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    Episodic memory is logically sufficient for personal iden... — Carmelics
    Home/Personal Identity
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Episodic memory is logically sufficient for personal identity across time

    Personal Identity
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.If a person episodically remembers an event, that person must have existed at the time of the event
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    • 2.The Previous Awareness Condition holds that episodic memory requires the rememberer's prior awareness of the remembered event
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    • 3.Semantic memory (e.g., knowing that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo) does not entail the rememberer's existence at the time of the event
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.A person can sincerely seem to remember an experience they never had, as Locke's own prince-cobbler case implies and Reid's brave officer paradox exposes.
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    • 2.If apparent memory can be phenomenologically indistinguishable from genuine memory, memory cannot by itself constitute identity without circularity.
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    • 3.Establishing that a memory is 'genuine' already presupposes the numerical identity of the rememberer, making memory logically insufficient as a non-circular ground for identity.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Sydney Shoemaker and Derek Parfit demonstrate that psychological continuity via memory is compatible with fission cases where one person branches into two distinct persons.
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    • 2.If episodic memory were logically sufficient for personal identity, fission would entail that one person is numerically identical to two distinct persons simultaneously, violating transitivity of identity.
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    • 3.Because memory-based continuity fails to individuate in branching cases, it cannot be logically sufficient for personal identity across time.
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    Topics

    Personal Identity

    Connections

    1 topic

    Truth & Knowledge2 linked

    Related

    A person can sincerely seem to remember an experience they never had, as Locke's...Because memory-based continuity fails to individuate in branching cases, it cann...Establishing that a memory is 'genuine' already presupposes the numerical identi...If a person episodically remembers an event, that person must have existed at th...
    +5 moreShow less
    If apparent memory can be phenomenologically indistinguishable from genuine memo...If episodic memory were logically sufficient for personal identity, fission woul...Semantic memory (e.g., knowing that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo) does not ...Sydney Shoemaker and Derek Parfit demonstrate that psychological continuity via ...The Previous Awareness Condition holds that episodic memory requires the remembe...

    Similar

    The memory criterion holds that personal identity requires the ability...88%Personal identity over time is constituted by psychological continuity...85%The conceptual and evidential ties between memory and personal identit...84%The memory criterion for personal identity is circular and therefore u...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: reid-memory-identity
    View source passageHide passage
    Reid, Locke and others are interested in the notion of episodic memory not only for its own sake, but also because of its conceptual connection to the notion of personal identity. If Joe remembers, episodically, winning the World Series, then Joe must have existed at the time of his winning the World Series. This is why the Previous Awareness Condition characterizes episodic but not semantic memory. Unlike Joe’s memory that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, his memory of winning the World Serie
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit