We are our memories

[á´…eparted]

THE CAKE IS A LIE! D:<

I'd play that game, sounds fucking sick. But I',m sensitive to horror. Thriller, I love. But BOO, AW YEA NIGGAH SLENDERMAN COMING OUT OF THE CORNER TO RAPE YOUR ASS.

no -__-

I love horror and scary stuff. I am drawn to intense experiences and eerie things in general. Makes things exciting. The problem is I am wired like a cat (immensely jumpy) and I can NOT handle jump scares. I get stimulated way too strongly and it wears me out, but oddly I like it a lot. SOMA actually doesn't have TOO many jump scares (at least to a level where I can manage), but more has this persistent scariness that pervades everything, and it has this insidious creep where it gets worse and worse, slow enough that you only noticing it getting inside your head in hindsight. For some reason that insidious creep is the kind of scary that REALLY gets to people (I practically had to beg one of my friends to play), but I handle that kind really well.

General rule: The more something scares me (with no major consequence risk), the more I am drawn to it and the more I feel compelled to completely throw myself into it, and the more I love it. In a way, I absolutely thrive off fear. It's not that I want to beat it, or prove anything, but I just want to experience it and sort of embody it.

 

[cascadeco]

Ah, this is really really tricky. I do believe who we are in this instant is the result of an accumulation of life experiences that we have perceived, reacted to, interacted with, formulated opinions of, we then may tweak ourselves or our perception changes, we start filtering out certain things, paying attention to new things, formulate a new awareness, and so on over the years. All of this requires being aware of and retaining our memories and experiences though.

I do think we are still US even if today we lost all past memory. Though to be fair, we'd basically be in an infant state again if it was completely wiped out. We'd then be starting afresh and shaping our ego and sense of self all over again.

I LOVE my experiences and I want an experience-rich life. It's actually super important to me, experiences 'out there'. Part of that means I really desire to retain the memories of the experiences. So re OP question, I'm not sure. If while living the vacation experience I was aware of it happening, maybe. But it also would seem like such a waste, pointless, if it was as if it never happened. Either scenario it doesn't happen, it seems to me.

 

[evilrubberduckie]

I love horror and scary stuff. I am drawn to intense experiences and eerie things in general. Makes things exciting. The problem is I am wired like a cat (immensely jumpy) and I can NOT handle jump scares. I get stimulated way too strongly and it wears me out, but oddly I like it a lot. SOMA actually doesn't have TOO many jump scares (at least to a level where I can manage), but more has this persistent scariness that pervades everything, and it has this insidious creep where it gets worse and worse, slow enough that you only noticing it getting inside your head in hindsight. For some reason that insidious creep is the kind of scary that REALLY gets to people (I practically had to beg one of my friends to play), but I handle that kind really well.

General rule: The more something scares me (with no major consequence risk), the more I am drawn to it and the more I feel compelled to completely throw myself into it, and the more I love it. In a way, I absolutely thrive off fear. It's not that I want to beat it, or prove anything, but I just want to experience it and sort of embody it.

ahh, alright. you Described it better then I can. Then we might have one more thing in common. I absolutely love physiological, intense scary/ thrillers. I feel the same way about fear.

But I dont like the "in your face, jumpy" stuff.

 

[á´…eparted]

ahh, alright. you Described it better then I can. Then we might have one more thing in common. I absolutely love physiological, intense scary/ thrillers. I feel the same way about fear.

But I dont like the "in your face, jumpy" stuff.

It's hit and miss though. I can't handle "body horror" well, never have. I also tend to much more strongly prefer "experiencing" it as opposed to watching it (I actually don't like watching movies. I either get bored or stressed).

 

[indra]

I think of space and time like a lite-brite.

The space I inhibit are the pegs, myself the LEDs.

They're both vital components for true functionality, but I really like colors, so...

Vacay, plz

 

[Dr Mobius]

I remember pondering this a few years ago, after I read a (research journal?) about people's ability to manipulate childhood memories. The researcher's found that they could use the power of suggestion to change how the memories play out. And again after reading an article about how unreliable eye witness accounts are. Witnesses who saw the same event often giving significantly different versions of events. It does make me wonder as to how much memory does influence our thinking, especially the further back one goes. Or are we more influenced by our immediate environ , adapting to the now, and filtering/twisting our experiences to accommodate current predicaments.

 

[dog]

Memories are a mere window to observe what we experienced. . Some types (S?) seem to use it more than other types (N?) who would rather use the POSSIBILITY window to observe what they MIGHT experience.....

I like what [MENTION=22109]Evee[/MENTION] said, but i would alter it to, "we are pulled by the future AND pushed from the past". .

you cant really separate them - would that not be like asking how God in eternity past is different from God in eternity future? There IS a difference, but you can't separate them. (you can only VIEW them separately).

in the end, we still don't know what defines us.

 

[Evo]

I AM I said!

 

[Evee]

 

[Crabs]

I think our attention is probably more pivotal in determining our sense of identity than our memories. As others have mentioned, sometimes our memories are inaccurate...or completely false. Studies have shown that some people are even susceptible to the suggestion of memories that never took place, though long-forgotten memories stored in our unconscious minds undoubtedly influence our perceptions and behaviors in ways that we don't even realize. Our aspirations and imaginations are likely just as influential in the formation of our identities as our actual experiences or the recollection of them, along with any delusions we may hold.

Where we choose to focus our attention is at the root of optimism/pessimism and deeply impacts how we relate to the world and overcome past-traumas. If a person chooses to dwell on pain and suffering, they will continue to endure it long after the initial wound. The painful memory may never completely go away, but its power to overcome one's peace of mind will eventually diminish over time.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Germaine to op: Moral, Not Memories, Define Who We Are. [Bolded is mine.]

Researchers from the University of Arizona and Yale decided to investigate this hypothesis directly in a real-world clinical population. Their study was designed to test what types of cognitive damage cause people to no longer appear to be themselves to others. A crucial element of the design was testing for changes in identity from the perspective of a third person observer, rather than the individual himself. In addition to sidestepping many of the reliability problems intrinsic to first-person accounts, focusing on perceived identity allowed the investigators to assess the effects of memory and moral changes on the patient’s relationship with others. This is an extremely important facet because when someone appears to be “not the same person,” the social bonds between patients and loved ones or caregivers quickly deteriorate. These bonds are critical to one’s well-being and health, as they are the source of the connectedness one feels to the people in their lives and the outside world.

​

The results are based on others' accounts of who we 'are', so it differs somewhat from op- but I thought it relevant enough to post here.

 

[Yama]

Dunno if my answer is influenced by the fact that I'm an Si user, but a lot of who I am is based on my past experiences. If you wiped my memory clean, some things about me would be the same, of course (obviously appearance, possibly MBTI and/or temperament), but I could turn into a drastically different person. It's basically the whole nature/nurture debate. You could wipe my memory clean and socialize me to believe completely different things than I do now, and that would result in me being a very different person.

Also, isn't there an episode of star trek kinda like this? Like someone's dying so they make a clone of him for a certain body part replacement but he starts making his own memories and becomes his own person?