Do our memories define our identity? If we are merely the sum of our experiences, what do we become if those e

Question

Do our memories define our identity? If we are merely the sum of our experiences, what do we become if those experiences are lost?"

Answer 1

Your memories help define your identity as an person, but you choose your action to define that. When you were a child like all others you were nieve, you accepted without question, and reacted without reason. You just did. But all those were events were designing your character. For example some were abused as kids, they abuse theirs or they don't, you can fight it, or accept it. Events in our pasts ussually help us design our futures, the ones we agree with are stronger in our subconcious, which shows when you react without reason, as in later on you realixe an action you wish you thought out as in dwelling on the past. If you use your memories as a text book you see where you reacted and similar events to it will have similar reactions. But remember identity is individual identification as in fingerprints and patterns, character is within. You can promote peace, but you accept war. You were told to be nice don't fight, but yet you get angry easily, cause you want to fight but those memories are telling you not to, creating a conflict within. The desire to fight, is a controlling issue, you want to control the other but you are not accepting the individual as not agreeing, war is different, than a fight between two. Like you get sad or depressed from something means you made a nieve decision as a child to something similar to be that emotional way, we all did it. Now when you feel an emotion again try to refect on it, accept it for what it is an emotional reaction, but be aware of the moment.

People today react to their memories whether happy or sad. The ones that accept them as such, and are able to be free of the emotional lock live freer and more aware of the moment. But advantages come from them too.
Your memories assist in your character, but you choose who you think you are.

Answer 2

Ithink memories do define our identity.
But i think you can choose what kind of identity you develop by which things you choose to hold in your memory.
It could also be true that the type of personality you start off with could influence the choice of things you pick.
And so i think a romantic person would become romantic through their choices but there must have been something in them that made them romantic to start with.
When choices that were romantic came up i think they were drawn to those things but i think the things helped define them as a person.
To me it is a two way process.
If the experiences are lost i think the basic chore of that person would remain but the details of the personality would be lost.

Answer 3

It's more complex than that, although you are on the right track. I'm assuming by "identity", you mean our sense of self. Part of our sense of self, for example, is shaped by the complex interaction between body and mind. If you have a particular physical ability, say athletic performance, then behavior in that domain will lead to sensations that in turn interact with your perceptions and thoughts to help form your self-image. Certain aspects of personality are learned (i.e. "sum of experiences") while others appear to be determined by our chemistry. And so on. If you've been around someone whose memory is fading (for example, a person who is suffering from Alzheimer's) you can see his/her identity change as memories retreat. Their perception of self changes and you can see this revealed in their statements about themselves, for example, "I'm just a scatter-brain" or similar self-statements.

I hope this is helpful. It's a great question and one that can lead to a very relevant discussion!

Answer 4

That's really touching on a philosophical question too because WHAT IS IDENTITY? Is it your memories, your body, your brain..what? What about people with alzheimers or amnesia, do they lose their identity when they lose their memory, and if they are not themselves anymore, then who do they become? If someone (hypothetically) had a brain transplant, would their body still be their identity, or would they be where ever their brain was? Or, are we constantly changing, because our memories are constantly changing, and we are obviously not physically they same people we were when we were younger. There aren't any answers, just more questions, so you draw your own conclusions.

Answer 5

It is not just what we consciously remember. WHen we are children all our experiences teach us something called schemas. These are rules we believe in without thinking about them...they are part of our personality. Therefore just because someone loses their memory, it does not change their identity. The rules are still learned and apply.

Answer 6

Don't forget the experiencer.Your identity is much more than your memories and experiences.

Answer 7

You will have to live on the new memories. Memories dont define idenity, but they do help explain it. it would be horrible to lose your past memories.

Answer 8

a clean slate

We would still have the same genetic makeup. Which may mean that we have a predisposition to respond in a certain way to events in our lives.

Answer 9

If we cannot remember any of our experiences we become what we were before we had any.