The second half of what a bored personomancer can do with a couple of spare major charges and a decidedly unhealthy take on the notion of thought experiments in philosophy

This continues to be inspired by a chapter “The Self and the Future” from the book “Problems of the Self” written by the Philosopher Bernard Williams.

“Of course you must now be wondering just what it is your role is here. I shall explain. You are the subject of my second experiment. You see, things are rather more complex than I have made them out to be so far. Tomorrow morning you shall be taken from this room and your body shall be tortured to death. I hope you understand that this is going to happen no matter what, you are not going to be saved by your family or friends. Your only hope is, ironically, me.”

I am not even sure what I feel now. There is a pit in my stomach which feels like it could swallow me whole. I am finding it difficult to breathe properly and even through my bonds my hands are shaking. In a series of uncontrolled snorting, grunting gasps, I unblock my nose from all the snot clogging it up from my crying and it begins to run down my face, cold and sticky and slightly sweet.

“You see Mr Brown, I will perform one of a number of possible experiments upon you just before you are tortured to death. I shall either simply wipe out your current memories and aspirations (not that you have many) and character quirks, or I shall wipe your memories and then replace them with some entirely fictitious set, or I shall wipe your memory and replace it with the copied memories of another individual, Mr Andersen. Finally, I might decide to remove all your memories, replace them with Mr Andersen’s and then give Mr Andersen yours. You will note how this last experiment is simply the experiment you have witnessed between the hapless A and B in the adjacent rooms. On that note I shall leave you, but be warned I will have some questions for you when you have thought things through. And please remember we are trying to discover the truth about personal identity, one of the most important questions there could be… so be honest in your answers.”

And with that I am left alone again. In the dark. I am soiled, I feel soiled. I feel as if all the baths in the world could not make me clean again. I find I can barely remember what the man said to me. I can barely think. The room feels like it is spinning about me, even though I can see nothing in this dark I can feel it whirling about my head.

…

I think I slept again. I am awake now, but I think I slept. My head hurts. It aches. It feels like it should be splitting. OH GOD! How long did I sleep, how long do I have before… before. I don’t know. I may have hours and I may have minutes and I don’t know. I need to think, I need to think clearly. He said, he said that my only hope was him. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I must think about what he said … what he said about the experiments. What will each one do to me? What were the experiments he wanted to do?

First there was the amnesia one. Yes. Yes that was it. But what good does amnesia do against torture. I mean, if I no longer remember Claire, and how she felt and how she was. And how much she cost. If I no longer remember that, what will that do to my being tortured. It won’t do anything. If I remember nothing about my past life I will still be tortured.

I am not crying now. Thoughts are feverishly running through my head. Some are useful, they tell me to remain calm and think, others imagine how I will be tortured. But most, most scream at me at the unfairness of it all. No one is here to save me, and nothing I can do will save me. Not even God is there for me. No one can help me, except maybe the man. He said that he was my only hope.

When the two men in the other rooms remembered having made the decisions which the other had chosen the night before, when Abp remembered having made Bbp’s decisions and Bbp remembered making Abp’s decisions. And the guy, the guy he said that A had become B, so A’s body was tortured and B’s wasn’t but Bbp was A, he remembered all the things A did and acted like he was glad he wasn’t going to be tortured. So the correct experiment will mean that I am not tortured.

I want to shout for joy. There is a way of not being tortured. I begin to feel better, but then I begin to think, which option, or options are the right ones? I may be made to choose by the guy and then I could choose wrongly.

It is so important that I think straight now. I must. I must. I must know which option was it. I don’t remember clearly what was said. After the amnesia case… after the amnesia case there was the question of writing up new memories for me, false memories that never happened. But what does that do to let me escape. Whether I have memories of mummy hitting me or another, different mummy hugging me, how does that change my being tortured. It … it doesn’t does it. So that can’t be the right answer.

But if fake memories don’t stop it being me who is tortured, then why should the source of the memories matter. What does it matter if the memories are made up or if they are copied from someone’s real experiences? It doesn’t matter, does it, because where the memories come from doesn‘t change how I feel about them does it…

My gut tightens at this revelation. Something is not going as it should. There is meant to be some answer. THERE HAS TO BE AN ANSWER. But that was the last option wasn’t it. My groggy brain can’t think straight. The pain is rising again, like a tide it is engulfing me and I can’t think.

…

I have stopped screaming now, and the pain is receding. That or I am becoming more used to it. There is another option isn’t there. It is the last one, so it must be the right answer. I remember the man saying that the last experiment was the same as the one he performed on the men in the adjacent rooms. So this must allow me to escape the torture. I can escape it.

But now that I look at it I am less certain. I will lose all my memories. I will gain someone else’s. That other person will get mine. The only thing which is different from the last one is that the other person, Mr Andersen, will get my memories. But what Mr Andersen remembers won’t affect my pain or my being tortured. There is no escape. None. I am going to be tortured and there is nothing I can do about it.

But this means that I can be certain that my personal identity is going to survive a transfer of memory and remain rooted in my body. But I saw that personal identity resides in the continuity of memory. If I ascribe past actions to myself then the person those actions belong to must be who I am and this regardless of whether the body which remembers is the body which performed the actions. But personal identity also resides in my body and what will happen to my body in the future and this regardless of mental states, memory and action self-ascription. Both are true but each denies the possibility of the other.

Something breaks in me.

…

The door is being opened again. My fear, my terror, my panic has been growing since I came to my epiphany, to my revelation. It is like something living. It is alive inside of me and I can feel it slowly eating me away. The door is open and in it, framed by light, is the man.