Q&A: Another Question About the Sciences of Freedom
Another Question About the Sciences of Freedom
Question
Hi Rabbi,
I just finished the section on Elitzur and Dam’s thought experiments, and I don’t agree with your conclusions. To assume that if A doesn’t want to die even though his double will live, that means he is a dualist, seems to me not at all necessary. It seems much more likely to me that since he experiences himself as a single consciousness, and he is alive and enjoying the world, he therefore doesn’t want to die. Maybe his left hemisphere even creates for him a consciousness that there is such a thing as an “I” that will cease to exist, so why should he want to die? And even if he is just a cluster of molecules, it’s obvious to him that he won’t be part of the double, and in any case he will cease to exist, so why should he agree? And in general it’s reasonable that this is a natural instinct to live, and he simply won’t agree….
In short, I really don’t understand how we got from here to dualism….
Answer
If you yourself understand that this is an illusion that has no meaning at all, and you’re getting a million dollars to do this exercise, why refuse? Clearly, you simply do not believe that it will be you who comes back to life. What’s unclear here?
Of course, it’s always possible to explain any feeling as something built in and not as a decision. I’m just an idiot who gives up a million dollars because of some tic built into me (and of course I know that, but I don’t want to overcome this nonsense). The question is whether you really think that is the situation or not. If that’s what you think (more precisely: don’t think), then the argument is not addressed to you. That is exactly the definition of diagnostic thought experiments (or what I called in the fourth notebook here a “theological” argument).
The same is true of morality: it can be explained as a natural tendency built into us and not as a decision. The question is whether that really is what you think (that there is no morality) or not.
See more about this type of argument at length also in the fourth notebook here on the site.
Nice! Thanks for the clarification.