Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 2019, is an extended thought experiment on the nature of memory, minds, and persons. The memory erasure thought experiment presented in the film—and its implications for personal identity—raises poignant questions for the ethicist, epistemologist, neuroscientist, metaphysician, and cognitive scientist. In this paper, I explore the rich insights the film has to offer interdisciplinary studies of memory, providing a case study in how narrative (...) can uniquely contribute to memory research, while also maintaining philosophical rigor and fidelity to scientific discoveries about memory. Turning to the philosophical implications of memory erasure, I consider memory erasure in the context of several leading views of personal identity and proposed answers to the persistence question of personal identity, assessing the challenges and complications that the memory erasure thought experiment brought to life by Eternal Sunshine poses to these theories. I argue that the psychological continuity view of personal identity—in its various iterations—does not allow an individual to truly survive the memory erasure procedure. The memory erasure thought experiment presented in Eternal Sunshine—and its metaphysical and epistemological consequences—reveal how we establish the relationship between memories and selfhood, how to define personhood in the presence of both hypothetical and real-world memory loss, and what experiences we value in human life. (shrink)

Discussion of the ethics of memory modification technologies has often focused on questions about the limits of their permissibility. In the current paper, I focus primarily on a different issue: when is it rational to prefer MMTs to alternative interventions? My conclusion is that these conditions are rare. The reason stems from considerations of autonomy. When compared with other interventions, MMTs do a particularly poor job at promoting the autonomy of their users. If this conclusion is true, moreover, it provides (...) a fresh perspective on debates about the permissibility of MMTs. On the one hand, for those who would limit the use of MMTs to a narrow range of circumstances, the conclusion that MMTs are rarely preferable gives them further reason to eye MMTs with suspicion. On the other hand, for those who view MMTs as permissible in a wide range of circumstances, the conclusion may deflate their endorsement. (shrink)

SUMMARY Major theories of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind are examined on the basis of the fundamental questions of ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and logic. The result is the choice between language of eliminative reductionism and dualism, neither of which answers properly the relation between mind and body. In the search for a non–dualistic and non–reductive language, Wittgenstein’s notion of language–games as the representative links between language and the world is considered together with Peirce’s semeiosis of cognition. The result (...) is a redefined notion of cognition as the goal–oriented ability to instantiate strategies from the rules of the language–games. Cognition is considered within the four-dimensional languagegames: rules/strategies, primitive/complete language-games, family-resemblances/forms of life, and non-temporal continuum as the language-games’ modality. Cognition is seen as a continuum process of non–individualized elements that unites perception, volition, emotion, will and thought against the commonly accepted understandings of cognition in exclusive terms of perception and thinking. The alternative to the mind/body problem is the continuity of cognition where rules and strategies, syntax and semantics, are considered inseparable within language–games. This continuity of cognition is explained in terms of virtual (univocal) identity, replacing the old philosophical paradigm of the mind/body problem. -/- SOMMARIO Le teorie maggiori della psicologia filosofica e filosofia della mente sono esaminate a partire dalle questioni fondamentali di ontologia, metafisica, epistemologia, semantica e logica. Il risultato è la scelta tra un linguaggio riduzionista eliminativo e un dualismo che però non confronta in modo adeguato la relazione tra mente e corpo. Nella ricerca per un linguaggio non-dualistico e non-riduttivo, viene considerata la nozione del gioco linguistico di Wittgenstein come un legame rappresentativo tra il linguaggio e il mondo insieme con la semiosi cognitiva di Peirce. Il risultato è la nozione ridefinita della cognizione come abilità goal-orientata di creare le strategie dalle regole dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione è considerata entro le quattro dimensioni dei giochi linguistici: regole/strategie, giochi linguistici primitivi/completi, somiglianze di famiglia/forme di vita, e la continuità atemporale come la modalità dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione diventa un processo continuo degli elementi non-individualizzati che tende ad unificare la percezione, volizione, emozione, la volontà e il pensiero contro un concetto generalmente accettato di vedere la cognizione nei termini esclusivamente di percezione e di pensiero. L’alternativa al problema della mente/corpo è la continuità della cognizione, dove le regole e le strategie, la sintassi e la semantica, sono considerate inseparabili nei giochi linguistici. Questa continuità della cognizione è spiegata nei termini dell’identità virtuale (univoca) sostituendo un paradigma filosofico previo del problema della mente/corpo. (shrink)

The argument from absence of analysis (AAA) infers primitivism about some x from the absence of a reductive analysis ofx. But philosophers use the word ‘primitive’ to mean many distinct things. I argue that there is a robust sense of ‘primitive’ present in the metaphysics literature that cannot be inferred via the AAA. Successfully demonstrating robust primitivism about somexrequires showing two things at once: that a reduction ofxis not possible and that an explanatorily deep characterization ofxis not available. In order (...) to secure this second explanatory claim, the AAA must wrongly assume that reductive analysis is our only source of explanatory characterization. I argue that this is false by offering a distinct way of providing explanatory characterizations backed by suitably understood metaphysical constraints. While there remains a minimal sense of ‘primitive’ inferable via the AAA, this sense is exhausted by the denial of reduction. With minimal primitivism as its target, the AAA is uninteresting. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMany philosophers say that the nature of personal identity has to do with narratives: the stories we tell about ourselves. While different narrativists address different questions of personal identity, some propose narrativist accounts of personal identity over time. The paper argues that such accounts have troubling consequences about the beginning and end of our lives, lead to inconsistencies, and involve backwards causation. The problems can be solved, but only by modifying the accounts in ways that deprive them of their appeal.

Se cuestiona que la restitución de hijos/as de desaparecidos/as durante la última dictadura argentina exalta una concepción biológica, conservadora de la identidad personal. Argumentaré que el problema de esta noción no radica en la apelación a lo biológico, sino en la adopción de dos supuestos metafísicos: una ontología de individuos sustanciales y un esencialismo actualista. Propondré una concepción de la identidad relacional y como potencia o locus de poder, que permitirá re-significar lo biológico de la identidad y apoyar el fenómeno (...) de la restitución. (shrink)