Post-beer musings

[enismirdal]

Does anyone else ever consider how weird it would be if you, yourself, only came into being 5 minutes ago, with fabricated memories, and everyone else's memories of you fabricated - like Dawn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I sometimes muse on this, think, "But hey, I REMEMBER cooking dinner last night!" and then think that if they'd done a properly good job fabricating my memories, of course I'd think that. And then I'd consider how I've been thinking about this for more than 5 minutes...but that could easily be faked too...

It's just a really weird thought, considering the idea that if I'd only existed for 5 minutes, if all the fake memories were flawless enough, I'd never ever know...

Yeah. Lulz alcohol.

Comments

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Don't worry Eni, you've existed for more than 5 minutes, I have the photos to prove it.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

But but but...if they went to all the trouble to insert false memories, they could be fabricated too...!

Meep!

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

At some point there must be evidence which is inconsistent with your existence. Otherwise what's the point of worrying?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

It's like reverse-solipsism (there probably are terms in both philosophy and psychology for that) :)

Something similar happened in total recall: the character had originally been someone else, but had temporary memories implanted before the film, but before he could be switched back, adopted his new persona and escaped. It's interesting that often (not always) in fiction, we do adopt our new persona.

[red-lasbelin.livejournal.com]

Sounds like navel-gazing to me. :D

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

As Terry Pratchett said: "I was not-born - yesterday!"

Given that I can't tell the difference between time being an illusion and time not being an illusion I prefer to believe in the one that allows me to do science. :)

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

I even wrote an LJ post about how I don't care about such things.