If you lost half of your income, but got memories of a a version of yourself living a life of leisure with that part of your income every night, would life be better or worse than it is right now?
If you lost half of your income, but got memories of a a version of yourself living a life of leisure with that part of your income every night, would life be better or worse than it is right now?
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No, absolutely not. Memory is no substitute for presence.
How would you know the difference?
Can you not tell the difference between memory and reality?
Don't get me wrong, it would be absolutely incredible having such perfect recall that memories are indistinguishable from the present, I just don't think that's a trait many humans naturally possess.
Given that I rely on my memory to know what happened, no.
How do you know the difference?
The point is not the difference between a fake memory and a real one (let's grant for now that they are undistinguishable) but the fact that positive experiences are worth a lot more than just the memories they leave you with.
I may not know the difference between a memory of an event that I experienced and a memory of an event I didn't experience. Looking back on the past, they're the same.
But each moment of pleasure that I only remember, without having experienced it, was essentially stolen from me. Pleasure is a state of consciousness and only exists in the present.
Prove to me that you actually lived the memories you currently have, and I didn't come into your room and implant them all the moment before you read this post.
(Also, incredibly, username checks out)
The burden of proof is on you there bud.
If you want to make extraordinary claims like "I came into your room and implanted your memories", then you're going to have to provide some evidence for that. I don't need to do anything.
You're also completely missing the point of the original post and my response. There was never any questions about whether memories are real, the question was whether the memory of a thing has the same value as the real time experience of a thing.
(Also, at least I've got a prosthetic brain, you're clearly still on the waiting list :p)
That's the basis of the thought problem though, it cannot be proven one way or the other. Yes, it's an extraordinary claim, but also I would want you to think that, wouldn't I 😉.
the question was whether the memory of a thing has the same value as the real time experience of a thing.
Neurologically speaking, yes, the brain activity of a person experiencing a thing is indistinguishable from a person recalling the thing. So in all tangibly measurable ways, the answer is yes.