Abstract
This chapter opens with an operation I had some time ago, under full anaesthetic. I was out of it, for the time being. This story sets the stage for the philosophical questions this book deals with: Where was I when I had no experiences? Was I really not there? What are we, exactly? When do we still exist and when no longer?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
It may be that not everybody experiences the period of anaesthesia as completely non-existent; there may well be individual differences. A lovely example of someone who apparently had the same experience is this: in the music program Top 2000 a gogo, the Dutch Paralympics athlete Marlou van Rhijn, who had had to undergo many operations as a child, said that at the age of 11 she went into the operating theatre loudly singing the Beegees song Night Fever until the needle of the anaesthetics went in, and resumed singing exactly where she had left off the moment she regained consciousness (van Rhijn 2021). Apparently for her too there had been no time at all between the start of the period of unconsciousness and the end of it.
- 2.
That does not alter the fact that there are people who, sincerely, claim that they do not exist or that they are dead. This is called Cotard’s syndrome; it is a syndrome that sometimes occurs in people who are extremely depressed.
- 3.
Dennett (1991, p. 356).
- 4.
Nagel 1974.
- 5.
Dennett (1991, p. 359). Literally, he speaks of representations and not of impressions.
References
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston/Toronto/London: Little, Brown and Company.
Edelman, Gerald. 1989. The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books.
Nagel, Thomas. 1974. What Is It Like To Be a Bat? Philosophical Review 83: 435–451. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914.
van Rhijn, Marlou. 2021. Interview. Top 2000 a gogo. NPO3 Television. 27 Dec 2021.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Meijsing, M. (2022). Introduction. In: A Philosophy of Person and Identity. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09524-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09524-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-09523-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-09524-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)