Maokun (post: 1505724) wrote:I wish it hadn't been like that as the episode introduced another interesting issue to the collection this particular universe has to offer: If you can keep your memories and replace/fix/upgrade your body ad-nauseum through the centuries, there will be a point where you will be unable to create new memories as your mind is absolutely packed full
Setting aside whether or not memories equal information, I think what you've said here is pretty key to the discussion.blkmage (post: 1505860) wrote:It's different in Kaiba because when they talk about memories, they're also including consciousness in there. So if the "memories" of a person leave their bodies in Kaiba, that body becomes a shell with no cognitive function at all.
As I said, this is the thorny path laden with headaches. Perhaps we are safer and saner keeping our definitions looser than an answer to this question requires.blkmage (post: 1505844) wrote:how much "stuff" do you need to gather before all of that stuff becomes a person?
The memory-set in Kaiba is not only a collection of memories but also whatever components are needed to have memories in the first place. Let's call this apparatus consciousness. I assume that the disembodied voices that call out to Chroniko are not simply isolated memories but are memory-sets (memories plus consciousness). Unlike isolated memories, memory-sets seem to fit the bill of being capable of the kinds of complex emotional responses that the voices exhibit.
This may or may not answer a question I was thinking about earlier. If a person with a limp were to possess (can I use that word or is there something else that fits better?) a body that had perfectly good legs, would they continue to limp? Essentially, would a person's control of an injured body transfer to other bodies?
blkmage (post: 1505817) wrote:It necessarily works like that in the real world too. We obviously don't keep all of our memories either, but we don't notice it because we, uh, forget. It's just a consequence of physics. So maybe it isn't that you can't create new memories, but you have nowhere to store them until you offload them somewhere.
A slight tangent, but this train of thought is how my quantum information class began. Even though we like to think of information or data as this abstract idea, it's very much governed and restricted by the laws of physics. You need to keep data somewhere, whether it's on a piece of paper or a hard disk or a brain and all of these things have physical limits. The trick is to come up with efficient ways of recording this information to stretch the limits of whatever we're using to store it.
Coming back to Kaiba and the latest episode, if you think about it, a lot of our "memories" have already left our head simply because there's not enough room for them all. Most of it is in the form of words or photographs (like the old couple was doing for their tour) or audio or video. And it might even be more convenient to have a bunch of your memories tagged with EXIF data in iPhoto or something. In this form, it's pretty safe to say that these disembodied memories aren't people.
blkmage (post: 1505875) wrote:I think that the recoverable memories in the chips are people, while memories that are loose and in the wild are not. This is because there's no guarantee that they'll physically stay together to continue to form the person they were (otherwise, it wouldn't suck as much when the memories just get jettisoned, since you could theoretically find and recover them) and what probably results is the voices and shadows that are sort of like ghosts. Of course, that's just my extrapolation.
Maokun (post: 1507211) wrote:This thread of thought dangles solely on technical specs that I believe are intentionally not worked into the series to allow for more freedom. What I'm trying to say is that we don't know the capacity of the "memory chips": are they more capacious than a human brain? Less? In the real world memories can be simply forgotten but this is more a matter of decay of the physical integrity of the brain cells with age, lack of use or external influences than of "room".
TheSubtleDoctor (post: 1517212) wrote:DAT ENDING:
Discuss and interpret.
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