Abstract: Provided our mental life continues we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic physical alterations. It was this fact that led John Locke to conclude that a credible account of our persistence conditions should be framed in terms of mental rather than material continuity. But mental continuity comes in different forms. Most of Locke's contemporary followers agree that our continued existence is secured by psychological continuity, which they take to be made up of memories, beliefs, intentions, personality traits, and the like. This book argues that a better and more believable account can be framed in terms of the sort of continuity we find in our streams of consciousness from moment to moment. Why? Simply because provided this continuity is not lost — provided our streams of consciousness flow on — we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic psychological alterations. In short, phenomenal continuity seems to provide a more reliable guide to our persistence than any other form of continuity. This book is a full-scale defence and elaboration of this premise. Losses of consciousness are the most serious problem facing any experience-based approach: how can we survive them? The book shows how the problem can be solved in a satisfactory manner by construing ourselves as systems of experiential capacities. Other issues discussed include embodiment, the simplicity of the self, mental holism and fission.

Keywords: identity, John Locke, consciousness, psychological continuity, phenomenal continuity, experiential capacities, embodiment, simplicity, holism, fission