Who am I? What makes me who I am? My friends would probably say that my genuine nature and compassion make me who I am. They might also say that I find a way to create my own identity without even trying and that I make my own path with my morals as a guide. I'd probably say it's because of my good looks, my intelligence and my charm. My experiences, my parents and the environment I find myself in have helped establish my identity. In the writings Reasons and Persons and “Personal Identity,” Derek Parfit discusses his ideas about what matters more, personal identity or survival, and states that it is survival, rather than personal identity, that matters. Where Parfit expresses this view, this is where I disagree. I believe that where there is survival there must be personal identity. Both should go hand in hand and there is more to personal identity than psychological/bodily continuity. I think to some extent Parfit is right that survival is what matters, overall it is better to survive than physically die, but if your personal identity is gone, that doesn't make you dead as a person and a new person is in your place? In an article, Derek Parfit claims that: “The real reason now seems to me to be this. Does personal identity consist only in bodily and psychological continuity, or is it a further fact, independent of the facts relating to these continuities? Our reactions to the “problem cases” demonstrate, in my opinion, that we believe in the latter hypothesis. And we seem inclined to believe that this further fact is particularly profound and is all or nothing: we believe that in every describable case it must hold completely or not at all. My main thesis is the denial of this further fact” (Robinson). In Reasons and Persons, Parfit states that what matters is pe...... middle of paper ......continue with me. For me to survive, in the way that matters to Parfit, means that it is enough for someone to inherit enough of my psychological attributes. If two or more people inherit my attributes, that is almost as good as normal survival. However, I would argue that this idea of ​​being the same person is what matters in survival/continued existence. When one is divided, one ceases to exist. Even if they carry with them remnants of the past, that doesn't make them so. Works Cited Fumerton, Richard and Diane Jeske. Presenting Philosophy Through Film: Key Texts, Discussion, and Film Selections [Paperback]. Print.Parfit, Derek. Personal identity. The Philosophical Review, vol. 80, no. 1 (January 197), pp. 3-27. Robinson, John. Personal identity and survival. The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 85, no. 6 (June 1988), pp. 319-328