The lecture sparked a profound exploration of identity. Questions emerged about sexuality, context, and perspective. But what if we turn the question inward? What does it mean to remain the same person across time? This inquiry draws from Galen Strawson’s interpretation of John Locke and Stuart Hall’s theory of representation.
For John Locke, as Strawson articulates in Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment (2005), personal identity is not a metaphysical constant but a forensic construct. The Lockean person is neither soul nor substance but a moral subject, defined by continuity of consciousness and memory. Strawson demonstrates that Locke’s concern lies not with essence but with how we assign responsibility, praise, and blame. The person becomes a narrative being, woven together by remembered experience and the capacity to own past actions. This is not a metaphysical claim about the self’s substance but a normative framework for accountability.
Stuart Hall, writing from a distinct tradition, reaches a strikingly parallel conclusion. In “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” (1990), Hall argues that identity is not a fixed essence but a production: always in process, always constituted within representation. Identity is not discovered but constructed through language, images, and cultural codes. It is shaped by discourse and power, by the systems of meaning that circulate through media and society. Representation, for Hall, is not a mirror of reality but a site where meaning is made and contested.
When Strawson’s Locke and Hall are placed in dialogue, a shared logic crystallizes. Both reject essentialism. Both understand identity as relational, contextual, and performative. Both recognize that identity is not merely about who we are but about how we are recognized: by ourselves, by others, and by the systems we inhabit. Locke’s forensic person and Hall’s cultural subject are both constructed through symbolic systems, one through memory and moral concernment, the other through discourse and representation.
This convergence becomes especially vivid in video games. A playable character is not merely a bundle of polygons and stats; it is a symbolic construct, a site of memory and meaning. When a player inhabits an avatar, they engage in Lockean continuity. They project consciousness into the character, make choices, accumulate memories, and assume responsibility for actions. The avatar becomes a forensic person, accountable within the game’s moral and narrative logic. Simultaneously, the avatar is a representation, encoded by designers and decoded by players. Its gender, race, voice, and body are not neutral; they are signs within a cultural system. A hypersexualized female character, for instance, encodes a particular ideology of femininity that can be accepted, resisted, or reinterpreted by players. Hall’s model reveals how these representations are not merely aesthetic but political, shaping how we understand ourselves and others.
Strawson’s reading of Locke emphasizes that personal identity is not about metaphysical sameness but about psychological continuity and moral concernment. This is precisely what games simulate when they allow players to make choices that shape a character’s development over time. In games like Mass Effect or Life is Strange, the player’s decisions determine not just plot but who that character becomes. The game tracks memory, consequence, and recognition (the Lockean criteria for personhood) within a symbolic system that Hall would recognize as deeply ideological.
Locke’s theory, as Strawson elaborates, can be expressed as a composite model: how the mind constructs complex ideas by combining simpler ones.
[M] – a whole human material body
[I] – an immaterial soul (if such exists)
[A] – a set of actions, thoughts, experiences, and memories, both present and past
This yields the Lockean person as [P] = [M] +/− [I] + [A]. Strawson notes the peculiarity of including [A] (actions and experiences) as part of what literally constitutes a person, but this is precisely where Locke’s forensic model gains its force. The person is not a metaphysical constant but a narrative being, stitched together by memory and capable of being held responsible. The “gappiness” in Locke’s formulation, as Strawson calls it, reflects the fluidity of identity: not a fixed essence but a symbolic continuity that stretches across time through acts of recognition and recollection.
In the symbolic economy of video games, this model resonates profoundly. A playable character is not just a visual asset; it is the Lockean person in motion. The avatar has a body [M], may or may not be coded with a soul [I], but always accumulates actions, remembers them, and uses them to shape narrative consequence. The character becomes a forensic subject, accountable within the game’s moral logic. The player, in turn, becomes a co-author of identity: projecting consciousness into the avatar, owning its past, and negotiating its future.
This recursive dynamic (a self-referential process in which identity is continuously constructed, interpreted, and reinterpreted) operates through two interlocking frameworks. Locke’s forensic person and Hall’s cultural subject reveal identity as both ontological and symbolic: a system of memory, meaning, and mediation. To design a character is to encode a theory of the person, embedding narrative and ideology. To play a character is to decode that theory, to inhabit it, to test its limits: the [M], [I], and [A]. In that inhabitation, we find not just a reflection of ourselves but a reconfiguration of what it means to be a person.
When we ask about identity, we are not merely asking “Who am I?” but “How do I remain myself over time?” Our experiences are what anchor us. They constitute who we are. Even if our bodies change, even if we remain uncertain about our souls, it is our memories and choices that hold us together.
“You know, find your way. Do a bit of soul searching on what you want to be…” – Neil Gallagher.
References:
Hall, S., 1973. Encoding/decoding. In: S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe and P. Willis, eds. 1980. Culture, Media, Language. London: Routledge, pp.128–138.
Hall, S., 1990. Cultural identity and diaspora. In: J. Rutherford, ed. Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart, pp.222–237.
Locke, J., 1690. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book II, Chapter XXVII: Of Identity and Diversity. London: Thomas Basset.
Strawson, G., 2005. Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
