The Simulation Theory of Memory states that to remember an episode is to simulate it in the imagination (Michaelian, 2016a, b), making memory thus reducible to the act of imagining. This paper examines Simulation Theory’s resources to account for our ability to distinguish episodic memory from free imagination. The theory suggests that we can reliably do so because of the distinctive phenomenology episodic memory comes with (i.e., a feeling of remembering), which other episodic imaginings lack. I will raise two objections (...) to how the feeling of remembering is engineered in the theory, followed by an exhaustive exploration of the theory’s resources to ground the mechanism underlying the elicitation of such feeling. I will conclude that the Simulation Theory cannot simultaneously defend the simulational character of episodic memory and ground our ability to discriminate between memories and imaginings. (shrink)

In opposition to the natural view that observer perspective memory is bound to be inauthentic, McCarroll argues for the surprising conclusion that memories in which the subject sees himself in the remembered scene are, in many cases, true to the subject’s original experience of the scene. By means of a careful reconstruction of his argument, this paper shows that McCarroll does not succeed in establishing his conclusion. It shows, in fact, that we ought to come to the opposed conclusion that, (...) while it may be possible in principle for observer perspective memory to be authentic, this is unlikely ever to happen in practice. The natural view, in short, is more or less right. (shrink)

Observer memories involve a representation of the self in the memory image, which is presented from a detached or external point of view. That such an image is an obvious departure from how one initially experienced the event seems relatively straightforward. However, in my book on this type of imagery, I suggested that such memories can in fact, at least in some cases, accurately represent one’s past experience of an event. During these past events there is a sense in which (...) we adopt an external perspective on ourselves. In the present paper, I respond to a critical notice of my book by Marina Trakas. Trakas argues that my account of observer memory unfolded against the background of a problematic preservationist account of episodic memory, and that I failed to adequately account for the presence of self in observer memory. I respond these worries here, and I try to clarify key points that were underdeveloped in the book. (shrink)