memory, identity, and the soul

Our self-conception is strongly rooted in memory of past experiences, without which it is not clear that the "self" would retain any meaning at all. Imagine if I could not remember the experiences that I had yesterday or five minutes ago, or if I wasn't sure that those experiences were had by the same person. In such a case I could not meaningfully speak of "my" past or "my" future, and my sense of identity would completely collapse. Through our memories of the past and our expectations for the future we maintain both continuity and singularity through our lives. Our lives have an a priori unity that we have no reason to disregard in our self-understanding. Therefore the idea that we are merely an assembly of changing chemical interactions is both unbelievable and absurd.


If we don't have long-term memory, would we have an identity that we can call our own? If we can't remember who we are, what we did, where we been, a perception of oneself cannot exist. It's like you're starting over every day you wake up. A blank slate so to speak.

What is a soul then? If our identity is predicated on the existence of memory and hence a physical brain because memory is stored in the brain, what happens when we die? The brain dies, memories die. If souls do exist and we move on to an afterlife, what remnants of our memories still exist? None I presume, and if so, the soul that moves on really has no idea and conception of our former self.

Most religious people believe they will move on to heaven with identities and memories preserved but if our identity is based fundamentally on our memory and if that memory can not move on, then what religious people believe is not possible.

There is no mind-body duality. Memory, consciousness, self-awareness are functions of neural cells flickering in the brain.