Issues of Identity
Jeanne Lee
As Dr. Donald G. MacKay iterated, memory is essentially the creation of new connections between neurons and repeated exercise of referencing these connections so as to prevent their withering away (52). That is, the connections are reinforced by repetition: by using the pathways to trigger the memory on multiple occasions, the memory proceeds to retain its own designation in the brain. As mentioned previously, Greg retained his procedural memory, and was even capable of learning through habituation (granted extensive time to familiarize).
That said, this type of memory alone does not fundamentally make up an individual. Identity is dependent not only on hereditary information interpreted from genetic code and procedural learning, but it is also heavily influenced by the perception of memories in reflection. Susan Engel states that as we attempt to recollect experiences, our interpretations of those experiences are what link the “remembering self” to the “remembered self” in the memory (196). She further goes on to elaborate “self-contemplation” and “self-understanding” are more often than not elicited by “highly motivated and charged situations” in which the individual wishes to draw from a memory given an incentive, such as telling a story to an audience (197).
Physiological concerns aside, there is little doubt that the meningioma came to not only change who Greg was as a person, but also who he would be in the future. As witnessed by his peers and family, of course he had changed, seeming to have become a mere husk of his former self. What’s more, with his anterograde amnesia keeping him chained to the 1960’s, Greg would never be able to develop as an individual as most people are typically able to. Expanding upon Engel’s argument, it seems that he was consequently only able to portray a watered-down version of who he was prior to the development of the meningioma: Greg was able to reflect upon past experiences, but only on what he was able to remember.
