Neuroethics
When does memory editing threaten authenticity?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
On a dual-basis process view of a narrative self, deleting factual memory content can threaten authenticity, while stripping sensory vividness often does not.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Which part of a memory you change matters for whether you stay 'yourself'.
On a dual-basis narrative account of the self, deleting factual memory content can threaten authenticity, while dampening a memory's sensory vividness often does not.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Applied to personal identity, the method has been used to distinguish self-as-object from self-as-subject in dementia, arguing that implicit body memory and a basal feeling of self can remain even when reflective meta-perspective is disturbed, and to assess memory-modification technologies on a narrative account of the self, where deleting factual content threatens authenticity but stripping sensory vividness often does not.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Where the self is grounded. The dementia paper founds personhood in bodily selfhood and implicit memory and criticises purely discursive accounts, while the two neuroethics papers found practical identity in a self-told narrative whose accuracy and coherence can be damaged by editing memory or by misleading information. Both are phenomenological, but they locate the threat to identity in different places.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Where the self is grounded. The dementia paper founds personhood in bodily selfhood and implicit memory and criticises purely discursive accounts, while the two neuroethics papers found practical identity in a self-told narrative whose accuracy and coherence can be damaged by editing memory or by misleading information. Both are phenomenological, but they locate the threat to identity in different places.
- Supports · Is the self lost in dementia?
- Supports · Can brain data help us tell who we are?
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Narrative-self ethics of authenticity applied to memory-modification technologies
- N
- Philosophical analysis; not an empirical sample
- Population
- Authenticity and narrative self under memory-modification technologies (MMT)
- Outcome
- Factual memory deletion threatens authenticity more than dampening sensory vividness
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Inspect source passages
When does memory editing threaten authenticity?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
Which authenticity account does the author use?
dual-basis process view of authenticity based on a narrative concept of the self to analyze the influence of MMTs on authenticity. As I will argue, a dual-
What does a conservation view check?
conservation view judges the authenticity of a person based on whether a certain set of characteristics is preserved. A person is authentic after memory mo
Key findings
Editing or deleting factual content can make the narrative less accurate and coherent. Reducing sensory-like memory, or a mere lack of ‘mineness’, need not threaten authenticity. Victim versus perpetrator memories, and gradual versus instantaneous change, matter for how disruptive MMTs are. MMTs can also shift the balance between self-discovery and self-creation.
Methodology
The author contrasts a conservation view of authenticity (keep a fixed set of traits) with a process view (judge the process of change). They defend a dual-basis process account built on a sustainable, well-defined self-narrative, then apply it to kinds of memory-modification technology (MMT).
Limitations
This is a conceptual analysis, not a trial of propranolol or optogenetic editing. It does not measure how often real MMTs would meet the author’s conditions, and the victim/perpetrator contrast is ethical illustration rather than legal advice.
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Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.