Hi Guys,
been waiting for you to do this topic given John's background. Too bad I didn't have more time to look into all your articles John. I did however become reasonably familiar with the personal identity debate and related thought experiments and came to the conclusion both the personhood and biological continuity camps are going in the wrong direction. We are neither ontologically speaking persons nor biological/animals; rather are a type of complex adaptive system. An argument against Transhumanism helped point this out.
五月be you could use the below as a listener talking point. Not sure I can skype in during the show but I could try.
如果我们认为我们与认知上相似的非人动物的根本区别在于一小部分复杂的认知能力，那么不难想象，如果我们使用人格解释，甚至更高级的认知能力也可以以类似于“低级”动物在本体论上区别我们的方式来区分我们。如果我们认为个体仍然作为超级心智存在，那么我们就不能成为人，因为人的本体论在我们成为超级心智时就结束了。以类似的方式，一个非人动物如果被“提升”到人格地位，就不可能在本体论上仅仅是一个非人动物的认知。
A related argument also means we or similar animals aren't biological beings even if we are uplifted cognitively . One could imagine that a human uplift is done in a complete synthetic cyborg like manner ending our biological status. If through autobiographical and memory chains we intuitively think this uber cyborg entity is the same individual it follows ontologically speaking it was never a biological or person based ontology.
Then what projects the individual ontology into the future? My conclusion was that what is maintained is a status as a type of sophisticated complex adaptive system through chains of organizational continuity. This allows movement up and down the cognitive continuum plus conversion back and forth between biological and synthetic modes.
五月be that is too much to fit in as a listener message -& BTW I do deal with brain and hemisphere transfer- but I did hope to get Johns reaction to it.
Cheers
Simon

我哥哥有一个网站。自从我意识到我们在很多话题上想法相似，却又如此不同，他就一直激励着我。他主要是个诗人;我写的东西更接近于哲学——至少，我想象我的想法和表达是这样的。On his homepage, LVP says regarding self:
"Can we conceive of what we are while BEING what we are?..." (emphasis added) The question might, at first, seem enigmatic, yet being, on a day-to-day basis, is complicated. Confusing. Utterly frustrating. Our "selves", while developmental, are also malleable, and, therefore influenced by ubiquitous happenstance.
You may look at my brother's website, if you wish. It is found at:http://www.larryvanpelt.ca/lvpblog/

The fact is we all experience a subjective self, an experiencing self- this is an aspect of reality- no matter how elusive it is to measure or define.
The ghost in the machine connundrum simply reveals a difficulty, not a failure of the existence of this subjective reality.

Descartes and Kant say "I think", that "I" have a self. I scarcely hear anyone saying "I know that YOU have a self". Do we know that all other creatures have a "self"? Animals as well as people? How do we know all apparent humans have a real self?
My thought is, I never objectively know as a fact the "self" of any other creature or being. I think we all conclude we see other "selfs" by instinct that sees others act like us consistently, without the glitches that would reveal an Inner Robot.
WIll I recognize when a machine acquires a "self"? Maybe we can only answer that in the event that in the future we actually do see those wondrous machines?

Morris Berman, in Coming To Our senses, makes the point: "The reason that the self is not amenable to scientific verification is that it does not exist as a discrete entity, but is in fact a process; it can never be a clinical object, never be localized in space or time."
Should this trouble us?
Isidor Chein tells an anecdote:
故事要追溯到纽约城市学院(City College of New York)的心理学课程是在哲学系(Department of Philosophy)的赞助下开设的，心理学家和哲学家共享一间又小又拥挤的办公室。一天，一个学生走进办公室，走到离他最近的一个人身边，碰巧这个人就是莫里斯·拉斐尔·科恩。后者抬头一看，学生说:“老师，我有个问题。”
"Professor Cohen, whose mode of address was as gruff as his heart was kind, barked, "Yes, what is it?"
学生说，“我有时觉得自己不存在。”"
"""Who," snapped Professor Cohen, "sometimes gets the feeling that you don't exist?"
""Why, I ...," said the student; then, with a very sheepish expression, he turned around and walked out."
Chein also makes another interesting observation: "The subject, that is, the one who carries out the activity, in our behaviors is generally taken to be the self; the subject in the behavior of others, a person. In our experience of behavior, we are primarily selves and only inferentially persons, whereas others are primarily persons and only inferentially selves."
我认为这是一个最好留给专业哲学家们去思考的话题，但即使是我们这些外行也有利害关系，因为我们生活在一个很多人都认真对待来世可能性的社会里。我必须承认我是一个一元论者，但如果我错了，我只能希望自己会感到惊喜。

All good fun, co-conspirators! Bully for all!

