Final Thoughts

Although there have been a few arguments present to define the continuity of personal identity. In each of the cases, there seems to be a narrowing down to the definition of conscious entity or automaton. I would like to take the view of Bishop Butler and Thomas Reid: personal identity is undefinable and unanalysable. Further, that ``no non-trivial account can be given of the identity conditions for persons''[2, p. 301] There is large pressure to take the leap of faith towards belief in either science's traditional biochemical reactions (including neural networks) mixed with millions of years of evolution, or plain religious belief in the afterlife.

I will, however, state that like Descartes, I know I exists just by pure virtue of my thinking about my existence. There are intimate connections with historical parts of the effects of my intentional actions upon the world. For example, yesterday I purchased a blank mini-disc using my bank card; the resultant, trace records of my existence through the financial records of my bank account, and the accumulation of ``stuff'' in my home. The complex relations between the people I know, and myself, persist and are changed only through gradual changes. All of this, however, presupposes a person's existence, namely mine; yet this is the very thing we are attempting to define. So this argument even fails to a certain degree by begging the question. Hence, I go back to Butler's notion of a non-trivial account existing for the continuity of personal identity. For if we cannot even understand personal identity when involving one stream of consciousness, how are we to even tackle problems of multiple personalities.