If some typical form of materialism is true, then each person is his or her body. The implication is that an old person may be said to be identical to himself as a child only in a loose and popular sense. If we take this sort of materialism seriously, we will have to say that no person strictly persists through any change of parts. Chisholm finds this incredible. He recalls an argument attributed to C. S. Peirce: suppose you are about to undergo surgery. Suppose you are told that you can save a lot of money by taking the surgery without anesthesia. Instead, you will be given amnesia-inducing drugs that will make you forget the pain afterwards. Still you might be uneasy, since you might fear that the man undergoing the painful surgery will be you. Chisholm then continues: