Memory is our sense of where we belong, and how we
relate and connect to others. We worry that ageing makes
us forgetful, because at its worst, forgetting collapses
the entire basis of personal and social life. But as
technology for computer data storage improves, it seems
that whatever anxieties we might have about forgetting
particular information, the latest technological fix
will allow us to leap into a new future where human
limits on remembering become increasingly irrelevant.
Why worry about memory, if all that remains is to find
robust means of retrieving and reading its 'data'? This
book explores how we have come to live with and within
'memory'. It shows how for some philosophers the
identity of the self resides in a set of overlapping
memories - and one might argue that to be human is to
remember - to see oneself as a being in time, with a
past and a future. Yet at the same time, by presenting
us with our past lives, our memories can undo our
present sense of time and place. Moreover, in the
digital age we are immersed in a vast archive of data
that colours our everyday experiences and supplies us
with information on anything we might otherwise have
forgotten, arguably breaking down the distinction
between the memories of the individual and the
collective. Scanlan draws on history, philosophy and
technology to offer a sustained investigation of how we
can comprehend recollection, whether elusive or vivid.
Engaging and inspiring, A Philosophy of Memory explores
how the nature of memory itself has been remade over
time; and how, as a historical, technological, and
collective phenomenon, it is continually remaking
everyday life.
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