The brave officer

About this video

Mei has a photo of her third birthday: she is blowing out three candles and her grandmother is laughing. Mei doesn't remember that day at all; her grandmother remembers it well. Was the little girl in the photo really Mei, if Mei can't remember being her?

The English philosopher John Locke had an answer. In 1694 he wrote that a person is the same person as far back as their memory reaches: not the body but the mind, above all your memories of what you did and felt, makes you you. He told a thought experiment. One morning a prince wakes up in the body of a shoemaker, with all his own memories of the palace and his family, while the shoemaker wakes in the prince's body remembering his workshop. Most people say the prince is now the one in the shoemaker's body - so what makes you you seems to follow your memories, not your body.

In 1785 the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid answered with a thought experiment of his own. A boy is punished at school for stealing apples. Years later, as a young officer, he captures the enemy's flag and still remembers the punishment. Much later, as an old general, he remembers capturing the flag but has forgotten the school. By Locke's answer the general is the officer and the officer is the boy, but the general is not the boy, since he can't remember being him. That can't be right: "the same one" means one thing, so if the general is the officer and the officer is the boy, the general is the boy.

Later philosophers mended the answer: what counts is a chain of memories, each link overlapping the next, so the officer links the general to the boy. The puzzle for the mended answer: Mei's third birthday may not be linked to any memory she has at all. This video goes with the Memory and the Self lesson of Metaphysics Level 1 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00Mei has a photo of her third birthday. She doesn't remember it.
2. 0:05Locke said you reach back as far as memory. A prince wakes as a shoemaker.
3. 0:11Reid's officer remembers the boy. The old general remembers the officer.
4. 0:17But the general forgot the boy. So he isn't the boy? That can't be right.
5. 0:23A chain of memories mends it. But what links Mei to her birthday?
6. 0:29Memories fade. Does the person?