Volume V (2022) (2015)
constituting him afterward. However, accidentally, the new body Charles is being transferred into belonged to an autistic person. Therefore, Charles's new body puts some severe limitations on Charles’s cognitive functions, including several aspects of his first-person perspective. 17
It is reasonable to assume that there will be several changes in Charles’s mental state once he gets
transferred to the autistic body. Charles will no longer have the previous personality or traits made
possible by a fully functioning human body. Using this thought experiment, Buckareff and
Wagenen establish that even though the first-person perspective remains the same, it is not enough to constitute personal identity. 18 Therefore, personal identity is dependent on the body it is
constituted in.
Secondly, Baker's insistence on the sameness of the first-person perspective at different times t and t I assumes that personal identity remains the same throughout an individual's life.
However, this paper argues that such persistence of first-person perspective is not possible, i.e.,
first-person perspective does not remain the same for a person. A miraculous transfer of the body,
such as the one Charles’ underwent, is not required to demonstrate that first -person perspective
changes. The change in first-person perspective also means that identity does not remain the same. For example, consider a person, Mark, who is fifty years old at time t 1 . Suddenly, he contracts a severe form of dementia that prevents him from exhibiting most of his former personality traits and impacts his first-person perspective. His symptoms are fully developed at time t 2 . In this case, he
did not have to undergo a bodily transfer to have the same mental changes as Charles in the
previous example. However, as established earlier, this change in cognitive function can change his
identity. The question thus remains: is he the same person? Many of us will have trouble answering
this question because it is difficult to comprehend the nature of this question. Does the question ask if Mark at time t 1 is the same as Mark at time t 2 , or does it ask if Mark at t 1 and Mark at time t 2 are both Mark? To help answer this question, let us consider a less extreme case. Consider a time t 1 where a child, Tim, is ten years old — with his unique first-person perspective and personal identity. Now, consider a time t 2 where Tim has grown to become a full-fledged 42-year-old adult. It is reasonable
to assume from people’s experience growing up that there will be tremendous changes in
personality, behavior, and personal identity because of the experiences and challenges Tim faces
17 Buckareff and Wagenen, 129. 18 Buckareff and Wagenen, 130.
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