Identity

Qualitative = exactly alike. Numerical = one and the same thing. Personal identity is numerical.

What must carry on for a person now to be the same person earlier or later?

What are we? (a body/mind/soul?) and What makes us persist? (what keeps us the same over time?)

Everything about you changes, yet you stay one person — so something must carry on, but it's unclear what.

Usually it means qualitatively different (changed). Numerically it's still you — that's the debate.

Most confusion about identity comes from mixing 'exactly alike' with 'one and the same'.

By memory a person both is and isn't their childhood self — a contradiction for the memory view.

A perfect copy is made and the original destroyed — did you survive or die? Tests each view.

Every plank is replaced — is it the same ship? Pressures the body view.

Explore an issue, argue, weigh different views, and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

Use an unseen stimulus + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

You are your living body (or brain); you exist as long as it does.

You are your inner mental life — thoughts, memories, point of view. The body is its home.

Imagine your mind waking in a new body: did YOU move? Tests body vs mind views.

It must say you don't survive a body-swap, and your cells fully replace over time.

It's unclear what a 'mind' is, and we forget large parts of our lives yet still survive.

They answer 'what are we?' — the first identity question, before we ask what makes us persist.

How you stay one person while your body and mind are gradually replaced.

Replace every plank one by one — same ship? Pressures physical/body-based identity.

Scan-destroy-rebuild an exact copy elsewhere: did you travel or die? Tests pattern vs physical survival.

What matters is the pattern of you, not the exact atoms; the copy continues your mental life.

Your original body was destroyed; the copy is only qualitatively identical, not you.

Two perfect copies can't both be numerically you, yet neither has a better claim — so pattern-survival can't be identity.

You are your connected chain of memories/consciousness — not your body.

An unbroken chain of memories and mental states linking you over time.

One man at three ages (boy → soldier → general): by memory the general is the soldier and the soldier the boy, but the general isn't the boy — a contradiction for Locke.

A links to B, B to C, so A and C are the same person even with no direct memory. Saves Locke from Reid.

Buddhist 'no fixed self': only a changing bundle of experiences; 'the self' is a useful label.

Looking inward he found no fixed self — only a bundle of changing perceptions (echoes anattā).

Continuity: a chain of memory carries you. No-self: there's no fixed you to carry. A strong essay weighs both.

Locke (memory) → Reid (objection) → Hume (no-self) → Parfit (overlapping chains; is identity what matters?).

The part of who you are shaped by culture — language, gender, religion, nation.

Being a woman is a social role you're shaped into over time, not just a biological fact.

Debatable: yes (it still shaped who you became) vs no (identity should track what's real).

A lot (we think in its categories) but not entirely (people reject and remake their culture). Argue a degree.

If culture makes me, am I free? Most keep room for choice within culture's materials.

Evidence cuts both ways — 'all' or 'nothing' ignores half of it. Argue where the line sits.

Personal identity may not be what matters — what matters is psychological connectedness and continuity.

If identity isn't what matters, the fear of death softens — our values and effects can continue in others.

Body view · memory (Locke/Reid) · no-self (Vasubandhu/Hume) · Parfit (connectedness).

Use a stimulus + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.

Identity = being literally the same person. Connectedness = sharing memories, plans, character. Parfit says the second is what we care about.