Leonard relies upon scribbled notes to connect him to his past. He says that eyewitness testimony is worthless: “Memory can change the shape of a room…” Is he right? Do you think our memories are more reliable than his notes? Hume says identity is just a habit we have. Do you think Hume would see Leonard’s condition as any different from our ow
Hume believes that memory is inherently deceiving. The process of remembering can be described as reaching into this bag and feel around for the right mental note and pulling it out. The note that we find is never one hundred percent visible so each time we recall our mental notes we have to fill in the gaps and make up for the sloppy handwriting with our imagination. Once the note has been drawn and interpreted we place the not back into our metaphorical bag. The note that we put back is not the original note however. It has the new details that we had to imagine to fill in the gaps. Now when we want to call upon this memory again we are not reading the original note; we are instead reading the modified note and each time we recall this memory our note becomes more mutated from the original memory.
Leonard notes are his only way to remember and act on his past thoughts and believes. He needs this for every little new task and thought process but Leonard does not think that its to his disadvantage. He would agree with Hume in that memory is always corruptible and that relying on it is a blunder. I disagree with Leonard, he can only write down what he believes will be useful later. In some cases we will observe something and find that something which we though was first meaningless is actually an important factor. Leonard would miss this every time. His notes may be more accurate but they are limited to what he finds important at the time of writing them.
I agree with Hume’s idea that our identity are merely habits. If you were to magically appear in a new world with new rules to adapt to, first your habits would change, then your thought process and then your identity. One example of this could be going to jail. People have to follow new rules and form new habits which can change their identity upon release. For some people they have to change their habits to be tough and mean to fit in and their new identity makes it hard for them to fit into society upon release. Or on the brighter side Malcolm X who could barely ready had to change his habits to deal with his border and low self esteem and by changing his habits he was able to change his identity while locked in a cell.
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Scribbled symphony 