Personal Identity: What Makes Someone The Same Over Time

We as human beings have the tendency to perceive many things in the world to remain constant throughout the course of time. This belief brings up the question of what makes something the same over time, and more importantly what makes a person the same over time, which ties in with an issue of personal identity. Personal identity, in the broadest sense, is the self-concept of whom we perceive we are. The complication of personal identity is identifying and knowing what exactly it means to be the same person over time. One can simply state physical appearance or mental state falls under the criteria to determine what makes someone the same person over time, but it is far more complex and too simple to just say that because our bodies and mental states are constantly changing. It is strenuous difficult to find a solution to this problem due to finding the criteria necessary to confirm if someone is the same person from years, days, or even minutes prior.

Numerical identity meaning person A is equal to person B. Bruce Wayne and Batman are a great example of numerical identity. Bruce Wayne is numerically identical with Batman in the sense that there is only one person. Given the fact they are the same individual person, they are not separate entities. As one can now see, it is not a simple solution to solving personal identity’s problem, but there a few theories that try to resolve the issue of personal identity, which will be introduced later on. The difficulty of the problem revolves around many questions, objections to the theories that try and solve the issue of personal identity, and unknown criteria with no absolute answers. The conditions that for person two at time two being the same as person one at an earlier time, time one, is ultimately why the conflict of personal identity cannot be easily