Personal Identity And Memory Theory

(i) Memory theory suggests that genuine memory relations constitute Personal Identity . In its initial form, memory relations are created when a person establishes some form of extension in conscious activity within the mind. However, memory gaps can be factored in and despite being the same person, people can sometimes forget an event in the past that links each person to being one and the same . As such, the remedy to this problem is to introduce the idea of a chain of memory connections. Person n (n being the n-th term…1,2,3,4, infinity, etc.) and Person 1 are memory connected if there is a stage in the chain containing at least one memory of something experienced by the preceding person-stage (Pn) and time (Tn). If P1 at T1 is connected …show more content…
If the single body cease to exist, due to the nature of the link between psychological person stages, the memory is not able to continue and hence, survival is not possible. The duplication objection gives rise to the theory that many alternative casual processes that may provide survival for one endorsing the view of memory theory should exist. In John Perry’s Dialog on Personal Identity, the duplication objection observed the idea that upon death, God transfers all information of a person from past to future onto a “heavenly rememberer” in order for survival of the memory to continue. This heavenly rememberer would think, speak, remember and experience all the things we have experienced in life and have the capability of passing by as any individual that God wishes to preserve. However, this is a problem for personal identity. Personal Identity relates to the understanding of an individual’s identity. If God could create duplicates, the identity of the singular individual would be …show more content…
A lack of competition would solely identify a person to be that individual person due to the sense that there are none others that could share the experiences and memories of that person. Therefore, through memory and lack of competition, the preservation of personal identity could be established. These in turn states that any one person (P1), can survive in the future just as long as the mental life is linked with another person (P2) with the same mental life through genuine memory. This uniquely states that whomsoever the unique person (P2) is in the future, he/she will be the same person as P1 due to a shared connectedness of mental life. However, certain problems may arise from this. Just because someone shares the same mental connectivity, the proceeding individual does not constitute immediately that the preceding individual has preserved personal identity. Memories could be perceived in a different view. If P2 received memory of P1, two different outcomes may