Here’s a thoughtful article from Slate about memory and identity. The writer describes his own experience of temporary memory loss after a car accident, and discusses a recent book by Jonathan Cott about his experience of memory loss after ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) for depression. Most of us don’t face as stark a choice as Cott did about whether it was better to be himself and depressed, or to get rid of the depression at the cost of his memories and hence his sense of self (and I can really sympathize with him over the choice he faced and the things he lost). But I think the question sheds some light on decisions that people make about psychopharmaceuticals, although the changes due to drugs are probably reversible, whereas Cott’s memory loss due to ECT is not. (And having contemplated but not used SSRIs for depression, I find questions of identity in this context particularly interesting.) The discussion of memory loss as it relates to the spiritual concept of “living in the now” was interesting too.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2005/10/living_memento.html
