@thane16
Hi, Thane!
For your problem, you’d have to distinguish between the different types of memory. We remember facts, events and what kind of person we are as different types of memory. My knowledge of this area of psychology is hugely out of date – there’s been a lot of recent research – but apparently our memory of our character is stored as a ‘fact’. That is, we remember ‘I am stubborn’ in the same way as ‘Grapes are okay to eat’.
So if Jack’s episodic memories have been changed, so that he now remembers success instead of failure, that would not change his ‘fact’ that he’s stubborn. The thousand things you’d have to change would have to include his ‘facts’ about the sort of person he is.
His sense of identity, that is, his sense of being the same person as the one in his memories, is also quite distinct from his sense of what sort of person he is. People can lose their memory almost completely, be so badly damaged that they can’t hold a coherent thought together for longer than a few seconds – and they’ll still have a sense of self.
So knowledge of oneself as a continuing identity doesn’t seem to depend on memory of oneself in the past. The self-knowledge seems to be carefully stored in a completely different place. In fact, its survivability in the face of multiple, severe damage suggests that our self-knowledge is some of the most ‘protected’ parts of our memory.
Philosophy, however, won’t depend on mere facts. 🙂 The question would be whether Jack has continuity with the person he was before he altered his memories. I’d say yes – he’s got physical continuity, he probably has trait continuity. Locke would disagree with me, though. Locke would go for continuity of memory.
Craig 4 years, 3 months ago.
