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If you know you have Alzheimer's, how do you regard the person who will inherit your body? Is that person you? How is this case connected with philosophical theories of personal identity?

Date Submitted: 05/04/2004 00:31:42
Length: 3 pages (813 words)
Views: 149559

I discover that I have Alzheimer's and that within the space of a year I will lose all my memories and all my character traits. I regard the person who will inherit my body during this time as one and the same person, numerically identical to the person who has been present in my body for my whole life previous to Alzheimer's, but with a high level of qualitative identity. I believe that it is …

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…agree with this theory, in that the person I am now, at T1, is not characterised by the memories I have or the character traits that are present in me, but instead the bodily continuity between T1 and T2. In this scenario a new person can be created only when someon gives birth to them, not by a person forgetting aspects or the whole of their lives, as in the case of amnesia or Alzheimer's.

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