ABSTRACT
The relationship between the continuity of consciousness view and immortality is thus slightly more nuanced than it might have initially appeared. While the continuity of consciousness view avoids the problem posed by the Brave Officer case, views in the Lockean spirit face another objection that cannot be dealt with so easily. John Locke is often considered the father of philosophical discussion of personal identity. Several different intersecting questions are in play in philosophical discussions of personal identity. Ray Kurzweil describes his own philosophical position on personal identity as patternism: one's identity as a person lies principally in a pattern that persists through time. The person giving the State of the Union address can remember being sworn in as President and can remember being elected as the senator from Illinois and it's in these connections of episodic memory – in the sharing of consciousness – that personal identity consists.
