I should also mention the widely-studied case of Henry Gustav Molaison, as well as other cases of retrograde amnesia. Can you find any cases in which this condition was caused by the loss of a limb, a kidney, or anything other than bits of the brain?
This brings up a very interesting thought. This comment, you'll note, occurs in the comment box of a thread related to the permissibility of abortion. Earlier in the comments, Damion has been arguing for the justification of abortion partly based on what turns out is his evidence-free assumption (one more in a long line of such in modern science and modern "science") that very young babies don't have memories, and they don't have memories because they don't have functioning brains yet.
Therefore, it is permissible to put them to death.
One can only wonder whether Damion would argue for the permissibility of putting Molaison to death for the same reason. Does he have any good reason not to?
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One can only wonder whether Damion would argue for the permissibility of putting Molaison to death for the same reason.
If Molaison had as much brain tissue as a new implanted zygote (which I believe was the topic from which this thread unraveled) I wouldn't see any point in keeping him alive. No memories, no hopes, no desires, no thoughts, and nothing else that makes us who we are would be left of him.
Now you believe, perhaps, that all of his hopes, desires, memories, etc. are stored in an immaterial mysterious magical backup device called a "soul" but for that proposition you've provided no evidence. Since all the scientific evidence points unanimously to the brain being the seat of all thought, it seems clear enough that once it's gone, so are we.
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