/lit/ - Literature

>>22085535
Read Parfit
He does a good job of presenting thought experiments to break down our flawed preconceptions
Fair warning, you probably won't like his ideas if you're not a physicalist

Post yfw the transcendental self does not exist and we only live 1 day.

>Study of weather patterns and other physical phenomena in the 20th century has shown that very minor changes in conditions at time T have drastic effects at all times after T. Compare this to the romantic involvement of future childbearing partners. Any actions taken today, at time T, will affect who exists after only a few generations. For instance, a significant change in global environmental policy would shift the conditions of the conception process so much that after 300 years none of the same people that would have been born are in fact born. Different couples meet each other and conceive at different times, and so different people come into existence. This is known as the 'non-identity problem'.

>We could thus craft disastrous policies that would be worse for nobody, because none of the same people would exist under the different policies. If we consider the moral ramifications of potential policies in person-affecting terms, we will have no reason to prefer a sound policy over an unsound one provided that its effects are not felt for a few generations. This is the non-identity problem in its purest form: the identity of future generations is causally dependent, in a very sensitive way, on the actions of the present generations.

This is blowing my mind. Where do I start with the man? Does Reason and Persons require any background?

Sir Derek Parfit (OBE)

>I am now inclined to believe that time’s passage is an illusion. Since I strongly want time’s passage to be an illusion, I must be careful to avoid being misled.
Why would he want that? Because it's philosophically elegant?