mind & identity
tortured in the morning
the same swap of mind and body, told two ways, and your fear changes sides.
Bernard Williams devised one of the most disquieting puzzles in the philosophy of self. It is a single scenario, your psychology and a stranger’s swapped between bodies, then one body tortured, described from two directions. Read each version and answer honestly, without trying to be consistent. The inconsistency is the discovery.
version one: should you dread tomorrow?
You are told: tomorrow you will be tortured. Naturally, you are afraid. Then the torturer adds details, each meant to ease your fear.
“First,” he says, “we will wipe your memory clean, so you won’t remember being told this, or anything of your past. Then we’ll implant a complete set of false memories: someone else’s life. Then we begin.” At the moment of torture, the body that is yours now will feel the pain, but the mind in it will remember a stranger’s life and have no trace of you.
further reading
- the self and the future jstor
- personal identity stanford encyclopedia of philosophy