X-Message-Number: 9203
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 08:07:10 -0800
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: Re:memory

In Message #9201, Robert Ettinger <> writes:

>For one thing, suppose (as in the movie TOTAL RECALL) that false memories are
>somehow substituted for your real ones. The protagonist in the movie says, "If
>I'm not me, then who the hell am I?" If memory MAKES or defines the
>individual, then the protagonist was indeed "me"--meaning the person
>identified by those false memories.

First, this supposes that substituting fictional memories for real ones is
possible.  There's good reason to suppose that it's not.  But if it were,
then yes, you would partially be a new person, with an identity defined by
those new memories.  And this makes sense: if you have different moral and
political views, different memories of childhood, different loves and
hates, than in what way are you *not* a different person?

>Certainly the example above is itself oversimplified; Mike did not say, and
>probably no one believes, that memory is the SOLE criterion of identity or
>survival. But if it is the main one, or even a necessary one, the problem
>alluded to exists.

It's not a bad approximation to call it the sole criterion of identity, as
long as you remember that there are many types of memories besides explicit
declarative memory.  There are a whole host of types of implicit memory,
which make up your knowledge and personality.  And the I don't see how the
situation alluded to is a problem.

>Another example of a problem shared by the memory criterion: Suppose "you" are
>thawed out and repaired, or reconstituted, or duplicated, or whatever--but
>with the memories you had at a much earlier date, not at time of freezing or
>whatever. Have "you" survived?

You have partially or mostly survived, just as if you are in a car accident
and have partial retrograde amnesia (i.e., you can't remember events for a
certain time period prior to the accident), which is fairly common.  What
exactly is the problem here?

>It isn't good enough to shrug and say it's a matter of personal opinion or
>personal values, or that we can never know the "real" answer, or that there
>isn't any "true" answer. It is certainly possible that the final answer, when
>we find it, will be unpalatable, but there IS an answer. Every question,
>SUFFICIENTLY WELL FORMED, has an unambiguous, objective answer. (That is my
>"religion" at any rate.)

My religion is different in that I don't believe every question can be
sufficiently well formed, without being a different question.  What is the
best color?  Perhaps I think it's blue.  You could change the question to
something objective (e.g., what color has the greatest effect in improving
mood of the average American?), but then it's a different question, and
doesn't tell me what's the best color for *me*.

However, we can require that an answer be logical, self-consistent, and
consistent with other axioms (it is only the choice of axioms upon which we
may disagree).  And most answers to the personal identity question fail on
tests of logic or self-consistency, or are not consistent with common usage
of the concept.  (Fuzzy memory theory is not one of these, however.)  So
while there may not be a single objective answer, some answers are
definately better than others.

Best regards,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|               http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/  |
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