252 NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONS1 At T1, E1 is all there is of E.
2 At T2, E2 is all there is of E.
3 If 1 is true, then E1 is identical to E.
4 If 2 is true, then E2 is identical to E.
5 E1 is identical to E. (from 1 and 3)
6 E2 is identical to E. (from 2 and 4)
7 E1 is not identical to E2.^24
But the set of propositions (5, 6, 7) is inconsistent. Thus a succession of bundles
is not anything more than the bundles in the succession. No doctrine not
applicable to the latter can be true of the former.^25 There cannot be any
composite endurers if these are construed as items that inhabit the world in
addition to composite nonendurers. No composite nonendurer can be justly
recompensed for, or remember performing, the deeds of an earlier composite
nonendurer. So no recompensation or remembering can occur. So there is no
reincarnation-and-karma cycle and no Buddha remembers past lives. The
strategy of saying “What recompense really is.. .” or “What memory really is
.. .” and filling it in a manner compatible with there only being composite
nonendurers is like answering, when one has shown you to have offered an
invalid argument of the form If A then B; B; therefore A, that what you mean
by “valid argument” is any argument that you offer. Any victory so purchased
is entirely empty. If that is all there is to recompense or memory, there is no
recompense or memory for there to be anything to.
Copiers and annihilators
Another argument against complexity accounts of persons
Scenario one
The present critique involves four very simple thought experiments. The
participants in these experiments are Edward, a very ordinary accountant,
Tedward (who may or may not be identical to Edward), and Nedward (who
may or not be identical to Edward or Tedward).
These experiments also involve a voting-booth-sized machine – the
Digitator - that comes in four varieties, one for each scenario. Our first
scenario has Edward entering into a Digitator 101. The Digitator 101
annihilates the person who enters it and produces an exact copy; Edward enters
at time T1 and the Digitator 101 works instantly, annihilating what entered it
and producing a copy. Let relation R be whatever relation the Complexity