I found myself much like Nature as is the Universe to be infinitely immeasurable.
And defining myself further, pointless.
For surely if One defines infinite and immeasurable then One becomes finite and measurable and that most certainly is not me.
The beautiful side to this is I find every One and every thing connected and the same thIS Way, even the Ones who don't see it yet. Even the Ones who continue to measure.
All is infinitely One
Boundless, immeasurable, absolute, just and free.
=
Just me

Me and the Sea
One day I was fortunate enough to find myself walking down a road to the sea. The trees along the road were overgrown blocking any view or reflection of what was to come. Finally I stepped onto the beach and looked up and found the ocean so astounding it took my breath away. The water, the blue sky, the power of the waves, the sea breeze, the tanned sand, the birds, the beauty I beheld made my heart sing. The ocean view I saw that day was even more profound than beauty, it was the day I saw me.
Oneders, Oneders,
=
MJA

A CAMEO APPEARANCE
I like your simple theory: selves are people. Clean. Concise. Unburdened by the additive complexities we see everyday. The facts of uncertainty have always plagued my hopes, dreams and fears. But I agree, comfortably, with your assessment. So, if we are wrong---we are wrong in unison. I could name ten people who agree with what you have posited.
Each of those ten know ten more. And so on, and so on...
继续，约翰·佩里，继续。

I'm not big on mechanisms, or the mechanistic theory of human existence. Rene Descartes said, by best accounts: "I think, THEREFORE, I am." There is a linguistic difference between the words THAT and THEREFORE. But, as illustrated in a comment on another post, 'that' is a matter for linguists such as Chomsky, Pinker and others to sort out. There is no little man (homunculus) sitting inside my head, driving my body, notions and actions. If we suppose THAT artificial intelligence will someday become functional; yea, useful, we ought to remember that it shall remain, uh, artificial. Mechanism was invented by mankind when he became a conscious being and, over time, trial and error, figured out how to configure and manipulate his world. I could not get Emmanuel Kant---his explanations were tedious and convoluted to me. But, I do not feel ashamed or deprived. I never figured out Juergen Habermas either. That we cannot ever get it all seems a given. And, we must either live with that---or go mad.
The word, that, appears in the foregoing comment, more often than the word, therefore. Clearly, then, it is a more useful word---more adaptable. The advantage of therefore is its' limited utility--which precludes to some extent corruptibility. If I say: I think I am, that assertion is a subjectivism. If I say: I think that I am, the statement remains within the realm of individual subjectivity. But, if I say: I think, therefore, I am, the remark includes a larger audience. Descartes knew this. Linguistically brilliant. And a way to remain memorable, centuries on.
现实在我们的掌握之中，但这要视情况而定。这取决于我们想要什么;我们在哪里看以及我们如何处理(即选择接收)我们发现的东西。这不是火箭科学，不——要难得多。我们会成功的——或者死在尝试中。你不觉得吗?

Cogito ergo sum. Shouldn't that be translated, "I am thinking therefore I am being?"
Just wondering.

我作为心理学家的背景告诉我，意识是大脑，我们对自我的感觉是大脑处理的附带现象——把感觉、记忆等结合在一起。但我们有一些异常现象表明意识可能是其他东西的产物。其中之一就是心灵感应现象，在你抱怨之前，有数百项优秀的科学研究表明，心灵的功能可以超越大脑的限制。直到最近，我们还没有对现实的理论理解，即允许自我存在于大脑之外，因此我们忽视了这种可能性。就像那些拒绝用伽利略的望远镜观察的神父们一样，我们已经放弃了这些数据，以及它对我们理解现实和自我的意义。物理学家们步调一致。通过量子力学，物理学家正在给我们提供证据，证明意识(我的自我中心)实际上可能创造现实，而不仅仅是在现实中发挥作用。参见粒子/波现象的描述和薛定谔的猫的比喻。问题是我们无法在它发生的层面上解决这个自我/心灵的问题。如果一个自我存在于我们的大脑之外，它瓦解了实相的波函数，我们将无法在实相的这个层次上研究它。 All we will have are fingers pointing at the moon. However if we allow science to function as it should, it will advance our description of mind/self even if we can't actually catch the animal itself. Like inferring black matter or other theoretical objects. We are even now describing the many ways in which mind acts to influence the world. See Dean Radin's work on global consciousness and impact of global events on random number generators. We are definitely paradoxes containing both the mundane brain functions of sight, hearing, memory, cognition, feeling etc etc. and much more. Fascinating.
Audrey Irvine