If you woke up tomorrow with a different set of memories, would you still be you?
By Edwin McRae - Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
A while back I watched A Scanner Darkly. While this is a good enough film (and yet another cinematic adaptation of a Philip K Dick novel), it’s certainly not the best film I’ve seen about fractured identities and perspectives that are warped by drugs or technology. Total Recall has much more fun with the
topic. Based on “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale†by Philip K. Dick, it raises the fundamental question – do memories define character? If your memories tell you that you are a gun-slinging, ass-kicking spy; does that make you a gun-slinging, ass-kicking spy? Bladerunner (based on Philip K Dick’s, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) takes a more meditative approach to the topic. Is the film-noiresque hero, Deckard, real or not? Is he a human or is he a replicant who has forgotten that he is artificial. The random selection of antique photos on Deckard’s piano gives us a clue. Are they a record of Deckard’s past or are they a badly constructed history; a collation of tenuously linked memories. Then there’s the unicorn dream he keeps having. Again, is this his subconscious at work or another memory, implan
ted by Tyrell Corporation? Similarly, if you can hide memories, can you hide a personality? Take Talia Winters from Babylon 5. One minute she is a mild mannered telepath, minding her own business as best she can, the next minute her ‘sleeper’ personality has been activated and she’s a cold-blooded killer. Ditto with The Long Kiss Goodnight. Amiable housewife becomes professional killer. There are many many many other examples. But just one question really. If you woke up tomorrow with a completely different set of memories, would you still be you?
ted by Tyrell Corporation? Similarly, if you can hide memories, can you hide a personality? Take Talia Winters from Babylon 5. One minute she is a mild mannered telepath, minding her own business as best she can, the next minute her ‘sleeper’ personality has been activated and she’s a cold-blooded killer. Ditto with The Long Kiss Goodnight. Amiable housewife becomes professional killer. There are many many many other examples. But just one question really. If you woke up tomorrow with a completely different set of memories, would you still be you?
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hmmm…good question…I think if I woke up without my memory, I would still have my basic personality intact, but perhaps all those negative fears, beliefs and emotions that may have been holding me back from certain things would be gone…perhaps it would be liberating!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
True. But what if someone replaced your memories with a bunch of new ones, including a few bad ones to give you a fresh batch of hang-ups and phobias. Depressing thought. I think I’ll just go with your perspective, that we would wake up as a tabula rasa, without our baggage. It’s more hopeful.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I believe it is our experiences that make us who we are.As in, the memories of what we’ve been through in life. But a memory with out a lesson learned or feeling attached to it is pretty much useless.
I could have an implanted memory of me shooting people or kissing someone. But with out a fragmented feeling to go with it… it might not do any good (or bad).
Great site…O and I love Total Recall.