No Identity Without Memory!

If memory is unreliable and largely confabulated - what does it say about our identity?

[@natatattful]

In absence of memory maybe there is just consciousness experiencing itself

[@Medicelle]

In the absence of an ego structure a momentary consciousness can not experience "itself" or anything else in my opinion.

[@michelangequay2794]

Consciousness is a notion that presupposes identity over time. And a very culturally and historically specific notion, referring to an aspect of this current experience that can never project outside itself convincingly

[@natatattful]

@@agapistone5202 or so you think

[@TaylorVac]

@@Medicelle It's the exact opposite. You are either ego (low life) or conscious. In islam, the war agains your ego is called jihad. That is the actual meaning, before the ruling elite changed its meaning.

[@jeannfav2921]

First, modify identity, then memories selectively . Fascinating!

[@tb9206]

Sam brilliant mind watching you for years you really venture into the abyss and slowly float through the understanding of everything

[@jordanmedwell]

I have dissociation and I’m unable to store new information and memories and I’ve lost my identity. What you’re talking about here is true. This is scary

[@jorgemontenegro1032]

Brilliant mind ! Explaning dificult concepts in a very easy and illustrative way. Remembers me " the Confissions" of St. Agustin As OscarWilde as well!

[@TaylorVac]

You don't know if he is brilliant. What you mean is knowledgeable. You could be the same if you want, it's your choice.

[@Joa5588]

A very interesting lecture. The ending had me flying in the clouds, with my pupils twice as big as usual :) Beautiful! I am excellent at selecting, sorting and arranging memories. I have been doing this for as long as I can remember and I think it is very very important. Current memories (what I ate for dinner 2 days ago) - are not stored, because they are irrelevant. Memory is the basis of knowledge - so we store everything, that interested us, intrigued us, made us think, shocked us, surprised us, made an impression on us. What we considered important for our further development + permanent emotional bases for building ourselves. Trauma has nothing to do with it - it's all about emotional saturation. If you have a very extensive, huge database of memories - you don't have to falsify them (it happened to me only a few times in my life - I know perfectly well, where I embedded these few false elements to save my balance - I pushed some of them aside over time, when they were no longer needed in the main skeleton). If you have a very large database of memories - you just need to saturate the original images with emotions and acquired knowledge. It's as easy as flipping a deck of cards. Sometimes you come across stubborn elements and that's when you need to compound - to make everything consistent, oiled and move smoothly like a school of fish or a flock of birds :) I also believe, that every person outlines the basis of what kind of human they want to be already in childhood (me personally at the age of 5-6). The rest is just a continuation. The worst misfortune is when a person makes the wrong/stupid choice and has to reformulate the main skeleton. The later, the more difficult. Thank you very much for the historical contribution, that I was not aware of. But especially for the wonderful ending of the lecture.

[@juneelle370]

I think there needs to be more research on memories. I do believe many of perhaps most people TINKER with their memories - whereas some people refuse to tinker with them, understanding the importance of truth.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Thats why they say, dont judge a book by its cover

[@VF-do7mw]

Brilliance of the mind, as always, thank you!

[@adinayima2]

I've always wondered about this when I've seen dementia and Alzheimer's----and it leads me to question an "after life" if our personality is just a story in our minds. 🤔

[@monk331]

Not personality, identity.

[@adinayima2]

@@monk331 Nope I meant personality, sweetie.

[@corifee1164]

After experiencing my dad when he turned dement, i think he might have lost most of his memories but he was a pure little child crying for mama and wanting love. He was able to see things, we usually do not. As if the soul was crowsing new borders. And..he was able to tell good from bad. And friendly from evil.

[@archiehendricks6093]

I thought learning was harder after a break when i was young, now i need a nap each day then i am more alert and ready to cope with difficult things

[@semperdecorus37]

Professor Vaknin, I love your lectures. ❤

[@taralilarose1]

Intellectually titillating as usual Sam. Thank you so much!

[@marinejulien5949]

Sam Vaknin never disappoints, one more great video.

[@Onethingneeded]

I take notes

[@theageofgoddess]

Makes perfect sense, explains a lot, how else would we be able to create.

[@archiehendricks6093]

That alien disapointed me . Thats rich

[@rakeday1726]

I wonder what would a narcissist be like if he got full amnesia

[@adinayima2]

Humans are addicted to Fantasy. I'm almost 33 and that's what I realized this year and considering this video. 🤔 Are we scared of having no "core"? This is what we think of souls and if we don't have a soul we are scared to not have memories?

[@jeannfav2921]

❤Excellent learning experience as usual. Thank you, Professor Vaknin .

[@archiehendricks6093]

Sam you are blowing my mind.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Memory, four years old , mom braided three switches and beat my legs and they bled. She was a very bitter person. She was abused and abused.14 years then next three years used munipulation on dad, that climaxed with me being knock out completly. I got up and woop his drunk . Let home at 17. Was on a mountain top three says. In fear, then a light came on, confidence was in me, i had my wings, i was booted out of nest, wax it any ruffer then a poor little bird being drop from high up. It was the test.

[@danadhorn]

Yup Memory is dynamic. It's functional subjective thought patterning. Sense of identity makes more sense than just identity, to me. Identity is fixed, an identifier relative to space and time. Sense of identity is our own process of organizing and prioritizing our thoughts into working ideas through adaptive iterations. Flexible for survival and growth and becoming more consistent as it's refined, ideally lol

[@marinaskiadaresi6939]

Excellent.

