Single Idea 12942

[catalogued under 16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self]

Full Idea

If a man were made young again, and learned everything anew - would that make him a different man? So it is not memory that makes the very same man.

Gist of Idea

Memory doesn't make identity; a man who relearned everything would still be the same man

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)

Book Reference

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.114


A Reaction

Leibniz takes this as a foregone conclusion. If you flipped to a possible world where someone you know well, as a physical being, has been brought up entirely differently (new language, culture, ethics etc), is it really the same person?