Are Bruce Wayne and Batman the same person? What makes two people distinct, is it their physical body or their memories and thoughts. In fact, what does it even mean to be a 'person' and how do you recognise one person as the same person, despite changes over time? Personal identity is a very abstract concept that people have grappled with for a long time.
Despite this, the philosopher Bernard Williams devised two thought experiments that seem to offer an explanation of personal identity. In this video, I discuss Williams' thought experiments involving a machine that can seemingly enable two people to 'switch bodies', like in Freaky Friday. I use this theory to discuss what it might mean to be you and how a person can be identified.
This video is broken down into three parts. First, I talk about psychological continuity theories and how Williams' thought experiment presents this theory. Secondly, I discuss physical continuity theories and Williams' alteration on his thought experiment. Before, finally, I ponder what it means to be a person and we try to answer the question of who is Batman?
As always, please let me know what you think of the video and leave a comment if you have any questions or thoughts and I will be sure to get back to you!
If you want to have a read of Bernard Williams' original paper 'The Self and the Future', here is a link for it. Please feel free to ask me any questions about it if you don't understand anything.
www.jstor.org/stable/2183946
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- Olly :)
Timestamps:
00:00: Introduction
01:28: Psychological Continuity
03:37: Physical Continuity
05:31: What are we and Who is Batman?
Full Credits for the movie clips used for educational purposes:
The Batman (2022)
CREDITS:
TM & © Warner Bros. Pictures (2022)
Cast: Gil Perez-Abraham, Jeffrey Wright, Robert Pattinson
Director: Matt Reeves
Producer: Matt Reeves
Screenwriter: Matt Reeves, Peter Craig
Superman (1978)
CREDITS:
TM & © Warner Bros. (1978)
Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder
Director: Richard Donner
Producer: Pierre Spengler
Screenwriter: Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton
Freaky Friday (2003)
CREDITS
TM & © Disney (2003)
Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Mark Harmon, Ryan Malgarini, Christopher Guest
Director: Mark Waters
Producer: Andrew Gunn
Screenwriter: Heather Hach, Leslie Dixon
Fair use.
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Thank you to pixabay and mixkit for the music, sound effects and videos used during this video.