Memory is a tricky thing. Just today a co-worker and I were looking for some misplaced publicity materials. Trying to dig up the last time we saw them, we finally admitted to each other that our memories were so vague that we might just be making them up. Jeff Wilson spins Buddhist and Taoist threads into a midrash on memory. Beautiful, beautiful piece.
« ‘Total Information Awareness’ loses Congressional support
» Just duct that mother
« ‘Total Information Awareness’ loses Congressional support
» Just duct that mother
» Just duct that mother
We are what we remember. Or are we?
02.13.03 | 3 Comments
3 Comments
« ‘Total Information Awareness’ loses Congressional support
» Just duct that mother
The linked piece helped me. Thanks.
“We are what we remember…?” Good question. As you mention, memory is a tricky, subjective thing. However, habit or —more to the point— behavior isn’t. Behavior is built through a lengthy process of action and response: conditioning. Perhaps we might also call it “history.” A person may not keep memory of the events that gave shape to their behavior; still, that doesn’t mean that those events in their history didn’t happen.
Maybe we aren’t our memories, since they are not reliable; perhaps they only give us our character or persona. I think it’s more reliable to say “We are how we behave.”
Now to what brought on this diatribe: the observations made in Memento about memory. How does that fit into all this? Now I’m not sure…
Talk of “behavior” and “history” is a little too deterministic for my taste, but I catch your point. I don’t see any reason to make memory the only definer of self; it’s probably just one among a handful. And habit seems another good candidate.
If we characterized “history” as the chosen narrowing of our own options (for good and for ill), then I’d go for that. But I think we can usually make choices contrary to our habits, history, and memories, so I can’t see any of them playing the trump card. I think they’re probably all in a constant game of ‘king of the mountain’ with each other.