How Personal Identity Persists Through Time | Arnold Zuboff

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Arnold, your theory of universalism that there is one subject of experience underlying all conscious beings is an astonishing claim about the self or the person. Now, there are many other theories that a self or a person can emerge from in different ways. What I'd like to do is just take a simple comparison with other theories of the self or the person and just I'll list some of them that you do in your wonderful book uh finding myself. Um and uh again each of these things I'll mention and many of them have been uh I have worked with because I've made a big study of consciousness as you know and you're a participant in the landscape of consciousness. um and and and I know all these other theories. So I want you to compare universalism with each of these and I'll just start listing them. Start with the obvious one which is physicalism, materialism. Consciousness is only the brain. Uh the self is kind of a uh an arbitrary uh human language description of just what's happening in the brain. And each individual brain has its own uh construction of a of a self or a person. Whether self or a person is real is almost immaterial.

[00:01:21]I use that as a pun, but it's it's purely material and nothing special.

[00:01:27]>> Okay. Uh universalism is neutral with regard to all such theories. Although you did say a few things that had personal identity implications.

[00:01:44]>> Yes, >> of course it disagrees with, you know, saying I'm only one thing, material or not material or and it disagrees with saying I'm not not there. Um because uh I don't have some complicated idea of what a person is.

[00:02:05]um you know sort of contean thing. You got to have all this going on. Not at all. An ache in a clam at the bottom of the ocean, >> that's enough to make it me, right? So it's simple as can be that way. So any materialism, well, let's say there's some extreme eliminative materialism says there's no consciousness at all.

[00:02:32]>> Yeah. Illusionism, right?

[00:02:33]>> Okay. Yeah. Um then if they really mean that uh then there's no immediacy in in consciousness there.

[00:02:45]So I'm not there.

[00:02:48]So there there's a world that doesn't have me. Um but if the materialism like most materialisms is simply wanting to give a physical account of >> what we all you know know as our experience and our consciousness there's immediiacy to consciousness I don't you know as a universalist I don't care whether the thing having it is physical or non-physical whether there's only one of them whether they're you know all universalism is claiming is if there's immediacy in experience it's my experience for that reason alone >> but it seems to universal seems to take our experience and universalize it uh so that my experience and every thing that's having that first person immediiacy experience experience is the same thing. Now, that does not sound compatible with pure physicalism.

[00:03:56]>> Oh, sure it is. Um, what I'm I mean, pure physicalism allows that there's such a thing as brain bisection.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah.

[00:04:05]>> Where they can be two streams of experience occurring, >> you know, in the same brain.

[00:04:11]>> Sure.

[00:04:11]>> I'm saying they're they're both mine, right? That they don't have to be integrated both to be mine.

[00:04:20]You know, it's like in a water test. In a water test, they neessatize a hemisphere and put the remaining one through its paces to see what its functions are. Then they um do it the other way around so that you have one hemisphere having experiences followed by the other hemisphere having experiences. All right? Then when all the anesthetic wears off, they can that person can remember having had both experiences occurring only in the hemispheres separately, right? But they'll remember both sets of experiences were mine. I mean, what are they remembering? They were first and they were immediate.

[00:05:08]>> That works perfectly under materialism, physicalism for sure, in a split brain experiment. Where it's challenging is when you go outside the uh the the single brain to multiple brains or then even experiences that are not brainbased because that that would that would violate materialism.

[00:05:29]Materialism would have no way to do that.

[00:05:31]>> Let me explain why this is no problem.

[00:05:35]Imagine a science fiction device that in the book I describe called the electronic corpus colosum.

[00:05:46]So there's a a a um a signaling between two brains that integrates them wonderfully so that four hands are now being brought into the same purview you know in the way the two hands are through the two hemispheres communicating these two brains communicating um share all the consciousness of both bodies.

[00:06:14]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:06:15]>> Right. Nothing there goes against materialism at all. It's a a beautiful story for materialism.

[00:06:26]And yet you can see that there wouldn't be two persons anymore because of there being two bodies, right? There'd be one person.

[00:06:38]>> Yeah, I I I think that's absolutely right. I follow the argument. The difference is though, you need that radio transmission in order to make the thought experiment work.

[00:06:51]>> And so as you're as you're uh engaging all u first person immediacies of experience under materialism, you need some sort of a physicalist law of physics to to connect these. But >> uh no, because what makes an experience mine has nothing to do with materialism one way or the other.

