Minds Why Does Parfit Believe

¶ … Minds

Why does Parfit believe the split-brain cases support the bundle theory?

Parfit believes that the split-brain cases support the bundle theory mostly because in his view, the split-brain cases are nothing more than a more dramatic version of ordinary existence. Parfit gives the examples of teletransporting the "blueprint" of a person's mind and of surgically replacing the entire brain one neuron at a time. He argues that the teleported version of a person may have all of the same memories and patterns of thought and behavior but that the teleported person would not be the same individual, especially where the same process is used to create a blueprinted copy without destroying the original person.

However, Parfit points out that it is much harder to think of the copied person as a different individual where the mind is recreated by replacing each individual neuron one at a time. In that case, the split-brain concept supports bundle theory because that sort of replacement is actually what occurs all the time in life. Our individual cells live for much shorter periods of time than we do as living organisms and over time, virtually all of our cells are no longer the same cells that we had years before. In that sense, we are not the same person that we were earlier in life; we are merely a bundled collection of prior experiences and learned associations and responses and what we call the self really exists only at that level. Parfit points out that if each half of the split brain were implanted into another body, neither new person would be the same person as the original person, yet both would clearly exist with whatever differences and limitations were the result of having only one hemisphere instead of two. In that case, one person would be a bundle of the experiences, abilities, and limitations of one hemisphere while the other person would be an entirely different bundle based on the characteristics of the other hemisphere.

Explain Parfit's reasoning and why he rejects our common beliefs about the 'self'

Parfit rejects our common belief about the self because the teletransportation case is really no different from our actual lives except that it occurs all at once instead of gradually. Parfit argues that we are really nothing more than the sum total of all of our memories and experiences. Therefore, if duplicating all of those memories and experiences and injecting them into a new body is not enough to make the new person "us," then there is no logical basis for believing that whoever we are today is the same "us" as the person we were 10 years ago because we may share none of the same cells (except the corneas of our eyes, since, from what I have read before, only our corneal cells are actually the same cells throughout our entire lives).

Comment on whether or not you find Parfit's position convincing and why.