Optogenetic Memory Modification and the Many Facets of Authenticity

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This article refers to:

Personality and Authenticity in Light of the Memory-Modifying Potential of Optogenetics

Notes

1 A pluralistic approach to the concept has previously been defended by Erik Parens (e.g. Parens 2014). That said, the pluralism I advocate goes further than that of Parens, and does not fundamentally rely on a dichotomy between two approaches or frameworks (“gratitude” vs. “creativity” in Parens’s words, or self-discovery vs. self-creation, as mentioned by Zawadzki and Adamczyk). Authenticity as truthful living, for instance, does not seem to fall neatly on either side of such dichotomies.

2 Assuming such a change would occur, which, as the authors outline towards the end of their article, may not be so likely after all, for instance given the possible persistence of relevant semantic self-knowledge that could help sustain Elizabeth’s original values. Given the important role other people would play in this regard, this in turn raises interesting questions that I do not have the space to tackle here: e.g. do others have anything like a duty not to remind a person of what she had chosen to forget (and if so, how is it to be balanced against their own rights, such as freedom of speech)? Or on the contrary, as the authors briefly consider (Zawadzki and Adamczyk 2021), do they have a duty to help protect the person’s authenticity by making sure she does not completely forget about her self-defining past experiences?