• Order
  • OMR
  • Offers
  • Support
    • Due to unforeseen circumstances, our phone line will be unavailable from 5pm to 9pm GMT on Thursday, 28th March. Please be assured that orders will continue to be processed as usual during this period. For any queries, you can still contact us through your customer portal, where our team will be ready to assist you.

      March 28, 2024

  • Sign In

Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.
Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com.

Three Distinct Types Of Enduring Self Philosophy Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: Philosophy
Wordcount: 2108 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

Reference this

1. It is believed that there are three distinct types of enduring self happened to both Stelios and the claimant, judging by the experience they have had using the teletransporter. In Stelios case, despite the fact that he got transported to the Mars and brought back to earth, he claims that he is still the same person as he is before. That said, this has shown that bodily continuity is what makes him the same now and earlier he was being transported to Mars. According to Diotima, the body is what who we really are. If the body changes, it will be still the same you. Just like a house which is vacant and then occupied again over several times, renovations are made in the owner’s best interest. No matter how much is being added and removed from the house, the house forever remains the same house, the house is the self whereas the occupants and furniture are physical features in a body that changes continually. So, he is having a hard time believe that the claimant is correct. Because after he used the teletransporter, he still looks and feels the same. However, on the claimant’s side, things are world apart from Stelio, memory constitutes a large role in what he had said. According to Locke, he believed that memories are what we really are. Ironically, he actually remembered the process where he got killed and being substituted by a clone. Consequently, that’s what drove him into bringing his murder case to the court knowing the teletransporter had killed him. He can recall every single detail in his memory and able to present it to the court. In addition to memory, “the enduring self is a soul” stated by Descartes is related to the claimant side of story. Looking from the claimant’s perspective, the teletransporter might design to transport your body to Mars, but the soul is left behind on Earth. The soul feels inadequate without the body, hence the soul feels dead. When his body is transported back to earth, the soul and body is reunited. Again, he felt complete because his soul was reattached to the body but doubted whether it is the same body he carried before.

2. Both of us had the same perception that memory makes the self endure over time. Nevertheless, there is a slightly different interpretation of memory for each of us.

In Jia Yii’s point of view, Memories are what we really are. How we react to different kinds of situations, how we judge things from our own aspects, our characters. When we were first born, we had no memory. And as we grow, we acquire sweet and bitter memories. As we grow older, we tend to gain experience from the happenings we faced in our daily lives. And with that, the memories influence us. It builds our character. Let’s say you are a very cheerful person. But then, one fine day, your parents went crazy and started torturing you since then. Would your character be affected? I’m pretty sure it would because the bitter memories you bear in your mind haunt you almost every day. That would make you see things different from the way you see things before. Let’s say if a person is brought up in a very happy and cheerful family. Of course this person’s character would be a cheerful person. And let’s say if a person is brought up in a family where the parents always threw their tantrums at their child, that person would of course being a very pessimistic. These characters were built differently because of their memories and experiences they had during their childhood.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!

Essay Writing Service

In Jessica’s point of view, without memory, we are just like a program that is shut down and never able to be retrieved back again. A handful of critics might not concur with this concept and stipulated that if we don’t remember part of our past, therefore we are not ourselves. I would like to go one step ahead and elaborate further to what they have said. Memory and brain is intricately linked and highly dependent on each other. However, our brain is not capable of storing every information that is present to us, but those that appears happening, outlandish and appears important to us turns a memory memorable. Shortly put, our brain and memory is similar to a filter. Bits of information is filtered and the residues left on the filter are those unforgettable memories. Those that are channeled out from the filter is conceived to be menial by the brain. Take this for an example, I was strolling down a park one day, along the curbs I saw neatly trimmed grasses, flowers that smell like candy, a man sitting on a beach reading a book. All of a sudden, a stray dog aimlessly chased after me and I eventually got taken over by the dog. Chances are, ten years later, when you happened to bumped into the same park, the first thing that comes to mind is that you remembered being chased by a dog. The rest of the details you experienced earlier didn’t crossed your mind. Notwithstanding, we remained the same person as before. For the most part, the memory of the past evokes us into becoming a better person or the other way round depending on how well we extract the lesson from it. All in all, memory is precursor to how to change the way we live and ultimately, choose to character we desire to be.

