Thinking about what makes a self different from another leads to numerous questions. The self, as Kierkegaard explained it intricately as a “relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.” Memory is considered as a major element which shapes the self and differentiates it from others.
Pythagoras, mostly renowned for his mathematical formulae, was in fact a systematic thinker among the Pre-Socratics. He was an advocate for metempsychosis, and was possibly the first philosopher to inquire into it. This idea is based on a theory that our souls transmigrate, and can be either immortal or mortal. He believed that souls are “recycled” into new lives, yet the memories tend to fade away after every life. (Mortal souls would eventually be destroyed after several lives).
The importance of this legendary Greek figure that is Pythagoras, is the argument that memory is what distinguishes a self (in Kierkegaard’s perspective) or a soul (in Pythagoras’) from being unique. The story behind this claim is that Aethalides, the son of a Greek god Hermes, was asked to choose by his father whatever he wanted, other than immortality.
Therefore, he asked for a vivid memory. Since the soul is immortal, memory would serve his goal for attempting to understand transmigration. Aethalides’s soul is eventually after his death passed on to the new life of Euphorbes. Euphorbes lived a warrior’s life and died during the Trojan war. After several transmigrations through plants and animals, his soul takes on the new life of Hermotimus.
Hermotimus’ life is what ties this story together. Pythagoras, who receives the soul that had lived in Aethalides and so on, claims that Hermotimus had once visited a Greek temple and sees Euphorbes’ (his own soul) shield that had been used in battle during the Trojan war. In an attempt to prove that it was him with a different body, he says that the shield had the former’s name inscribed on it. Indeed, when they took it down and checked, there it was.
Although this story could be fallacious in many aspects, there is an element of truth to it, that is the importance of memory and its understanding as a distinguishing principle. If a person wakes up with the memory of someone else, then is he the same person? This proposes the theoretical idea of controlling one’s own memories. If one is able to develop an ability of deleting memories that one deems worthless or damaging, then the path to becoming the ideal self in one’s perspective would become clearer.
I have purposely chosen the idea of deleting memories rather than creating new ones, because the latter seems audaciously delusional. To me it appears as though it would create a fictitious version of the self rather than attempting to become the ideal version of it.
Memories and the mind’s extraordinary power to give us a static view of ourselves can be used to turn it around and bring about a more dynamic perspective. I propose this idea as a solution to becoming the ideal person each person wants to be. Then again, the ability to completely delete a memory might be questionable.
