Member-only story
The Soul of Personal Identity
In Perry’s “A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality,” three views of personal identity and immortality are discussed: the body identity, psychological continuity, and the soul identity. While a body is always changing, growing, and developing at different stages, it remains the same genetic makeup our whole lives, so it could potentially be used to define personal identity. Yet a body dies, leaving us as mortals, so it is only a small contributing factor to identity. Psychological continuity stems from our brains and is different in every body, yet it also dies with our bodies because memories and thoughts die alongside brains. So what contributes to personal identity? The definition of identity stems from a unique factor that differentiates different people from one another. Because of that, the most plausible view of personal identity is the soul identity because it never dies and neither does our identity.
Although Aristotle did not believe that souls had a separate existence from a person’s body, he was a firm believer that “the first actuality of a naturally organized body” defines a soul. Souls are often correlated to religious beliefs because of the idea of Heaven and Hell or even Purgatory, but through Kirlian photography, there is a seen energy in living people that is not seen in dead people, which is a possible explanation of souls. Even though this energy is not seen in a…
