It's been two years now since I got a job and moved to a new city. I've grown more distant from my family and friends from home. Sometimes I wake up and my life bears absolutely no resemblance to what it once used to be. How can I be sure that I am still the same individual? What obligations do I have to the people with whom "I" once was close?

Why is a person responsible for crimes they have committed in the past? How can we be certain that a person who commits an act at one moment in time has the same moral status as they had at another moment of time. So a person who murders a person at one moment may actually be a person who has a benevolent and charitable disposition the next moment. Wouldn't it be wrong to harm a benevolent and charitable person just because of what they did in the past when they held values that are different than what they currently hold?

Is it irrational to desire or view as beneficial things which would, in effect, make one a different person? For example, take someone who has a great admiration for David Beckham. While there it might seem perfectly ordinary for this person to say things like "I wish I were just like David Beckham," it seems to me that this wish, if taken literally, is somehow incoherent.

Why do philosophers care about answering question on identity or consciousness?

Two weeks ago, a caterpillar wove a chrysalis, and turned into a butterfly. There was no butterfly two weeks ago, only a caterpillar. Nonetheless, can I still point to the butterfly and say "that buttefly existed two weeks ago"?

We can only live in this "here&now moment"...in fact, there is no way we can ever live out of "IT"...is it not?

I often find the word 'individuation' used in philosophy of mind, i.e., "individuation of beliefs". Yet, I have a very vague idea of what 'individuation' means. Moreover, it seems that different philosophers use the word in different ways. The closest explanation of the aforementioned phrase I have seen is: "a way to taxonomize beliefs". But on what basis does this taxonomy rest?

Hi there! I wanted to re-open a question that was posted a couple of years ago, by probing a bit further. This is what "Mario" asked [http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/1142]: "Does the individual consciousness depend on the actual atoms or only on the configuration of the atoms? Suppose we have mastered cryo-freezing and atom-manipulation technology. We can freeze and unfreeze people at will. We freeze Sarah. We replace Sarah's atoms one by one. With all atoms replaced, we wake her up. Is it the "same" Sarah? (the same to herself, not just to us)." I'd like to add that I recently heard that over a few years, every single cell in our bodies is replaced, except for a few memory cells that last much longer. But given during our lives, we WILL eventually be composed of different atoms to those with which we started, and that it is generally agreed that we nevertheless remain the same "people"/"consciousnesses" throughout, where does that leave us? If it means that it must be structure/organization of...

My younger brother, who is 13, is arguing that he will not go through any drastic changes in personality and mannerisms from now until the future and therefore a child is no different from an adult. I argued in the contrary stating that he will go through a lot of changes that might radically alter his outlook on life and personality. Is this correct or does it vary from person to person?

Suppose a man commits murder and is then promptly involved in a car crash that leads to complete loss of all his memories prior to the car crash. The police have indisputable proof that the man did indeed commit the murder. Should they prosecute? If you conclude that they should because in some sense he's physically the same person what if a murderer somehow makes a copy of themselves and then commits suicide, should the copy be prosecuted? If you conclude that they shouldn't be prosecuted because the person after the accident is a different person from before the accident what if there's indisputable evidence that all of their memories will return in 5 years? 5 weeks? 5 days? To my mind the person after the accident is a different person from the one who committed the murder and should therefore not be prosecuted. If the memories return then they should be prosecuted but we shouldn't punish them for a crime "they" didn't commit. But I am unsure as to how much of their memories need to return before...