The Vanishing Self

You are your life narrative. Your life narrative – embedded in your memory – is you. The failure of memory therefore represents the ultimate existential threat: the prospect of your nullity.

Per the philosophical reckonings of Rene’ “I think therefore I am” Descartes and Thomas Locke, it’s the mental that provides the grounds for knowing that our experience is real, supported by the mind as it records this ordered flow of sense otherwise known as the self. Our focus piece addresses what happens when dementia begins to destroy the temporal binding that sustains our identity If Your Memory Fails Are You Still The Same Person?

The matter of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, provides a crash course in the philosophy of the mind as it confronts the various philosophical and ethical assumptions about what makes up identity in the first place. The answers go right to the heart of best practices in dealing with patients and their caretakers as they address the question of what it means to be human.

The so-called Descartes rational individualists, those who subscribe to the memory-based notion of identity, have a smaller toolbox from which to work as they seek to preserve and enhance memory by any means possible, whether those means are external or internal. External memory enhancements might be seen as a kind of memory exo-skeleton, from the most basic post-it note cue card reminders to a steady diet of crossword puzzles to virtual enhancements (reference google/AI). Then comes the promise/peril of the invasive solutions such as the implantation of the brain augmentation probes we’d previously addressed MM 5/18/16 Neuralink. Label these as brain-centric approaches.

But, then, there is an entirely different philosophical approach whereby the idea of personhood is based less on raw memory than on relationships i.e. we are “beings-in-the-world,” rather than simply beings-in-the-head. The mind is but one component of the self, seen in terms of its connection to the body, to others, to the outside world.

That sense of self that transcends the mind has profound implications when the mind begins to fade. Not to push the analogy but even as the hard drive flickers the software of the soul continues to beckon. There are many in our community who can attest to the power of music to ignite the connective energy MM 10/30/17 Music's Evocative Magic. The same goes for movement, say dance.

For, in the end, what counts is the retention of one’s identity through communication, even through non-verbal forms, making people feel good about themselves without necessarily knowing why. A forced march by well-meaning “memory snobs” could actually work at cross purposes with a certain late-stage transitory appeal to simply live in the moment and thereby miss the essence of the W.B.Yeats message that “Man is in love, and loves what vanishes.”

“What more is there to say?”