Essay On Fission And Personal Identity

519 Words2 Pages

According to Lewis’s account of backwards time travel, the issues of personal identity in basic fission have already been settled. All arguments about fission and personal identity branch off of two basic objections as to whether or not persons B and C are identical. The first is summarized by physical properties. Wright gives the example of a house having two different colored paint jobs at two different times during its existence. This is still the same house, because of the temporal difference. However, in the case of fission, B and C persons may have the exact same make-up at the time immediately following the operation, but after around 40 years of living completely separate lives, unbeknownst to one another, they would eventually have different physical properties. This is the same objection as B dying before C, which is, again, different properties at the same time. Thusly B and C are different people. The second is summarized by mental properties. B and C do not share the same memory or experiences, at least not as one body would. Wright gives another example of a c...

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