Current technology allows for radical memory enhancement: smartphones can record (and transcribe) every conversation, and wearable cameras can capture hours of first-person audiovisual recording. We have excellent reason to record much more of our lives than we already do and thereby enhance our memory radically.
The case is simple: our memory is immensely valuable to us, and we already record much of our lives using video and photography, messenger logs and voice messages. These records are valuable to us in significant part because they enhance our memory and thereby promote its value. Recording those parts of our lives that we do not yet record would possess the same kind of value. Properly appreciated, this gives us reason to record much more (and create so-called lifelogs): nearly all of our conversations, everyday life and, in general, as many experiences as feasible.
But this thesis faces important concerns, including worries about technological feasibility. Creating these records should ideally function without additional effort: they should be frictionless like messenger logs or the fictional technology in the Black Mirror episode ‘The Entire History of You’ (2011). A lifetime of records would take a lifetime to revisit in real time (with long stretches of little intrinsic interest). But we could revisit parts by searching by timestamp or tags, and the content of records could be automatically analysed, and software could generate transcripts and best-of cuts. Audiologs, transcripts and lower-resolution footage wouldn’t create storage problems, either. Objections from privacy and adverse psychological effects appear more significant. I will address these objections below, and will end with a plea: try recording almost everything before you rule it out.
Why is our memory so valuable to us? Beyond its obvious role for survival, let us focus on three key aspects: first, we take pleasure in remembering and reminiscing. Second, our memories help us understand ourselves, others and our place in the world. Third, our memories play a crucial role for personal identity: who we are as persons is determined by our memories. These constitute our selves, so you are literally made, in part, of your memories. Our memories are valuable because they help make us who we are as individuals.
A richer and deeper memory can quite literally turn you into a richer and deeper person
The exact role memory plays for personal identity is subject to a philosophical debate going back at least to John Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), who discussed the idea that a person remembering their previous experiences is both necessary and sufficient for that person’s identity through time. Many versions of the idea that personal identity requires some kind of psychological continuity between a person at an earlier time and a later time have since been developed. Building on this rich tradition – represented more recently by Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Derek Parfit and others – Marya Schechtman in ‘The Narrative Self’ (2011) argues that our selves are constituted by an autobiographical narrative formed from memories of our past experiences. On Schechtman’s view, who we are is partly determined by our autobiographical narrative and the memories on which this narrative builds; see also Dorthe Berntsen and David C Rubin’s Understanding Autobiographical Memory (2012).
Given such views, it seems that a richer and deeper memory can quite literally turn you into a richer and deeper person. Richer and deeper memories appear to enhance your individuality: a thin and shallow autobiographical narrative appears to lead to a less substantial self, whereas a rich, detailed and deep autobiographical narrative appears to lead to a more substantial self. Assuming the latter is more desirable, a richer and deeper autobiographical narrative and the acquisition of memories that constitute it are more desirable.
Consider current memory enhancement practices: why do we keep chatlogs, take pictures or write diaries at all? Of course reasons are plentiful: journaling can serve reflection; picture-taking has an artistic component; habit and device presets may play a role, etc. But we clearly value our records in large part because they enhance our memory. Our memory is valuable and this value is promoted by the records that enhance it.
Records enhance our memory and thereby promote the three kinds of value just identified: we enjoy reminiscing by looking at our pictures and videos, and we understand ourselves and others better by revisiting chatlogs, social media posts and journal entries (moreover, records can – for better or for worse – be shared directly with others). But our records also enhance our autobiographical memories and thus help determine who we are as persons, allowing us to have richer personalities and a more complex individuality.
A radical way to support this idea comes from the extended mind hypothesis first put forward by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in 1998, according to which external devices and the data they store can literally be part of our mind. According to this hypothesis, we extend our minds by using parts of our environment that can function for us in the way that parts of our brain do. In this vein, Richard Heersmink argues in ‘Distributed Selves’ (2016) that external information can literally constitute (autobiographical) memory and thus help determine who we are as persons.
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