Personal Identity

Personal Identity
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Question 1
The soul is the immortal part of humans that is infused by God upon creation and never goes away even in death. Substantially is what grants humans life and brings about actuality to the human body. Whether from a religious, mythological or philosophical point of view, the soul is often regarded as the foundation of reason, feelings, character, memory, thinking, and consciousness.
Question 2
According to Gretchen Weirob, she could not establish why Miller only had to choose one type of chocolate when she presented many of them. However, she establishes that Miller relied on the swirls on top of the chocolate, which provided a hint that it was made of caramel (Perry, 1978). Hence, Gretchen believes that if the chocolate is made of a specific filling, one can identify what flavor it is, and so is the foundation on which Miller chose that particular piece of chocolate.
Question 3
Gretchen Weirob’s chocolate analogy strives to understand, in an imaginative language, how the soul is an actual representation of the physical body we encounter. To her, the physical body is the equivalent of the chocolate filling and the soul is a representation of the flavors inside like the caramel, orange and so forth. To Weirob, it is merely impossible to identify what taste a chocolate candy offers if one has not eaten it in the past. Notably, this is evident by Miller’s admission that he cannot make a credible hypothesis on the “same swirl, same filling” premise (Perry, 1978).

Question 4
The soul theory of personal identity posits that a person remains the same even at a later time but only if they exhibit similar immaterial soul. Simply put, personal identity remains the only fundamental component of identity. On the contrary, Gretchen’s analogy maintains that the hypothetical principle of “same swirl, same filling” is groundless. As such, she equates the inability of another person to determine whether the sameness of the body represents the sameness of the soul as there are no means of testing such a hypothesis.
Reference
Perry, J. (1978). Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. New York: Oxford University Press.