Dexter: The Issue With Bundle Theory

The stimulus selected is a scene from TV series “Dexter” where Dexter makes a speech about a hidden identity within his physical body. His line “I’m not sure what I am, I just know there’s something dark...in me...it’s there, always.” This leads me to consider the issue of personal identity and Shakespeare’s quote, “We know what we are, but not what we may be”. Human beings are physical matter that exist in time and are aware of their identity and existence. We often believe we remain the same person for our whole lives even though we are in constant change, physically and mentally. Nobody would be surprised if you were to point to a picture of a baby and say “that’s me” even if there is no significant similarity. In the following essay, the
The theory asserts that it is impossible to think of such thing. However, one could argue that something invisible or odourless may be impossible to imagine but that does not mean a substance with such qualities cannot exist. Likewise, it is not logical to assume that a person cannot exist if they cannot imagine a bare particular. Thomas Reid believed personal identity couldn’t be defined by our experiences. He wrote, “I am not action, I am not feeling’ I am something that thinks, acts, and suffers.” In addition, bundle theory cannot adequately account for things like habits, instincts, or virtually any other mental states. There is a lack of exposition on the relation of perceptions and how these are bundled together. James Van Cleve objected that if a substance were nothing more than a set of properties, any set of properties would fulfil the conditions to be that substance. For example, a red thing may be red, but a set containing red isn’t red. If a substance is a bundle of properties, then isn’t every set of properties a substance? Likewise, a further complication is that things could never change. All of the substance’s qualities would be