If you lost your memory completely, would you still have the same personality?

breadmonkey

I thought about this the other day. I'm only speculating here, I have no "expert" credentials! But, I'm sure all of your past encounters contribute to the type of person you are. So, if you can't remember any of them, would you have to start from scratch again and build a new personality?

MrJoeSoap

I'm no expert either but I'd say in most cases you are right. If this kind of thing interests you I'd really recommend a book called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" by Oliver Sacks. Its about people who suffer from different forms of memory loss and is a compilation of anecdotes and fascinating case studies. There was one patient in it who had lost all concept of "left" (as opposed to right), and when eating his dinner he would only eat the right hand side of the plate, and when walking and turning left he would turn right through 270 degrees until he was facing "left".

Really fascinating stuff.

snorlax

here.

also there's a good entry on Alzheimers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimers (a disease which is charachteristerised by a loss in memory)

Tingo

If you lost your memory and went off to live someplace new you'd probably develop a new personaility, but that tends to happen even if you have your memories.

If you stayed where you were though, you'd be surrounded by signs of your former life, things you chose to surround yourself with when you had a memory, and that shapes your new life. You might not be exactly the same, but similiar, because the things around you affect the way you are.

Not to mention people expect you to be a certain way, and probably subconsciously you'll respond to that, listen to the same music and wear the same clothes, and stuff like that builds up personaility.

If you were really scared of spiders, then that phobia would probably remain with you because it's so ingrained into your being it affects you later on. It probably wouldn't work if it was a minor fear.

I'm no expert either, which is why the word probably was used a zillion times jsut to cover my back in case someone comes in with knowledge claiming the opposite. :rolleyes:

biko

If you lost your memory completely, would you still have the same personality?

Yes, some of it. This because a lot of personality is based on your genes - just google nature/nurture studies and twin personality studies.

LadyJ

When my mother had her first brain hemorrhage,she developed short-term memory loss. Now there were some long-term things that had disappeared from her memory also,eg. she couldn't remember that her father was dead.

I don't know much about complete memory loss but I know that even short-term memory loss can change a person. She used to have to write down everthing that she did so that she didn't forget she'd done it and go and do it again.

She found it very frightning and quite humiliating a lot of the time. Before she got sick she had been a strong,intelligent,confident woman and was in the middle of a PHD in psychology. Afterwards,although she was just as intelligent and had maintained her sense of humour etc.,she was a shadow of her former self.

I think the whole thing really shook her confidence and she became very nervous and extremely emotional. She pretty much reverted back to a child-like state. She started to spend all her time with my granny (her mother) and,although she had previously been a complete athiest,she started to believe in God.

I think this change in personality was really just down to fear and confusion. If you take away all that someone knows or even just part of what they know with regard to their world and themselves then they will become extremely dependant on others and will probably end up being quite different to what they were.