The Influence Of John Locke On Personal Identity

John Locke stated that the identity of persons was the identity of conscious. What Locke meant by this is even if our body changes our mind doesn’t such as our memory’s. So for example many people have horror accidents where they lose their arms, fingers or even legs but either way the memory stays the same therefore they are the same person. Locke focused a lot on memory, he thought that our memory’s made us who we are and if we were to switch brains with someone and our memory were now in their body of another person. That the person who held the memory is now the same person they were before they switched bodies. So for example, if I was to brake my mother’s favorite vase then decide I wanted to switch bodies with my brother but I took my

Similar to the example given about Wanda and Shwanda Michaels states that even though the person laying in the bed is our body and Wanda’s brain we are technically neither person we are now two people together. As the example states all though Wanda remembers learning to ride a bike her now body may not because if we ourselves never learned and only Wanda’s brain does that does not entail that when we step on a bike we are going to be able to ride into the wind. Shwanda may be able get up on the bike and Wanda brain might say hey I know how to do this by my body may not therefore we will fall. This is where the body theory comes into the picture, basically the person lying in bed is making me think that I am Wanda despite the fact I really am not. So if Meredith Michael was asked the question of whether Bill Gates is laying in the bed or Gill bates was I believe he would say neither. I believe this due to the fact that he basically tells us that although person number 1 brain is now person number 2 body that does not make them the same person due to how the brain and the body want react the same. They are now considering a completely new

I realized that reading how these philosophers think is much like how we are in today’s world. Locke, Michaels, and Hume all saw things in a different perspective and its interesting that theory’s they come up with because in my opinion I think they all actually makes sense it all just depends on how you look at it. While I would like to think that Locke was right in this situation I think this has theory lacks a lot of logic. BY this I mean yes as long as you carry your memory’s your still technically the same person but as Michael’s points out even if you carry your memory into another person body, your memory may remember or know how to do things that another person’s body may not. This would no longer make you the same person. I believe that its more then just your memory or mind that makes your identity because at one point you have to link both your memory and body together. Even if I switch bodies with someone and I remember how to walk the body I am in may not know, this would cause me to have to relearn therefore making someone new because I then would be a mixture of myself and whoever’s body I was in. Michaels really caught my attention when he spoke about Wanda and Shwanda, I feel he was right about our mind going into a defensive mode and letting us believe were the same person even though were not