Memories: Possible Topic for Dec. 6th

The majority of what I discovered on the subject of memories is based on Book II, Chapter 27 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke.

Here are a few highlights of what I discovered:

- Memories make the person or the "self."
- Each person is different from another because they do not share the same chain of memories to the same degree or amount as the individual.
- Consciousness, memories, and the body all make up a person. However, consciousnessand memories seemed, according to Locke, to make up more of the person than the physical body.
- Losing and regaining consciousness separates a person.

There have been several times where I have looked into the mirror and thought that I look quite a bit different than I did ten years ago. Sure there is a resemeblance, but if it were not for the memories and knowledge of everything that had happened in between those ten years, it would not be unreasonable to think that I was a different person than I am now. It is my identity that makes me the same person. All the experence that I have engaged in are what make me who I am. I saw a picture of my dad when he was a teenager and he might have looked similar to the picture, but if it were not for my uncle telling me it was my dad, I might not have been sure.

No two people could have the exact same experiences. I have memories of when I was a young child, but not an infant. Even if two twins experience everything side by side after a time when they could remember being conscious and accumlating memories would have slightly or, in the small chance that two people could be brought up side by side for every experience, very slightly different views of the world altering their experience. The angles which we view things can change an experience even if two people were to witness the same event. For example, if there were a car crash and two people saw the whole thing unfold, but one person saw it from on the sidewalk and another person saw it from up in a building, there would be different explanations of the crash.

I think my initial question was: can memories provide existence? Initially I was curious if memories carried existence even if it was about a person who was no longer alive. If I was unable to prove that smeone was still alive after they left a room, I would have to assume that they were still alive. We seem to put a lot of emphasis on a person's positive vital signs or pumping heart and active mind as existing. It seems like in order for smone to prove they exist they would have to recount every experience they had until they could no longer remember anything further and deped on the two people responsible for their birth to fill in the rest all the way to their birth.

This gets further into my question. Do the personal experiences we have with other people spread out existence? I'm not sure that Locke would say that we share existence with another person because we might share the same experience. Like I said earlier, no two people could have the exact same experience. I think this sharing of experiences with another person only influences the identity of the self. Although I have come to this conclusion myself, I am not satisfied with the explanation of: when a person is no longer conscious of their own memories, they no longer exist. I believe that if enough people remember the experiences they had with a particular person, there can be some existence given to that person, even beyond their ability to be conscious. I think people would say that a person in a coma still exists where the deceased do not.

Is it a continuous string of memories, never stopping, that gives existence? A frozen memory like a picture, or even a recout of an experience shared with a person like a recording is not a continuous string of memories, but a single memory. Even a conscious person would be hard-pressed to remember every event to a point of infancy where they were conscious.

Breaking News! Human species 'may split in two'

“Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk

Helpful Philosophy Reference Links

Some of you may already be aware of these, but I thought it would be good for the folks in the Club to know about some websites that have generally reliable reference-type information about philosophers and philosophical terms, concepts, views, and arguments. Below I've listed a few. But, as with anything on the internet, take them with a grain of salt and use them at your own risk. Obviously, none of what's written on any of these sites is the Word of God or even the Final Word on these matters (though, I suppose, in some cases, it might be; the trouble is: how would one know for sure, unless one did considerably more research?).

1. http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", run by two philosophy profs at Stanford U: Edward Zalta and Uri Nodelman. All articles in this Encyclopedia are peer-reviewed by professional philosophers (see http://plato.stanford.edu/board.html); and the author of each article is identified, and it's usually somebody who knows what they're talking about. The trouble is that the Encyclopedia is hardly exhaustive.

2. http://www.iep.utm.edu/
"The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy", run by James Fieser (philosophy prof at U of Tennessee, Martin) and Bradley Dowdin (philosophy prof at Cal State U, Sacramento). This Encyclopedia seems to have more articles than the Stanford one; but in some cases the articles aren't as high in quality as those in the Stanford Encyclopedia. Only some of the articles in the Internet Encyclopedia are peer-reviewed (see http://www.iep.utm.edu/1/editors.htm), and only some of its articles have authors who are actually identified by name. Those whose authors aren't identified "have largely been adapted from public domain sources"; so it's anybody's guess who wrote these.

3. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/
"A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names" by Garth Kemerling (PhD in philosophy from U of Iowa). Evidently, all the entries in this Dictionary were written by Kemerling. Many of the entries are helpful, particularly if you're stuck with some philosophical term and you have nowhere else more reliable to find an explanation.

4. http://www.rep.routledge.com/
"Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online". This is the best philosophy encyclopedia there is on the internet, and maybe the best there is period. The trouble is that it isn't free. I include it here just to let you all know about it. Believe it or not, some unversities actually provide their students free access to the Routledge Encyclopedia. But Longwood probably never will, at least not in the near future, and especially not if Longwood never has a philosophy major....

By the way, you all should know, if you don't already, that Wikipedia is truly awful as a source of information (since anybody can contribute to it and anybody does contribute to it), though it can sometimes be helpfully used as a way of finding other sources that are reliable. That is, what Wikipedia articles say is extremely unreliable; but its articles sometimes mention or refer to non-Wikipedia sources which turn out to be reliable. Still, a Google search is often just as good for this purpose....

Topic for Next Meeting

Richard suggested that we all talk about freedom and determinism. Professor Moore suggested an article we might read before we have such a discussion. Today I went to the library and put that article on reserve. I asked that it be put on electronic reserve. I don’t know if they’ll do it. If they do, they’ll send me a link within the next few days. If I get such a link, I’ll make it and the password available to everyone in the club.

Would someone please email me the email addresses of everyone in the club?

Club Uniform

I'd like to suggest that we all dress like this at the next meeting.



Richard, please organize the purchase of these outfits. See the treasurer if you need some money.

The Beginning of the End

Welcome to the Longwood Philosophy Club blog. A couple of things that deserve some attention:

1) Accounts: Right now I'm the only author, meaning that I'm the only one who can make new posts. I have it set up so that anybody who wants to can leave comments. I can add as many other authors as I want, but I need the person's name and email address. I think we can either give author privileges to everyone in the group, or maybe if we elect officers we can make those privileges exclusive to the officers or something.

2) Changes: There are a bunch of options for the blog's template, and I can change it at any time. If anyone has a problem with the current one or just wants to change it or whatever, obviously we can do it. Also, this blog's title is not set in stone. If anyone has a better idea for a title, it can be changed at any time.


That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure other issues will arise, and until we get the whole admin-author thing worked out, the comments section is open and I guess any input can go there.