Blog Prompt 15:
Leonard relies upon scribbled notes to connect him to his past. He says that eyewitness testimony is worthless: “Memory can change the shape of a room…” Is he right? Do you think our memories are more reliable than his notes? Hume says identity is just a habit we have. Do you think Hume would see Leonard’s condition as any different from our own?

‘Memory can change the shape of a room, it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record. And they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.’ – Leonard Shelby (Memento) Leonard’s memory is that of a fish. He cannot rely on his memory so he relies on his scribbled notes and tattoos. I find the statement that Leonard makes to be rather convincing. The reason why our memories could be less reliable than the notes we make to ourselves is because our memories are never as clear as the words on a page in which is written right in that moment. For example, say I am sitting on a bench just people watching for 5 minutes, really studying and trying to remember the most details that I can about who walks past, what noises I hear, what do I see, and at the same time I am taking notes. The next day without looking at those notes I try and remember what happened during those 5 minutes like I’m being questioned about a crime scene. I would say my notes are more reliable than my memory. Of course in real life when you are questioned about something you won’t have notes on you to rely on, but if you did, you surely would rely on those notes. Because as Leonard states, “memory can change the shape of a room, it can change the color of a car,” meaning that our memory cannot as accurately recall a situation as our evident notes.

Hume defines identity as an association to our memories and he believes that it is just a habit we have in result of resemblance and causation. As Hume states in “Of Personal Identity,” we think our memories make up who we are, even if we are not the same person we were five years ago, we will take our memories of who we were then and say it is apart of who we are. Therefore, I believe that Hume would not consider Leonard’s condition as any different from our own. That is because Leonard remembers everything up until the point of his accident and every day after his accident he is associating who he is with those memories, even though that is not him anymore, like Teddy states in the film. Leonard may not remember anything every 15 minutes or every time he wakes up, however, I don’t think that refutes Hume’s view of identity. What Leonard can remember is who he thinks he is, which is why he is always on the hunt to find his wife’s killer.

437 words