John Locke Reflection Paper

John Locke stated that the identity of persons was the identity of conscious. What Locke meant by this is even if our body changes our mind doesn’t such as our memory’s. So for example, many people have horror accidents where they lose their arms, fingers or even legs, but either way the memory stays the same therefore they are the same person. Locke focused a lot on memory, he thought that our memory’s made us who we are and if we were to switch brains with someone and our memory were now in their body of another person 's. That the person who held the memory is now the same person they were before they switched bodies. So for example, if I was to break my mother’s favorite vase, then decide I wanted to switch bodies with my brother, but I

Locke also thought that the word person was a forensic term, Locke thought that if a person committed a crime but didn’t remember it then they were not responsible for that crime. That they were typically a different person. Locke theory does have some flaws with this I mean Locke states that we become who we are based on our first memory, but as I saw on crash course, no one remembers their birth nor the first few years of our life therefore does that mean we were a different person then? Along with this flaw there is the flaw of Locke says if we lose our memory does that would mean we were no longer the same person so if I hit my head on a rock and forget any memory of the last month does that mean I’m no longer the same person as I was before I hit my head. In conclusion, I believe that if John Locke was asked the question of whether he thought Bill Gates was now Gill Bates or a new person he would say that the person who has awoken in the recovery room is still Bill