The Personal identity reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Personal identity

Personal identity is the philosophical issue of determining whether two mental states belong to the same person, whether a person exhibits continuity through time, and whether a person can switch bodies or characteristics and memories with another person and retain his continuous consciousness.

For example, imagine that after your death there is someone, in the next world or in this one, who is a bit like you. How would that being have to relate to you as you are now in order to be you?

Further reading

• Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, part 3.
• Bernard Williams, The Self and the Future, in Philosophical Review 79.
• Ship of Theseus

External link

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on personal identity

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