In another thread (which I cannot find), someone said something along the lines of identity being dependent on memory. For UK members, there is a programme on Five 9pm tonight about a guy with psychogenic fugue - memory suddenly shuts down and wipes clean memory banks. It happened on Dec 4 2005 and the programme is about him trying to find out who he was and who he has since become.
Our experiences shape us. They pretty much define who we are. Without those memories, we have to start all over agin.
I imagine it would be rather like uprooting a tree. The tree is the self one has built. The remaining soil is that which lead to part of the development of the tree and might be able to foster something similar if much of the same information is brought back.
Hypothetically, if you were to take a person and remove all of his or her memories, and then put them back through the exact same life circumstances, would you get the same personality?
Interesting question. This reminds me of Putnam's Twin Earth 'experiment'. Ultimately, the answer to your question depends on two things: firstly, on how you define "personality" and secondly, on the ontological status of memories. For myself, I would tend to say yes, you would get the same personality. Given your "exact" "circumstances" premiss, it seems to me that the personality thereby developed could only be identical to the 'original run', so to speak.
yes It's not like Saturn and Neptune align and we shouldn't make any business decisions because we aren't likable that moon-phase. Life circumstances are the only players to creating personality. There wouldn't be anything externally influencing it.
You don't think there are some situations in which a choice could be made with small or no reference to past experiences? (I admit I'm hard pressed to think of any right now, so...) Ah, I suppose you're right. Even if it was a circumstance never before encountered, like a sudden fright, how we respond in the immediate and how we regard that experience are dependent on what? Our brain chemistry? Did the big dog lunging at the fence suddenly scare us and make us afraid of dogs, or were we excited by the adrenalin rush? Hmm, just a musing.
identity experience/s memory Surely they are all not inter-dependent? Is memory a conscious exercise (or whatever the word is ... got a migraine right now and am not focusing too well!) Exact same circumstances would mean everyone else in his life (and that could be a heck of a lot of bods) having them as well, because experiences are often reactive or proactive (meaning involving others). So this particular experiment is unlikely to be accurate. If all our cells or at least the 'conscious' ones are wiped clean, can they not be re-programmed? It happens time and again with name changes, partners or parents walking out and starting new lives; witness change programmes and so forth. I didn't watch the programme in the end, but from what I gather, there was a drive in him to seek, so at least one part of him did not disappear. Maybe it was a part that had been repressed and needed to surface...?
