Amy Kindthat we were once very young infants? Here one might look to the kind of view that in recent years
has been put forth by Jeff McMahan. Like continuity of consciousness theorists, McMahan claims
that our continued existence depends on our having the same consciousness – or as he typically puts
it, the same mind. Unlike such theorists, however, McMahan assigns critical importance to the embodi-
ment of minds in brains. On this view, often referred to as the embodied mind view, a person’s continued
existence through time consists in the continued existence and functioning of the brain. In particular,
the brain must continue to function in such a way that it supports the capacity for consciousness.
This emphasis on the capacity for consciousness is another way in which the embodied mind
view departs from the continuity of consciousness view. Theorists in the Lockean tradition tend
to require continuity of at least some psychological contents. In contrast, McMahan does not.
On his view, even if a brain has been completely “deprogrammed,” with its contents systemati-
cally wiped and destroyed, there is no threat to personal identity as long as the brain retains its
capacity for conscious functioning (McMahan 2002: 68). This emphasis on capacity also allows
the embodied mind view to defuse the threat of the fetus problem discussed above. Current
scientific understanding suggests that a fetus’s brain will develop the capacity for consciousness
somewhere between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. Thus, the embodied mind view can accom-
modate the claim that we were once fetuses – or at least, that we were once third-trimester
fetuses. In this way, the embodied mind view occupies a nice middle ground between the con-
tinuity of consciousness view and the animalist view. Though it assigns consciousness central
importance in thinking about our personal identity over time, it also accommodates the intui-
tion that there is more to our continued identity than just the contents of that consciousness.
But now recall the teleporter cases that we encountered above. When functioning normally, a
teleporter dematerializes the original body that steps onto the transporter pad. It doesn’t simply
wipe out the contents of the brain; it destroys it entirely. The embodied mind view thus entails
that teleportation is not simply a method of high-speed transport. Rather, it is more akin to a
suicide machine.
Relatedly, cases of uploading also pose trouble for the embodied mind view. In these early
years of the 21st century, it seems that it is only a matter of time before technology has suffi-
ciently developed to enable us to leave behind our physical bodies and upload our consciousness
to machines or to the cloud. While some cognitive scientists question the technological feasi-
bility of this vision, the embodied mind view rules it out in principle; without the continued
functioning of your brain, you cease to exist. This position runs counter to that of many futurists
writing on the possibility of uploading. In their view, the prospect of uploading shouldn’t be
viewed as death but rather as a way of achieving potential immortality.
Of course, the mere fact that immortality might be desirable does not in itself make it pos-
sible.^8 Anyone who argued in favor of the continuity of consciousness view over a physical
approach, like animalism or the embodied view, solely on the grounds that they desired immor-
tality would be guilty of fallacious reasoning. It’s also worth noting that the simple view of per-
sonal identity that we encountered briefly above – a view that sees personal identity as simply
a matter of sameness of soul – is also compatible with immortality. In fact, traditionally, it’s this
kind of soul-based view that has been most closely associated with claims about immortality.^9
The relationship between the continuity of consciousness view and immortality is thus
slightly more nuanced than it might have initially appeared. But that said, insofar as there are
reasons to believe that your uploaded consciousness would still really be you, or insofar as there
are other reasons to believe in the possibility of immortality, the physical approach to personal
identity does seem to be threatened. So are there any such reasons? In the final section of this
essay, we examine in more detail the case for the conceptual possibility of achieving life after
bodily death, by way of uploading or other means.