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Three Philosophers

1) The document discusses a thought experiment from Bernard Williams' book The Self and the Future, where the author's mental content would be transferred to a stranger's body and vice versa. 2) It then discusses the views of three philosophers - Socrates introduced the idea of dualism between body and mind, Descartes focused on the self as a thinking being, and Churchland argued the self is just the brain. 3) Through studying these views, the author concluded that the self is an illusion and one's identity is defined by their acquired mental contents and experiences over life, not the body or mind.

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Tan Adonnis
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114 views2 pages

Three Philosophers

1) The document discusses a thought experiment from Bernard Williams' book The Self and the Future, where the author's mental content would be transferred to a stranger's body and vice versa. 2) It then discusses the views of three philosophers - Socrates introduced the idea of dualism between body and mind, Descartes focused on the self as a thinking being, and Churchland argued the self is just the brain. 3) Through studying these views, the author concluded that the self is an illusion and one's identity is defined by their acquired mental contents and experiences over life, not the body or mind.

Uploaded by

Tan Adonnis
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Lloyden Adonnis L.

Tan July 9, 2018


BSN 1 – NC Sir Aldwin Villafuerte

I read about Bernard William’s The Self and the Future. In his book, he presented
a thought experiment to make us consider which our definition of self resides or help us
shed light on the self. Suppose there is a mad scientist who captured you and a
stranger. He told both of you that on the next day, he will transfer all of your mental
content – all your beliefs, memories, personality, everything – into the brain of the
stranger. And then, he’s going to transfer all of the stranger’s mental content into your
brain. Then, after the procedure is complete and your mental content is in his body and
his mental content is in yours, he’ll give one of the bodies a million dollars and the other
will be tortured. And he decided to let you pick which body gets to be tortured and which
one gets the cash. What do you decide?

For years, I’ve always believe in the idea that my self is my body. My body
houses my brain which further houses my identities. I never really pondered or asked
the question: what is the self. Not until the discussions of the 17 philosophers. Each had
different views on the self. Some say that it is the body and soul, some say that it is only
a bundle of experiences, and other say that it don’t exist. If I were to choose three
philosophers that really stood out, it would be Socrates, Rene Descartes, and Paul
Churchland.

Socrates introduced the idea of dualistic – a view, related to dualism, that the
physical body and the mind are to two different entities of the self. Descartes, focused
more on the existence of the self as a thinking being; we can doubt everything but we
cannot doubt the idea that we are doubting. Lastly, being an Eliminative Materialist,
Paul Churchland argued that there is a need to develop a new conceptual framework
that is grounded in neuroscience. For him, the self is the brain; we sense because of the
brain, we can react because of the brain.

Through the views of the three wise men, I was able to understand more the
concept of the self. The self, for me, is just an illusion. There is no self; the real
essence of a person neither resides on the mind nor body. I acknowledge that these
entities exist but it is not what makes a person a person. It is the mental contents or
identity that is acquired as a person journeys through life. But of course the pursuit for
the identity is life-long and only ends until we face death. And the identity is ever
changing.

Going back on William’s thought experiment, my answer is that I will choose my


body to be tortured and let the stranger’s body receive the million dollars. It may sound
ridiculous but I have a reason why I did such decision. You see, my mental content
(which where my identity lie) is transferred to the stranger’s body. The stranger’s body is
now not his body but mine. Similarly, my body is no longer my body but a body. My
identity is no longer in that body which makes it a stranger’s body.

Reading and studying about the philosophers view, enabled me to see the
concept of the self in different angles and enabled me to pick up tiny parts of insights.
Putting it all up, it creates one big picture that led me to my understanding on the self.
But whatever the self may be or however they define the self, I know that the self –
myself, yourself, ourselves – is very complicated in nature and cannot be defined.

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