[@jaysilverberg]

Nice watch🎉

[@mthunzidhlamini8257]

"I remember, therefore I am. No. I am, therefore I remember. People create identities in the spirit of their instincts" - first question: do you think this statement saintly encapsulates this lecture? Second question: if this is true, can you say that the BIG 5 Aspects of Personality, are a spirit, a thread through which the beads of memories are arranged, and consequently identity emerges?

[@nothingnessnonarcissism]

Traits and identity are two unrelated aspects of the psyche.

[@mthunzidhlamini8257]

@@nothingnessnonarcissism Thank you.

[@cedmeyer8437]

Looks very professional! $$$

[@richardwilson3548]

Very illuminating. Thank you.

[@irenebienek3864]

Thank you so very much! ❤

[@indiefilminternational]

In aspd, memory is trauma based so until the aspd is dismantled with therapy, identity and memory remain a failure-loop event horizon

[@Mountlougallops]

Thank You Sam.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Radom access memory chips are fast, cut the power and all memory vanishes, the synapses cut

[@janetbenedict1187]

I am trying to figure out how to ask questions. I am a twin with a sister who has DID, PS, and she had a brain tumor. She believes that the first two diagnoses came after the third one and were caused by it. But most of the time she is in complete denial. I want to know if there is any way to reach her. She has false memories and she seems focused primarily on me. She accuses me of things that I did not ever do or say. For the first time, a couple of months ago, she began trying to trash me on social media. It’s very hard not to want to defend myself but it’s pointless really. I had to leave the state, where she lives in an ALF, because my life fell apart. It’s complicated and I feel very broken. I’m trying to put myself back together but it’s not working very well and I just started some classes to be able to utilize my masters degree in nursing as an NP. graduate school is stressful already without feeling like I do now. I graduated with a 4.0 but I don’t recognize that person at this time. I’m going to be an NP with a mental health focus when I finish. My sister has always been a challenge and I ran across a term that resonates with me. Glass Child Syndrome. I am desperate to hear from someone who might know how to reach my sister. She has so many false memories about me and I don’t know if that could be the reason for her DID. I keep trying to figure out what happened because I was there too. Could a false memory cause DID? That’s just a crazy brainstorm of an idea. I have tried to find research on whether being a twin could be a risk factor. No luck there. She has several risk factors that I don’t have. We both have an older father, but she was born second and had to be resuscitated, she smoked pot as a teenager, and it seems like there is another one but I can’t think of it. Is there any way to help her reprogram her memories of me at least? Those I know are wrong because I was there. I don’t know why she seems completely determined to not believe anything I say. I was in Colorado for three weeks in May and she would not see me. I was going to move her in with me but she decided that my plan was actually to have her committed when she got here. She would not believe me. She is convinced that I was talking with her doctors behind her back and telling them what I wanted them to give her. That’s not even close to what happened. I never talked with her doctor behind her back and her doctors are not going to do what I say if I did. All I did was help make sure that her medication and everything was taken care of as much as I could. I move her. I did at one time bribe her to take an antipsychotic medication but she hated it and eventually started hiding it and not taking it. It did seem to decrease her dissociative events and made her less paranoid. I could tell when she was or wasn’t on it. One problem is that her schizophrenia and DID diagnoses disappeared off her chart and she is convinced that she is fine and could live on her own. It’s like she blames me because she has to live in an ALF but she has made it impossible for me to help her change that. She has withdrawn my medical proxy and POA so I am powerless to help her. We had that signed and discussed it because it needed to be completed before she got too bad. It’s as if she is too high functioning so she sabotages herself but she is not as great as she thinks and would be unsafe on her own. I had explained to her that if she came here and it didn’t work then we would need to find her another place but I didn’t have any plans of having her committed like she was convinced of. I explained that I was not comfortable with her living alone and mostly because it would be in a public housing situation because she would not be capable of paying a lot of rent. She is extremely gullible and people tend to take advantage of her as soon as they learn that. I know that I would most likely have to get involved with characters that I didn’t want to and who would probably be bad for her too. She doesn’t care how I feel about anything and that’s how it has always been. Glass house syndrome 😢

[@archiehendricks6093]

The sun effects whi I am, from outside. I thought everyone knew this.

[@yosivin1]

היי סם, למה יש לך שני ערוצים, להרשם לשניהם? או שאתה מעלה בשניהם?

[@archiehendricks6093]

Yes I have been told what i am explaining is to abstract, connecting to many things. Well it makes sense to me. Why you getting mad.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Well if i am going to forget why pay so much for someone approval by a empty degree

[@debraparker6404]

Why are we the only creatures like this? Or are we?

[@archiehendricks6093]

A guy refused to teach me martial art he knew, i go if i attack and you kick my butt, i leRn your moves. The scripture is right, There is more hope of a fool though he falls he may rise up in wisdom knowing how to use knowledge.

[@archiehendricks6093]

The mind of fleash is carnal a thing of time, the spirit is the real eternal me.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Scares are for life.

[@archiehendricks6093]

Ask someone after they have said something. ? How do you know that to be true, they get mad. Hey dont talk shit, if i repeat what you said and someone points out my error and i look stupid, i am going to be pissed at you. This was comunicated to me over 60 years ago.

[@jaysilverberg]

Yeah so level up😅

[@agim9506]

Is it important to mention the religion of Zarganic!

[@nothingnessnonarcissism]

What is Zarganic?

[@LouiseIngram-hd5yc]

True true true, what with my fibromyalyia , early onset dementia , ADHDand autism i can just about recall the Cheshire people and those in Nottingham. Everything else all kinda blurs into one and i have no recollection, i only remember the best people or rather those with the most empathy