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I was thinking about the spiritual metals in Feruchemy and about cognitive shadows. I did a quick search and didn't find anyone else making this connection, so hopefully this has some merit. One of the reasons that some in-world philosophers consider the cognitive shadows as the same person as the recently deceased is probably the fact that at least some of them retain their memories or personality. This seems to be more evident with the Fused who, varying degrees of madness not withstanding, appear to have the same personality across their many "rebirths". In Feruchemy, aluminum allows a trueself to store their identity. Meanwhile, copper allows an archivist to store their memories. Some real-world philosophies believe our identities are nothing more than the sum of our perceptions, which include our memories. That is, that there is no underlying sense of self that will be the owner of our various ideas, memories and impressions. The existence of "Identity" suggests that this isn't the case in the Cosmere, and that there is a sense of self and "Me" that doesn't quite depend entirely on your experiences. If we consider that Identity is what makes you you, then a cognitive shadow will only be the original person if they keep their Identity. Depending on the differences between blanking your Identity and storing all of your memories on a coppermind, this could mean that you can keep your Identity and parts of your personality even if you lose all your memories or that you can keep some aspects of your personality even if you lose your Identity. While knowledge of the difference between storing Identity and storing all of your memories won't allow in-world philosophers to reach any conclusions regarding whether cognitive shadows are the original or a copy, it might give them further (and perhaps better) proof to support their own opinions. For example, if storing all your memories doesn't make your entire personality disappear and allows you to keep some skills, it could be used as another proof that the Returned are the original people. Or if blanking Identity doesn't affect memories or connections, it could be used as a proof that at least some cognitive shadows are simple copies and not the originals. I know that it doesn't really answer the question about them, but I hope this might add a little to the discussion surrounding cognitive shadows, both in-world and in the real one. What do you think? Could this be of some help to the professors at Silverlight? And how could connection work into this? That's all I can think of for now. I look forward to what ideas you may have.
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