[00:07:22]Um all you need for universalism is well, you don't even need this to be the case. You could have a world empty of all of all persons, right? But all that is the whole truth of universalism is that if there is experience with immediacy in it with a first person character in it, it is my experience for that reason alone. See, I think you're confu getting confused about what I was saying with the electronic corpus colosum. I'm not saying it becomes one person because of the integration.

[00:08:08]I'm saying which body is involved becomes irrelevant when you have this overarching awareness of immediacy on both sides. And then if you drop the connection, it'd be like brain bisection. It would go each would take itself the only one that was me. They were both me when the integration occurred because there was an awareness that all of these things were immediate in character.

[00:08:39]>> But to achieve that on the broad >> but to achieve that on a broad scale of universalism you need the um the equivalent of a corpus colosum this communication thing you you don't so so >> I think you're misunderstanding this. So then why why is each individuation of the first person experience the same thing? Why aren't they all separate firsterson experiences?

[00:09:06]>> They are separate first person experiences indeed.

[00:09:09]>> Okay.

[00:09:10]>> Um I'm >> I look I think I may be wrong about this uh because uh you're very sharp on this so I I don't want to uh underestimate you at all.

[00:09:24]It sounded as though you thought I was saying you need integration for experience to be mine in two places.

[00:09:36]My whole view is integration is irrelevant to that when you in brain bisection the integration no longer is there but I'm there on both sides equally.

[00:09:50]>> Right.

[00:09:51]>> Yeah. But but but that's you and this one person that has been split and then can be put back together.

[00:09:57]>> You're saying one person. Yeah. All all that's the case is they're they're next door to each other. They're very close to each other. Right.

[00:10:06]>> I'm But the they're both mine. Even though each is unaware of the other.

[00:10:11]>> Yeah. Agree.

[00:10:12]>> Okay. Um, what I'm saying is there's nothing that in principle stops it being you if the separation is between skulls, right? Uh um there's there's nothing about it sitting in the same head that makes both hemispheres have experience that's yours, right? Um, you could remove a hemisphere. I mean, there are these thought experiments where you, you know, you put them into different heads. But, um, uh, the the point is that being yours seems as though it has limits according to how much integration there is. That's how it looks. like the the the one red object. It seems as though it's got to be that object to be red. It's it's that's the mistake that that we're making. So I I just need, you know, to remind everyone that universalism says integration of experience has nothing to do with it being the same person.

[00:11:32]It's only the quality of immediiacy that makes an experience mine.

[00:11:40]Uh it looks as though integration spells the limit for that just like the one red object that's seeming to be the the limit of what's red.

[00:11:52]Uh but that's a mistake, a confusion.

[00:11:58]But is this a distin a distinction without a difference? Um if if if we're going to make a metaphysical or moral um implications of what this means. That's that that that's the critical question.

[00:12:17]>> Oh no, there's there's plenty of difference. Believe me, it's you there feeling it with with self-interest in it. The pains that are are yours are the ones that are in your face that are immediate.

[00:12:34]Right? I'm saying there that they're all in your face. All immediate pains are equally yours. You can't settle down on only one. Remember, there's a probability argument here, right? If if you're right in saying that you're confined to just one of these physical things, it had to win all those sperm cells.

[00:12:58]>> Right. Right. Right. Right. That gets back to the probability argument. We've dealt with that in other places. Yes.

[00:13:03]>> Yeah.

[00:13:03]>> Yeah. Look, I I I as I said, I I I think you've uncovered a very serious fundamental problem. I'm just not comfortable and sure where where what the solution is.

[00:13:15]>> All right.

[00:13:16]Let's go on uh to some of the others. Uh famously in in uh in um personhood and self, Derek Parett um has a very naturalistic psychological naturalism approach. And so how does universal articulate? Okay.

[00:13:35]So what Parfett is saying is uh there are a couple of things all of us he also has a view that's supposed to be revolutionary.

[00:13:51]Right? There are a couple of things all of us believe about personal identity that it's all or nothing.

[00:13:59]Right? Either things holding me or it's not.

[00:14:04]uh um or and that it is indeed a matter of identity which is a a kind of one- one relationship, right? So that when you bring in these uh puzzle cases where a person splits the identity is indeed lost between them but they still have what he thinks is important which he calls survival as long as the psychological relationships are right.

[00:14:40]Right. The intentions memories as long as they move along properly. All right.

[00:14:47]So, it's psychological continuity. The view I criticized earlier really, except that he's not claiming that everything we think about when we think about personal identity is being preserved because he said he thinks they're just these natural things, these animal bodies.

[00:15:09]Um and uh um they can vary fractionally as they develop. They you know a thing can be half what it was before and they can go in uh in thought experiments certainly they can go in different directions so you no longer have identity.

