That’s a bit of an open question though, isn’t it? I think that most of the philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists would say that Kissinger’s limbs were Kissinger, to the extent that his model of himself and the world included them as part of the phenomenon he thought of as himself.
My approach is that the “person” itself is just ideas that live in people’s minds, and isn’t an actual physical thing. So much of what people think of when they think about a person is views, moral standings, social standings etc of the person, all which don’t actually exist as physical objects. Which is demonstrated by the fact that people don’t use “Kissinger” to refer to his ashes or whatever.
Edit: Which kind of means that the person does live on in the minds of others, just like the cliché goes. But it isn’t “real” anymore because it doesn’t associate to a physical object anymore.
That’s a bit of an open question though, isn’t it? I think that most of the philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists would say that Kissinger’s limbs were Kissinger, to the extent that his model of himself and the world included them as part of the phenomenon he thought of as himself.
(not sarcasm)
My approach is that the “person” itself is just ideas that live in people’s minds, and isn’t an actual physical thing. So much of what people think of when they think about a person is views, moral standings, social standings etc of the person, all which don’t actually exist as physical objects. Which is demonstrated by the fact that people don’t use “Kissinger” to refer to his ashes or whatever.
Edit: Which kind of means that the person does live on in the minds of others, just like the cliché goes. But it isn’t “real” anymore because it doesn’t associate to a physical object anymore.