Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Memory

In the beginning of the "On the Ontological Status of Separation" reading, Ratié summarizes Utpaladeva's theory regarding consciousness, cognition, and memory. Ratié writes, "We must acknowledge consciousness's unity in order to account for our experience of the world: without it, our practical existence (vyavahāra) would remain a perfect mystery, for memory is the basis of our mundane existence, but in the absence of a unitary consciousness, nothing could explain the synthetic awareness through which consciousness can grasp remembered objects" (383). 

What I like about this concept is that it makes sense to me, and not just that I can comprehend the theory. Each individual cognition, thought or memory, must be strung together into a unified consciousness, or memory. Because as Ratié says, memory is how we know we exist. Just thinking about the implications of these words makes me view memory in a way I never have before, but one that I think is fitting. If we didn't have a memory, how would we know what existing even was? Would we even exist without a memory? Because if memory causes us to acknowledge and be aware of out state of existence, and we don't have memory, then we don't know. And if we don't know something, that we exist, is it true? Does it happen if we don't know, and can't know?

I actually thought of a silly scene from 50 First Dates when I read this. I watched the movie a long time ago so my recollections of the scene might be a little off (again, how memory works.) At the hospital or clinic with the memory patients, Adam Sandler's character meets 10 Second Tom, a character who forgets everything every 10 seconds. Tom keeps reintroducing himself every ten seconds because he forgets he already has. When you combine this scene with the quote however, it makes no sense, at least to me. If Tom keeps losing his memory, what forms the basis of his existence? How does he know he exists? Does he exist? 


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