[00:15:35]Right?

[00:15:37]So what is he saying? He's saying if there was a real person, you know, what we normally think a person is, what we care about in self-interest, it would be all or nothing.

[00:15:54]Uh and uh it it would its existence would depend on the identity remaining the same. But all we've got are these natural things in our world that don't conform to these requirements.

[00:16:13]So we don't have persons as we start off thinking about them. We have to leave that behind.

[00:16:23]So what do we have? It's it's quite confusing what it is he thinks we do have. So is he trying to turn persons into these things?

[00:16:33]But he can't. He's arguing they're different fundamentally from persons. So what's left, right? And I think one interpretation of what's left that um he doesn't usually maybe hints at it would be a kind of Buddhist interpretation.

[00:16:56]Well, we'll get to that >> because we know that in every any particular moment of experience, there's the all or nothing thing that's got its identity. And that when so if pains hurt in a moment, they're hurting that someone.

[00:17:14]But then he's letting go of their being that someone being something that can thread through all of this, right? He's only got the natural things left. So it could be seen as you know at least gesturing towards a Buddhism where it breaks apart like that. Right?

[00:17:35]>> All right. So let's let's go on to Buddhism's uh no self um in which there's no um intrinsic essence of things. Um, and the nature of consciousness is is a is more complicated perhaps in Buddhism than in almost anything else in terms of it doesn't have a existence. There's no self, but there is a person. Uh, so how does Buddhism's whole approach articulate with universalism?

[00:18:05]>> Yeah, sure. Um, you see, uh, we're talking about, you know, the the early Buddhism.

[00:18:15]>> Yeah. you know terraada Buddhism uh in that view the consciousness as you say it's it's made up of these uh gandas it's a you know it's like an assemblage of of things and more particularly each moment of experience is distinct from every other moment.

[00:18:44]There is not a thing moving through those changes of moments.

[00:18:50]There are just distinct moments of experience. So each is like a subject of experience but goes no further.

[00:18:59]>> Fact I I refer to this as super no uh ultrainssulating Buddhism because each moment of experience is insulated from all the others.

[00:19:12]um walled off. The pains in the others are not its pains. Its pains are not theirs. Um and then there's there there's of course in Buddhism once you get to really taking this in it saves you from suffering and desire and such only what is it saving?

[00:19:34]I mean, I think there's a there's a big in incoherent thing in Buddhism about desperately trying to save yourself from thinking there's a self, so you don't bother. They're all just distinct moments.

[00:19:56]But um but anyway both Parfett's view which might in on one side of it be this as well both Parett's view and Buddhism of the sort I've described they fall immediately to the probability argument they um I mean with parit either you have these Buddhistic momentary selves, right? So at any moment in the in the thinking going on the the it's known that there's the existence of this one.

[00:20:42]But the existence of this one in this series of momentary cells is always improbable because it it's this pinpoint of experience probably having to occur to a particular body but only this much of its experience. If it had experienced anything a little bit different, there wouldn't have been that momentary subject, right? Because you can't move outside momentary content. See, so the odds against that content existing um are stupendous.

[00:21:22]You need the sperm cells to be right and then on top of that, you need the exactly the right experience to come about.

[00:21:29]>> Yeah. The probabilistic argument is is a universal salve that universalism uses for all these different theories that you can explain it for. Then you hit it with the probabilistic argument.

[00:21:42]>> Absolutely. Knocks it out completely.

[00:21:45]>> Yeah. I I I I'm not sure of the conclusion, but you definitely hit it with that argument and at least it it stops uh it stops the the the normal analytical trend at that point. U and and it's and it's very powerful. All right, let's go on to the human.

[00:22:02]>> I'll just mention Oh, sorry. I'll just mention right if wants there to be these naturalistic person non-persons I with that problem I you know explain they've got the same probability problem as well.

[00:22:20]>> Yeah.

[00:22:21]Okay. Okay, let's go on to the human no self which is uh you know I can see in myself all the different perceptions and feelings but when I take all those away I don't find any residual self >> that's it yes but what what you do have there is a bundle of perceptions and that bundle of perceptions has immediacy as far as I can see in my case it does so there isn't a thing hovering outside it to which it belongs.

[00:22:56]So what I don't care about things >> anyway.

[00:23:00]>> Yeah. Only experience being mine. If there happens to be a thing, let's say a thing suddenly shows up in Hume's world, right? Which is having these perceptions. That's not adding anything to them being mine.

[00:23:16]You know, we don't then check the, you know, what the objective features of this thing are to see if it's really me.

