From: Stuart Armstrong (dragondreaming@googlemail.com)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2008 - 06:27:43 MDT
> Why do you believe preservation of memories is important in the first place?
Partially because of what happens when memories are lost; alzhimer
patients and amnesiacs are most definetly not the same person they
were.
Also because of the role that memories play in deciding an action;
before doing something, my memories of previous occurances resurface,
along with memories of people's reactions, maybe of some book I read,
maybe of some conversation with friends, maybe of some news report.
These are very important for most of my decisions (especially if I
include "instinctive memories" as well). So most of my actions, and of
the things I say, are heavily influenced by my memories.
If my memories were different, I would act differently, speak
differently, and deal with situations differently. I do not see how
this person could credibly be considered to be me. Hence memories are
a necessary condition for identity - though probably not sufficient.
Stuart
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:02 MDT