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16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self

[relationship between the sense of Self and memories]

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