[00:23:24]that's not involved in it being me.

[00:23:28]And even if it's wasn't there as we started out in Hume, uh the experience is still mine. The pains have self-interest. I got every reason to try to diminish them.

[00:23:43]>> So, uh on the human view or the non-human view regarding the self, universalism is neutral. It does doesn't matter. Or you can have the thing or not have the thing. It doesn't make any difference as long as each of each time it is mine and you have the immediacy of the experience. That's the that's the uh gel that that keeps it all together.

[00:24:10]>> There two things that go together with immediacy inseparable from it. Presence in the world, right? If the right sperm cell hadn't made it, uh there'd be no presence in the world for you, >> right?

[00:24:26]>> And self-interest that the pains are the kind that really hurt, right? Because you we have a confused view of this. I mean, in a way, we know that they really hurt for other people, but in a way, they don't. You know that's why it's optional in terms of self-interest whether I help him or not.

[00:24:50]Right? But >> okay, let's go on to some other kinds of theories that are very prominent today in consciousness studies and just give me a sense of how universal articulates with them. And as I see it, universalism is more orthogonal. It's it's not on a linear scale. It kind of is it sits above or below whichever you want to use a metaphor of the the different kinds of theories. But just to go through them, substance dualism, which is of course a a classic idea that there is some non-physical entity, a spirit, a soul or something that uh is critical to make a human being.

[00:25:29]>> That's right. So um uh absolutely neutral with regard to that.

[00:25:39]Uh what would make a mental substance an immaterial substance be me is the immediacy of its experience. That and nothing else. And it would have that. I mean, if you have an im immaterial soul or spirit, it would have the point of >> it seeing experience. I would think if it has experience.

[00:26:02]>> Yeah. So, so you're you're you're you're happy with it and you're happy without it.

[00:26:07]>> Well, yeah. Exactly. In so far as I'm a universalist.

[00:26:10]>> Yeah.

[00:26:11]>> My view, but uh I do try to keep it separate for >> Yeah. No, that's that's important. I mean, as I said, so the but that's an important distinction that you may have an independent view of dualism or materialism, but that has nothing to do with universalism's um uh equal power with each of them.

[00:26:32]>> Oh, and notice also the probability arguments as good as ever. Um because uh I don't think any doulus thinks that uh um you know if a sperm if a different sperm cell had made it to the egg that uh you know that whatever immaterial thing is somehow assigned to the person you know wouldn't be different from if another one had made it.

[00:27:02]>> Yeah. hard to know exactly how you would think, but you could think that the the uh first person immediiacy of existence would be the same, but the physical characteristics would be different because that would be determined by the sperm and the egg.

[00:27:18]>> That's what universalism says. Yeah.

[00:27:20]>> Yeah. So I might be a woman a woman or I might be uh you know better looking or I'd be taller or you know smarter or you know whatever but I would still have the same first person immediacy because that >> like if there are two of them let's say it splits into a twin.

[00:27:39]>> Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

[00:27:40]>> Then presumably uh the the uh dualist thinks now you have two distinct ones assigned to these distinct bodies. Sure.

[00:27:51]>> Right. So, I mean, there could have been loads of twins that never existed. There could have I mean, there there's so so many beings in the world that could have had >> an immaterial soul assigned to it. Um, but don't because they don't come about.

[00:28:12]>> Right? So one subset of substance dualism would be that there is a a creator god a deity that somehow picks out souls and you know there's a lot of theological arguments whether whether souls are are tabular raza each one the same but then is influenced by the body or each one has its own particularity. We're not going to get into all that theology. I I but I just want to say that that is a mechanism for giving the um a possible mechanism for giving me my uh uh first person sense of immediiacy and consciousness without requiring the hard game of the right sperm for endless generations to come together. because that would that would >> that would but that would only that would only change my physical circumstance. It wouldn't change that first person experience that God picked out in some way. That's the argument.

[00:29:15]>> Um yeah, and I have a section on this you may remember in part four of the book >> the book Finding Myself. It's an excellent book. I recommend it to everybody who wants to be challenged with some very strange ideas. Okay.

[00:29:30]>> Yeah. There's a section in part four of the book called Somebody Up There likes me.

[00:29:37]>> Yeah.

[00:29:38]>> It's all about whether you somehow overcome the hard game.

[00:29:42]>> Yeah.

[00:29:43]>> By making God choose you to exist, >> right?

[00:29:47]>> And it doesn't work because being chosen by God is a hard game, right? be I I go through a whole list of reasons. It doesn't give you any advantage.

