The Bi-Location Effect

In order to care for their offspring, parents must be able to re-identify their children in different circumstances. In order to re-pay a favor, we must be able to re-identity the person who showed us kindness originally. What criteria are involved in our ordinary concept of personal identity? Philosophers claim that, on the ordinary view, one person cannot be in two places at the same time. In a groundbreaking investigation, my lab found that commonsense rejects this “one-person-one-place rule.” Most people judge that a person can exist in two different locations for over a week and despite undergoing different bodily changes in the two locations. Bi-location is conceptually possible.