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Single Idea 5666

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

Full Idea

Not every experience can be remembered; otherwise each piece of remembering, which is itself an experience, would have to be remembered, and each remembering of a remembering and so ad infinitum.

Gist of Idea

Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress

Source

A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)

Book Ref

Ayer,A.J.: 'The Concept of a Person etc' [Macmillan 1973], p.114

A Reaction

See Idea 5667. Ayer takes for granted two sorts of consciousness - current awareness, and memory. Ayer brings out a nice difficulty for Locke's proposal, but also draws attention to what may be a very basic misunderstanding about the mind.

Related Idea

The 21 ideas with the same theme [relationship between the sense of Self and memories]:

22984 Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine]
17216 The poet who forgot his own tragedies was no longer the same man [Spinoza]
5175 Personal identity is my perceptions, but not my memory, as I forget too much [Ayer on Locke]
1363 Locke's theory confusingly tries to unite consciousness and memory [Reid on Locke]
1368 Locke mistakes similarity of a memory to its original event for identity [Reid on Locke]
1373 Identity over time involves remembering actions just as they happened [Locke]
1380 Should we punish people who commit crimes in their sleep? [Locke]
5027 If a person's memories became totally those of the King of China, he would be the King of China [Leibniz]
12942 Memory doesn't make identity; a man who relearned everything would still be the same man [Leibniz]
21313 If consciousness of events makes our identity, then if we have forgotten them we didn't exist then [Butler]
1333 Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume]
1332 We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume]
21305 Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume]
21307 Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume]
21323 The identity of a thief is only known by similarity, but memory gives certainty in our own case [Reid]
7120 It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre]
5666 Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress [Ayer]
5665 Memory is the best proposal as what unites bundles of experiences [Ayer]
1389 If memory is the sole criterion of identity, we ought to use it for other people too [Shoemaker]
1390 Bodily identity is one criterion and memory another, for personal identity [Shoemaker, by PG]
19744 If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers]