PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY, FISSION, AND THE NON-BRANCHING CONSTRAINT

Abstract: Those who endorse the Psychological Continuity Approach (PCA) to analyzing personal identity need to impose a non-branching constraint to get the intuitively correct result that in the case of fission , one person becomes two. With the help of Brueckner's (2005 ) discussion, it is shown here that the sort of non-branching clause that allows proponents of PCA to provide sufficient conditions for being the same person actually runs contrary to the very spirit of their theory. The problem is first presented in connection with perdurantist versions of PCA. The difficulty is then shown to apply to endurantist versions as well.     

AMOUNT OF INDUCED AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR TO LIGHT IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA AS A FUNCTION OF TIME AFTER TRAINING AND CELL FISSION

B ergström , S. R. Amount of induced avoidance behaviour to light in the Protozoa Tetrahymena as a function of time after training and cell fission. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 16–20.—Two cultures of Tetrahymena, dividing synchronously after exposure to an alternating heat treatment, were exposed to series of light and electric shocks paired. After 20 and 30 exposures resp. to the stimulus combination, samples of these cultures were drawn every 18 min and placed in a partially lighted chamber. In samples drawn shortly after training, an essentially smaller proportion was found in the light, in comparison with control samples, which had received either shocks or light or neither of the two stimuli. In later samples, this proportion increased until it approached level of control samples. The course of the increase was not influenced by intervening synchronous cell division.     

MOVING ON

The following personal narrative concerns the author's experience with a malignant brain tumor. She uses the metaphor of motion to describe what happened to her about three years ago. Today, she continues to move on with her life.     

PERSON-CLUSTERS ON INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES AND ON MMPI ATTRIBUTES

When persons are observed on multiple dimensions discovered by the objective procedures of the cluster analysis of variables (V-analysis), they can then be allocated to person-clusters by the equally-objective procedures of object-clustering (O-analysis). These procedures, called the Condensation Method, are completely worked out on two empirical studies. In the first study on intellectual abilities (the Holzinger Problem) 301 children are assigned to 15 O-types. In the second study on self-conceptions (the MMPI), 310 psychiatric patients and normals are allocated to 14 O-types. The means of assigning new individuals to these master types are described. All procedures are executed by computer programs of the BC TRY System, in particular the components FACS, OTYPE, and OSTAT. The logic of the methods is fully developed.     

COMMENTS ON GEORGE WILLIAMS'S ESSAY ON MORALITY AND NATURE

Abstract. Although there is no questioning the heroism of those who rebel against the selfish replicators their task seems very nearly insurmountable. I question whether anyone can formulate a broadly acceptable moral system that will not in some respects be constrained by the legacy of generations spent as selfish and kin-selected replicators.     

NOTE ON THE EFFECT OF VELOCITY ON PERCEIVED DURATION

Ten subjects made magnitude productions of duration in two velocity conditions when going by car. Productions for the higher of the two velocities were found to be reliably longer than those for the lower due to a negative relation between velocity and the slope of the R-S function relating perceived to physical duration. It was suggested that the effect of velocity on the slope of the R-S function might account for the discrepant results from previous studies investigating the effects of velocity on perceived duration.