What Keeps You the Same Person? A Thread of Consciousness, or a Heritage
What makes a person remain the same over time? John Locke's answer was continuity of consciousness, rather than simply having the same body or soul. An article on disputes over Onkwehón:we identity sets a different emphasis beside it: education scholar Marie Battiste and lawyer and educator James (Sa'ke'j) Youngblood Henderson focus on the unique manifestations of Onkwehón:we knowledge, heritage and consciousness. Read together, the two accounts pull in different directions — one locates identity in a private thread that a mind can check for itself, the other in knowledge and heritage that belong to a people.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Locke's test is oddly lonely. Run it strictly and "am I still the same person?" becomes a question one mind asks itself about its own continuity.
Lonely, but it also sets a hard bar for the alternative. If identity runs through a people's knowledge and heritage, that isn't something anyone can settle alone in a room.