Locke, like Leibniz, believes that our identity resides in our memories or, more generally, our consciousness. There is much to recommend this view. Certainly if we lost all our memories, there would be good reason to say that we no longer exist. But is it necessarily true that wherever our consciousness goes, we go? Let's put this theory to the test.

Suppose that it's sometime late in the twenty-first century, and you have come down with one of the last incurable diseases. Your doctor informs you that traditional medicine can do nothing to save you. There is, however, a new procedure that may allow you to escape what otherwise would be certain death. Scientists have recently perfected a device that records the entire contents of your mind by performing a very detailed scan of your brain. . . . This information can then be transferred into a newly minted clone of yourself. This clone can be any age you desire. (Adult clones can be produced in a few weeks by artificially speeding up the cell division process.) . . .

Those who have undergone the procedure report that, from a first person's point of view, it's no different [from] going to sleep and waking up in the morning. . . . One caveat: the brain is destroyed by the scan. So if something goes wrong during the scan, it's impossible to start over from the beginning.

Would you undergo such a procedure? Suppose you did. Would the resulting person be you? Many believe so . . . But I'm skeptical. The resulting person, I believe, would at best be a copy of you, not the real you.

To see this, we need only alter one aspect of our scenario. Suppose that the brain scan is nondestructive. So you make a clone of yourself, transfer your consciousness into that clone, and continue to exist. Would that clone be you? Of course not. It would be a copy of you. The clone would think that it was you, and it might even look like you. But that wouldn't make it you. It wouldn't have the right to sleep with your [husband or] wife or collect your paycheck, for example. . . .

What's more, if the clone would be a copy of you in the case where you continue to exist, it would be a copy of you in the case where you cease to exist. Even if photocopiers destroyed the original documents they scanned, the resulting documents would not be the originals. Similarly, even if a consciousness-copier destroyed the original brain it scanned, the resulting person would not be the original. So it is not necessarily true that where your consciousness goes, you go.

Persons are not like songs whose identity is unaffected by the instrument on which they're played. They're more like performances which are unique, unrepeatable events. In philosophical terms, they are more like particulars than universals. You can record a performance, but when you play it back it is not the same event as the original performance. It may be similar, but it is not one and the same.

--Theodore Schick, Jr., "Can You Go to Heaven?" Free Inquiry, Fall 1999, p. 54