Memories and when are you a different person?

vampyre_smiles — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:01:48 -0500

This is relevant to my novel since it deals with reincarnation, self-identity and memory loss, but I think it's a good philosophical topic as well. For this, I'll be using my character Domah, since he's the MMC of the story and the one who these things apply to most... I'm hoping to hear other people's thoughts on this as well as clarify my own POV so I can portray it in the novel clearly. I'm trying to decide at what point a person "isn't" the same person anymore when it comes to things like memory loss. On one hand, everyone - with the possibility of extremely, extremely rare exceptions - will forget quite a bit over their lifetimes, but are still considered the same people. They have the same body, and though they might forget things here and there, they generally don't forget large amount of time all at once. Sometimes people lose their memories, like in some forms of amnesia, but this isn't a total loss of all memory (if it were, they would no longer be able to speak their native language or be able to other skills that they might have had). They also (as far as I know) tend to keep the same basic personality traits unless damage is done to parts of the brain controlling aspects of the personality. They may even be able to recover some of the memories they have lost in time. And, again, they are in the same body as they were before. Which brings me to reincarnation. Putting aside whether or not I personally believe it exists in our world, in the case of reincarnation there is the idea that most people don't remember their past lives. So, there is total or near total memory loss. Then you add the fact that they will not have the same body in any manner of speaking. So let's assume that each incarnation of this particular individual starts off with the same basic personality that is decided by their "soul". They may or may not have memories from past lives, which will affect it further. And on top of that, by the time they are speaking whatever language their "new" family speaks, there will be countless experiences in this life that will affect their personality further. So aside from some very strong personality traits shared in all incarnations, they could be very different people if you didn't know they had the same soul as someone in the past. At least in my novel's world, Domah will get the chance to recover most of his memories and so it could be said that the possibility of regaining those memories, on top of sharing the same soul, is what allows one to say that he is the same person in each incarnation. So, I guess if I have any questions for discussion, it would be these: At what point is one person "not the same person as before"? Is there anything else I should consider or think about?

Re: Memories and when are you a different person?

cursive — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:59:35 -0500

If you separate body from soul, then I'd say you will be the same person regardless, the idea being that the soul is immortal so that whatever body you inhabit your soul will be no different than what it was before. Ergo if body and soul are inextricable, then you can never be your former self once you inhabit a new body. I find the latter the more interesting, but in terms of fiction I think you'd have much easier time of it assuming the former.

Re: Memories and when are you a different person?

vampyre_smiles — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:29:26 -0500

In reference to both sides, well, the main character does want to "regain" his original form. I think it's part romanticized memory and partially that he doesn't feel comfortable in other bodies. Originally, he wasn't even human... But putting that aside, he still feels that he is the same person even though new experiences have changed how he feels about some things, and strengthened how he feels about others.