Remember that Time Where Spock Does that Thing?

The title of this post probably doesn't illuminate much to many people, but I am thinking of the event at the end of The Wrath of Khan, in which Spock does a Vulcan memory trick thing with Bones -- he transfers his personality and memories to the good doctor, because he is going to sacrifice himself to save the ship (and the newly forming planet). Anyways, in the following movie, Spock is reborn on the planet, since there was crazy science stuff happening, and his memories are transferred back to him with crazy Vulcan mind stuff. The point is -- is he the same person? Are memories the constitution of a person? What role does memory play in personhood and in agency? These are some of the questions on which I want to reflect in this post.

But first, there is another example from Star Trek. The character of Dax on Deep Space Nine is also an exploration of personhood and memory. As a Trill, Jadzia Dax is the combination of host (Jadzia) and symbiont (Dax), who has lived through seven lifetimes accruing experience, personalities, and memories of seven different individuals. All these are still in play in its current symbiosis with Jadzia. During one episode, the different individuals are transformed to the consciousness of her friends, in order for Jadzia to meet the previous hosts of the Dax symbiont -- her previous selves. But what is transferred to her friends? The memories, which are the personalities of her previous hosts. Is memory necessary and sufficient for personhood?

To begin with the final question, it seems that memory is necessary for a thick personhood (compare Leonard Shelby from Memento for a thin personhood due to lack of memory). But to claim that it is sufficient for personhood seems to stretch the conception too far. Even in the Star Trek examples, the memories alone were not sufficient for the level of intentionality that is necessary for a person to be a person, but the memories had to acquire an embodied form -- Spock had to be transferred back to his new body; Jadzia's friends had to host the memories of the former Daxes.

The more complex questions from the first paragraph require a bit more reflection. Spock represents the closest re-embodiment and potentially the same person, but the transferred memories of the Dax hosts are merely contingent in their new hosts, being only there for a time, with the willing hosts being able to regain control at any time. The body of a person seems necessary to personhood and personal memory, as many memories are body-memories, muscle-memories, not necessarily residing in some sort of conscious experience.

As for memory and agency, the parenthetical reference above to Leonard Shelby seems to represent the best case-study. Leonard is a man out for revenge, trying to kill the man that killed his wife. But as is revealed in the movie, his quest seems to be more and more an eternal return of the same, a pattern without explicit intention, something that has possessed him and that he is not in possession of. I could give details, but the movie is well worth seeing, and these points would come across strongly enough without the need for spoilers here.

To close, I would say that these have just been a sort of free-flowing association for me, as I am working through this subject. I hope to return to this after I have read Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory, and offer all of you a more substantial analysis. But I can't promise that there won't be Star Trek references. Be ye warned!