The Composite View and the Hard Problem of Diachronic Identity

The enigma of diachronic identity continues to challenge philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. The current paper will first review a recent taxonomy developed by philosophers that groups theories of identity into simple and complex views. An ideal theory of identity would satisfy proponents of both views and this requires addressing what we will term the hard problem of identity. The hard problem of identity parallels Chalmers' formulation of the hard problem of consciousness and requires that any theory of identity address the first-person perspective. Theories that address this problem will be termed composite theories of identity. It will be seen that potential solutions to the hard problem of consciousness can point us toward a formulation of composite identity. We will develop a theory of composite identity from dual aspect theories of consciousness which will be termed dual aspect composite identity. Dual aspect composite identity takes information to have both first- and third-person aspects and will be used to demonstrate the possibility of successfully combining simple and complex views of identity. The final section of the paper will examine how the new theory deals with some of the standard difficult scenarios in personal identity.