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Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia

A prominent view on personal identity over time, Jeff McMahan’s ‘Embodied Mind Account’ (2002) holds that we cease to exist only once our brains can no longer sustain the basic capacity to uphold consciousness. One of the many implications of this view on identity persistence is that we continue to...

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Autor principal: Lyreskog, David M
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10579458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34509984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2021-107381
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author Lyreskog, David M
author_facet Lyreskog, David M
author_sort Lyreskog, David M
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description A prominent view on personal identity over time, Jeff McMahan’s ‘Embodied Mind Account’ (2002) holds that we cease to exist only once our brains can no longer sustain the basic capacity to uphold consciousness. One of the many implications of this view on identity persistence is that we continue to exist throughout even the most severe cases of dementia, until our consciousness irreversibly shuts down. In this paper, I argue that, while the most convincing of prominent accounts of personal identity over time, McMahan’s account faces serious challenges in explanatory power of dementias and related neurodegenerative conditions. Particularly, this becomes visible in the face of emerging methods for neural tissue regeneration, and the possibility of ‘re-emerging patients’. I argue that medical professionals’ neglecting qualitative aspects of identity risks resulting in grave misunderstandings in decision-making processes, and ethically objectionable outcomes in future practices. Finally, I propose revisions which could potentially salvage the great benefits that Embodied Mind Theory still can bring to the field of dementia care in terms of understanding life, death, and identity across the lifespan.
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spelling pubmed-105794582023-10-18 Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia Lyreskog, David M J Med Ethics Extended Essay A prominent view on personal identity over time, Jeff McMahan’s ‘Embodied Mind Account’ (2002) holds that we cease to exist only once our brains can no longer sustain the basic capacity to uphold consciousness. One of the many implications of this view on identity persistence is that we continue to exist throughout even the most severe cases of dementia, until our consciousness irreversibly shuts down. In this paper, I argue that, while the most convincing of prominent accounts of personal identity over time, McMahan’s account faces serious challenges in explanatory power of dementias and related neurodegenerative conditions. Particularly, this becomes visible in the face of emerging methods for neural tissue regeneration, and the possibility of ‘re-emerging patients’. I argue that medical professionals’ neglecting qualitative aspects of identity risks resulting in grave misunderstandings in decision-making processes, and ethically objectionable outcomes in future practices. Finally, I propose revisions which could potentially salvage the great benefits that Embodied Mind Theory still can bring to the field of dementia care in terms of understanding life, death, and identity across the lifespan. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-10 2021-09-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10579458/ /pubmed/34509984 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2021-107381 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Extended Essay
Lyreskog, David M
Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title_full Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title_fullStr Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title_full_unstemmed Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title_short Withering Minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
title_sort withering minds: towards a unified embodied mind theory of personal identity for understanding dementia
topic Extended Essay
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10579458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34509984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2021-107381
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