Part B

1. The passage is stating that we humans are nothing more than just a body who doesn’t have purpose and meaning in life because in the end, we died and that is that. All our entire lives we’re fixed at the notion that we humans are unique because of we are rational, conscious, have purpose in life when in fact that is not the case. These abilities that are supposed to be designated at a particular way might not be it is meant to be. From young, these inheritable abilities run in our veins and to reject these unique abilities sounds implausible. Therefore, everybody living in this earth considered to be living a wrong life due to the fact that their abilities aren’t supposed to work like everybody else does. Who knows the instinct, senses, motivation that we have been told aren’t what they really are. They are all reducible to only physical body, and only that. That being said, this concept of human are worth nothing propels the Nazis to build the concentration camps and exterminate the humans. Why the Nazis themselves weren’t killed was they perceive themselves as beyond the normal human beings. They are superior than the prisoners and believed to have more developed abilities the humans, and above all, invincible. The idea of mass killing the humans is as if they destined to be getting rid of. This truly shows that the Nazis treat human nature as non-human. Basically, we are nothing but objects and materials to them. Due to their perception of this, many human lives were lost. This whole passage is set on the materialists’ view that human is just a physical entity with no immaterial mind. Also, Charles Darwin’s theory stated that human nature has no purpose and not unique could be partly linked to this passage.

2. “of blood and soil” is that humans are just plain body without purpose in life, therefore are meant to be killed. On the other hand, “at the desks and in lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers” means that all this problem of mass killing of humans stems from the fact that the philosopher and scientists believe that humans have no value. It was not started from ministry but from education by nihilistic scientists. That’s why not everyone is being influence. Because it’s not at order, it’s just lectures and teachings. This triggers the Nazis to build a world of their own and decide to kill those human beings.

Part C

Jessica’s response:

1. No, I could be in the perfect virtual reality machine and not know it

No, I can’t be sure I’m awake

No, I can’t be sure I’m not in the Matrix

No, it’s a real possibility

I believe that there is a reality independent of my experience, and that it is a real possibility that we don’t have knowledge of this reality. Nevertheless, I believe that it will be possible to answer the skeptics. We will find a way to know we’re not living in the matrix.

You selected the “heroic” response

2. This activity really intrigued me because for the very first time, it allows me to see reflect about the ‘real’ world we’re living in. This activity, too in a way lets me to set things into new perspective and taught me a lesson of learning to sink in and open up to new possibilities although sometimes they contradicts my belief. However, as I was halfway through the activity, I had a funny feeling that this activity was disturbing and intrusive because it pervades my original concept of this world. Before this activity, I already have a vivid picture of what I’m going to do in the future. Everything seemed impeccable until this activity came along. To say I’m living in matrix sounds absurd, near impossible. This is all because what I’m doing in the past or right now worth nothing. After every experience I have been through, be it good or bad, is not genuine, but rather controlled by a ultra-sophisticated machine that inseminate you the experience. In other words, experience is contrived. What’s more, the judgment, ideas, arguments every human has come up with is all formed by this machine, to create the machine thinks is a more vibrant and livable world. I am merely just a character selected by the machine playing in this game of ‘life’. What’s inside you is just instructions and algorithms that is written by the machine and you just simply adhere it. Even our families and friends aren’t truly our families and friends, they happened to be the same exactly like me, selected by machine. In this case, essence is prior to existence. The essence itself is skillfully structured out by the machine, they have crafted the future for us. Yes, unless science has proven we’re not living in a matrix, I am convinced we are living in a virtual reality, plugged into a computer without us even noticing we are being plugged. For one, there are never any 100% absolute truth in a single theory. For instance, some researchers might show that exercise will make you lose weight while some others disagree. This is to exemplify that there is never a consensus among us human. To deny the fact we are living in a real world and no such possible as matrix is to suggest that we refuse to open up to any possibilities. Truth is, we can’t be entirely sure of everything, but rather everything is unsure and not fully been tapped into.

Jia Yii’s Response :

No, I could be in the perfect virtual reality machine and not know it

Yes, I know I am awake.

No, I can’t be sure I’m not inside the matrix.

No, It’s a real posibility.

2. I believe that there is a reality independent of my experience, and that it is a real posibility that we don’t have knowledge of this reality. Nevertheless, I believe that it will be possible to answer the sceptics. We will find a way to know we’re not living in the Matrix.

You selected the “heroic” response

For my opinion, I think this is activity is basically fun. It made me thinks twice of what I am doing now. Somehow, I’m having doubts of it. What I did everything for the 19 years of my life, was it worth doing it?? I even thought that was it worth living in this world?? Somehow, it also made me thought that, was there another world exist that is greater than the world we living in right now?? This activity made me thought something that I had never thought before. I don’t think I could be living in a virtual world. If I am really being controlled by computers, why created so many negative happenings in my life?? Why always repeating the same thing again and again and again?? Why do we cry, laugh or angry? Why would we have doubts in making a decision or a choice? If we are controlled by computers we shouldn’t had emotions and doubts. For example, if you know the game of ‘The Sims’, well, it’s about how we build our virtual characters and build their lives. If it’s for me, I wouldn’t create an unhappy life for my virtual characters. Because it’s painful. No one controls us but ourselves. We make our own decisions and choices.

 

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below:

Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.

Related Services

View all

DMCA / Removal Request

If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: