and even your memories. In my memory, I have always been a weak willed coward. If I join the Army, it may be that my training causes me to identify as a member of a heroic regiment. I act as if it was always habitual for me to show valour and firmness of will. 

Williams concludes thus

 the principle that one's fears can extend to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it seems positively straightforward. Perhaps, indeed, it is not; but we need to be shown what is wrong with it.

Either pain exists for an evolutionary reason- in which case it is up to Williams to justify his assertion in terms of evolutionary game theory- or else nobody can show anybody what is wrong with their argument because maybe God put it into their head for some purpose it would be impious to inquire into.  

Until we are shown what is wrong with it, we should perhaps decide that if we were the person A then, if we were to decide selfishly, we should pass the pain to the B-body-person.

This says something about selfishness but it says nothing about the nature of the Self or its relationship with the Future. 

It would be risky: that there is room for the notion of a risk here is itself a major feature of the problem. 

Williams risked becoming a worthless tosser by going in for Philosophy rather than something useful. The major feature of the problems his Profession set itself were that they were stupid and childish. By contrast, when Kurt Lewin- whose work was useful and 'progressive'- came up with the notion of 'genidentity', he was reflecting on a fundamental problem facing young people- viz. what sorts of things they need to be doing now so as to become the sorts of people who didn't waste their lives. 

This is not to say that I find the notion intelligible. Sadly, Youth is a language that is unintelligible because its function is to encrypt Eden. The empiricist Anglo Saxon might have missed a trick or two known to the young German Romantic.