imagination and fission futures
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pation. This mode is demonstrated in the case where I pick out Napoleon
when I imagine being Napoleon, for I can only think of Napoleon as a
notional subject of mine by deliberately specifying Napoleon as the receptor of my act of imagination. An unselfconscious mode of anticipation, in
contrast, is one in which no such antecedent specification of the target (the
notional subject) of one’s anticipation is required. One such mode, according to Velleman, is intention; for in framing an intention one unselfconsciously projects oneself into the future because the potential receptor of
my intention will be presumed to be me – no matter who in fact he may
turn out to be. As Velleman puts it:
I don’t have to specify a person from whose point of view I am trying
to frame my intention, because that point of view is fixed by the future
causal history of the intention itself. I attempt to frame the intention,
if you will, from the intention’s own future perspective, the perspective in which the intention itself will turn up to be executed. (Velleman
1996: 71)
According to Velleman the differences between these two modes of anticipation ‘ground a distinction between real and imaginary future selves’
(Velleman 1996: 70).
One’s real future selves are supposedly those future selves that are accessible to one’s unselfconscious first-personal thoughts. For me to have real
future selves I must be on genuinely first-personal terms with those selves.
Velleman’s case against fission preserving what matters about survival is
that there would be no single future person who would occupy the position of notional subject in my anticipation, and so no single future self
whom I was anticipating first-personally. As he puts it
If I try to picture the moment as it will appear in an experience specified merely as forthcoming, or to follow, I won’t succeed in picking out
the perspective from which I’m trying to picture it, since my picture
may be followed, in the relevant sense, by two different experiences of
the moment in question, and I cannot be trying to draw it from two
perspectives at once. Similarly, my anticipation may be remembered in
two different perspectives, and so I cannot frame it from a perspective
specified merely as that in which it will be remembered. (Velleman
1996: 75)
Being aware of your impending fission you might anticipate meeting your
double. Velleman’s thought is that, in such a scenario, you cannot anticipate meeting your double without antecedent specification, i.e. without
self-consciously stipulating one of your two fission products, unless, that
is, you can anticipate such a meeting from two perspectives at once; and
since you cannot perform such an act of anticipation, you cannot make
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your fission products the notional subject of your anticipations unselfconsciously. Any such anticipation would necessarily involve, according
to Velleman, ‘one thought too many’ (Velleman 1996: 76): a thought which
would result in a loss of intimacy between my fission products and me.
So:
By depriving me of unique future perspectives, fission would deprive
me of real future selves. (Velleman 1996: 75)
Unfortunately for Velleman, this loss of genuine future selves would
not only come as a result of anticipating a post-fission future, but also as a
result of anticipating a future in which one is duplicated. This implication
shows that Velleman’s approach cannot be right. Suppose I am told that
at some time in the not too distant future I will be duplicated. The duplication process will involve scanning and recording the state and location
of all my atoms. That information will then be used to reproduce the state
and structure of my atoms with fresh atoms. This process will leave the
state and structure of my atoms untouched. How am I to envisage my
post-duplication future if I follow Velleman’s argument? The answer to this
question is: in exactly the same way as I would envisage my post-fission
future, that is, self-consciously. For – as with a fissioning future – I could
not frame anticipations and intentions from a perspective specified merely
as that in which they will follow or be remembered, because they may
be followed and remembered from two perspectives at once, and I cannot
be trying to frame them from both perspectives at once. So I would
have to antecedently specify between my duplicate and myself, and such
specification is, of course, self-conscious. And remember, ‘that the ability
to prefigure future experiences unselfconsciously is an important part of
having a future at all’ according to Velleman (1996: 76). But, surely, duplicating me doesn’t rid me of a future. It would seem rather absurd
to suggest that a post-duplication future would not contain what matters
in personal survival. (Velleman cannot, of course, make any appeals to
identity at this point because to do so would be to contradict his central
claim that identity is not what matters in personal survival.) However,
Velleman’s reasons for denying the value of a post-fission future apply
equally to the duplication case, and so he must either commit himself to
the absurdity that a post-duplication future is a worthless one, or accept
that his reasons for a post-fission future being devoid of value fail to justify
that conclusion.
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