[00:30:02]>> So what what you're saying is that if God picks you out, it's no different than being that lucky sperm for you know to the power of of of 30 generations and enormous numbers.

[00:30:15]>> So now God is playing the role of the multiple sperms over many generations.

[00:30:21]So it's it becomes >> well presumably he's rigging the sperm cell lotteryies.

[00:30:27]>> Uh >> if God if God wants uh just you to come out of all those sperm cell lotteryies, right?

[00:30:37]>> Then he's interfering making sure the other sperm cells don't get there first.

[00:30:43]>> Yeah. Well, that's what that's one mechanism. Another mechanism says another mechanism says that that that God is creating this this immaterial um substance that is going to be me but the uh the characteristics of the me will will depend upon the sperm and that that's just a natural process. So, as I said, I might have been better better looking or whatever, >> but presumably there are maybe infinite distinct possible immaterial substances.

[00:31:15]>> Yes.

[00:31:15]>> Right. As I pointed out before, when you get twins, you have two distinct ones.

[00:31:22]>> Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. For sure.

[00:31:24]>> So, >> so that you are included in the ones in his world.

[00:31:30]It's as hard a game as any.

[00:31:34]>> Okay.

[00:31:34]>> Right.

[00:31:35]>> And and there or maybe someone will say um well maybe God has a certain role for me.

[00:31:44]Okay. This will show you how hard it is, right?

[00:31:48]uh let's say God wants there to be a Moses in the world because he got you know certain assignment for Moses and uh okay he's created a Moses but there could have been a twin of Moses that would have been just as good because presumably >> God is looking at the properties of these things he's not thinking about you know which otman there is you know which self is going to be in there having those properties. If there were twins, they could have exactly the same properties, but on the usual view, they're distinct persons with distinct self-interests and so on, >> right?

[00:32:33]>> So, what makes him settle on that that one which is you, >> right? When there could be countless twins >> that had all your same properties, >> there'd be nothing to favor.

[00:32:50]>> Okay. Uh let's just look at some of the other theories and um that are extent like pansychism where protoconsciousness is built into the fundamental aspects of reality or idealism where consciousness is the fundamental uh aspect of of reality. And so idealism where where pansychism has the combination problem.

[00:33:12]How do you get little pieces of protoconsciousness that in every particle or field of existence to come together to make consciousness under idealism where consciousness is everything? How do you then split apart?

[00:33:26]The decombination problem is what idealism have. How do you split up the consciousness uh the the the universal consciousness into individual consciousnesses that each of us have? So those are those two aspects. So h how does universalism uh interact with both of those?

[00:33:43]>> If universalism is neutral with regard to those as well, >> right?

[00:33:48]>> If pans psychism is true, then in all of matter you'd have experience presumably firsterson immediate experience of some sort, some very primitive sort in most of it.

[00:34:01]>> Right? in idealism.

[00:34:04]Um, these minds in so far as they're having experience consciousness that's got immediiacy in it, it's me for that reason alone.

[00:34:16]Um, so in a way, you know, it's very simple for me to deal with all these because there's no reason for universalism to wrestle with them at all. I mean, one way of looking at universalism is this.

[00:34:32]Let's say I'm wearing a jacket, right?

[00:34:37]So, let's say we thought that if I remove this jacket, I would be a different person in the way we're interested in. I'd have a different self-interest, a different presence in the world because I removed the jacket. Now, in the usual view, no one's going to think that. They'll think this is just incidental to whether it's me, right?

[00:35:03]But on the usual view, there are some more substantive seeming things that would make a difference to whether I'm there or not.

[00:35:16]Right? I mean, in a way, what we're doing here is if you if you imagine a line where you have the most incidental sorts of things on the left, right, and the most essential things on the right, you're you've got a slider and you're trying to determine where it should go.

[00:35:38]There's no argument about what's there.

[00:35:42]That's the point. All right. I could be talking to an idealist talking. It doesn't matter.

[00:35:48]>> But we're talking about where the slider should go determining what when something's essential to me or incidental to me >> where it can change and still be me. So I just keep sliding it beyond particular bodies, particular any particular things there are in idealism.

[00:36:10]I keep sliding and sliding it till it gets to immediaty of experience.

[00:36:16]That's the only thing essential to me.

[00:36:18]I've got all the same things the others have. See, and that's why there's no improbability in me existing as long as they're conscious things because the slider is all the way on the right.

[00:36:33]Um, that's all that's really going on in universalism.

[00:36:38]So, Yeah. All the descriptions of those things in in so far as as long as they're not making claims about personal identity being constituted by some of those things, you know, all the all their claims just say relevant to universalism.