If we erase our memories, do we erase ourselves?

[Ellen M]

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/th ... lves/5322/

Clearly PBS is trying to redeem the damage Barefoot Gen did to me as a child. I thought it was a cool cartoon until things started melting. Then again, I recall thinking the same thing after dropping acid at an AC/DC concert a few years later.

Yeah, I could use some erasure. Make mine a double, PBS.

[StalinSays]

Interesting article - as this science matures it could be an amazing tool for assisting veterans or violent crime survivors, albeit with weighty philosophical implications. As an occasional black out drunk, holes in your memory don't send your sense of self crashing down like a house of cards. Then again losing the memory of 'getting in to that bag of Doritos' and erasing the memory of a lost child are very different things.

As a bonus: it makes me recall watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A fine memory indeed.

[Ellen M]

Refined, it could certainly be useful. Imagine it commercialized...remote controls...rewinding things, super slo-mo, skipping United Way meetings, erasing the drunken mess of a second marriage...imagine a master database of all memories that could bot out and reprogram all associated with said event.

The pentulltimate TiVo. Yessssssssssssssss...