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Given that a person lives for a finite period of time, that said person collects a finite number of memories as stored experience (due to limitations in time, resources, or capacity - let's call this amount X), that said person for any discrete period of time is defined by those memories and reacts to certain stimuli in certain ways according to what is contained in the collection of memories.
As an example: a person who has seen a particular movie will recall it and express opinions about it when prompted.
Now, a new assumption - let us remove the constraints of resources and capacity, and perhaps even relax the time constraint somewhat. Let's say that instead of X, a person can now have access to 2X worth of memories; the equivalent of two lifetimes worth of human experience. And of course we are also assuming that memories can be manufactured and installed by some means, or that forgotten memories can always be backed up and stored so that a more "complete" life's worth of memory is available.
We can say that a person gains the ability to preserve additional memories via some kind of external store, and has the ability to move memories back and forth between that external connection and the "working memory" of their brain and consciousness. The constraint that remains is that the working memory can only process a certain amount of information at any given time, because it is not made to handle the additional capacity, so memories must be moved back and forth; only the maximum amount of X can be in working memory at any given time, even though access to 2X worth of information is possible.
What amount of memories does a person need to retain in order to keep his or her person being? Is that even a valid question? With 2X available, one could conceivably replace all of the original X worth of memories with another completely different set of memories of X size. That is a completely different person. But if a person keeps 50 percent of their "original" memories, and replaces the rest of working memory with other memories, he or she will probably still be a different person; he or she will react differently when asked "Did you see this movie?" depending on whether or not the memory of the movie is in the person's working memory at that given point in time.
Is there a critical mass of particular memories that defines a person, like a personality DNA? What memories are actually important to always retain, and which could a person afford to lose?
As an example: a person who has seen a particular movie will recall it and express opinions about it when prompted.
Now, a new assumption - let us remove the constraints of resources and capacity, and perhaps even relax the time constraint somewhat. Let's say that instead of X, a person can now have access to 2X worth of memories; the equivalent of two lifetimes worth of human experience. And of course we are also assuming that memories can be manufactured and installed by some means, or that forgotten memories can always be backed up and stored so that a more "complete" life's worth of memory is available.
We can say that a person gains the ability to preserve additional memories via some kind of external store, and has the ability to move memories back and forth between that external connection and the "working memory" of their brain and consciousness. The constraint that remains is that the working memory can only process a certain amount of information at any given time, because it is not made to handle the additional capacity, so memories must be moved back and forth; only the maximum amount of X can be in working memory at any given time, even though access to 2X worth of information is possible.
What amount of memories does a person need to retain in order to keep his or her person being? Is that even a valid question? With 2X available, one could conceivably replace all of the original X worth of memories with another completely different set of memories of X size. That is a completely different person. But if a person keeps 50 percent of their "original" memories, and replaces the rest of working memory with other memories, he or she will probably still be a different person; he or she will react differently when asked "Did you see this movie?" depending on whether or not the memory of the movie is in the person's working memory at that given point in time.
Is there a critical mass of particular memories that defines a person, like a personality DNA? What memories are actually important to always retain, and which could a person afford to lose?