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categories: ["minds"]categories: ["minds"]tags: ["identity", "parfit", "thought experiment", "survival", "uploading", "philosophy of mind"]tags: ["identity", "parfit", "thought experiment", "survival", "uploading", "philosophy of mind"]summary: "A thought experiment in which a person is scanned, destroyed, and rebuilt elsewhere, used to test whether survival requires physical continuity or only psychological continuity."summary: "A thought experiment in which a person is scanned, destroyed, and rebuilt elsewhere, used to test whether survival requires physical continuity or only psychological continuity."updated: "2026-07-27"updated: "2026-08-23"issues: ["Four-dimensionalism and non-branching accounts are described without citing a source."]issues: ["Four-dimensionalism and non-branching accounts are described without citing a source."]------ lines 74–79 → 74–9060 unchanged lines not shown
there is nothing left to discover. Asking whether the person "really" survived is like askingthere is nothing left to discover. Asking whether the person "really" survived is like askingwhether a rebuilt club is really the same club.whether a rebuilt club is really the same club. > [!debate] Williams's standing objection> Bernard Williams argued in 1970, a decade before Parfit's book, that the split cannot be blamed> on exotic technology. Told he will be tortured after his memories and character are erased and> replaced with another person's, a person's fear does not diminish, because "undergoing physical> pain in the future is not excluded by any psychological state I may be in at the time" — yet the> same case, presented as a body-swap between two people, pulls most readers toward the> psychological criterion, and Williams closed by admitting he did not know which verdict to> accept.[^williams1970] The two presentations remain the cleanest statement of why no experiment> can arbitrate: both camps agree on every physical fact and disagree only over which description a> person facing the machine should use. Experimental work confirms the split is genuine rather than an artefact of philosophical training.Experimental work confirms the split is genuine rather than an artefact of philosophical training.Studies of ordinary intuitions find that people give different verdicts depending on framing, onStudies of ordinary intuitions find that people give different verdicts depending on framing, onwhether the scenario is described in first or third person, and on which mental features are said towhether the scenario is described in first or third person, and on which mental features are said tolines 158–163 → 169–17678 unchanged lines not shown
## References## References [^parfit1984]: `book` Parfit, D. *Reasons and Persons*. Oxford University Press, 1984.[^parfit1984]: `book` Parfit, D. *Reasons and Persons*. Oxford University Press, 1984. [^williams1970]: `paper` Williams, B. "The Self and the Future." *The Philosophical Review*, 1970. {Its cases involve information transfer between two living bodies rather than a scan-and-rebuild teleporter, and its conclusion is avowedly undecided.} [^nichols2010]: `paper` Nichols, S. and Bruno, M. "Intuitions about personal identity: An empirical study." *Philosophical Psychology*, 2010. {A vignette study of lay intuitions: it records what non-philosophers say about the cases, not which theory of identity is correct.}[^nichols2010]: `paper` Nichols, S. and Bruno, M. "Intuitions about personal identity: An empirical study." *Philosophical Psychology*, 2010. {A vignette study of lay intuitions: it records what non-philosophers say about the cases, not which theory of identity is correct.} removed, struck through added, underlinedLine numbers count the serialised markdown of each revision, frontmatter included.
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