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maxkapur committed Jan 7, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ But sample two days, say, ten or twenty years apart within the spread of a life&

<a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/does-body-really-replace-seven-years.htm">In seven or ten years’ time</a>, nearly all of the cells in our bodies regenerate. They either fall off, as in the case of skin and hair cells; die, as in the cells living in the acidic environment of the stomach; or are “willfully” (to the extent that our body has a sense of will) killed by the immune system to fight or prevent infection.

Similarly, in the chrysalis, <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/">a caterpillar digests itself</a> into a loosely-differentiated soup. It emerges a butterfly. Its new appearance is entirely unrecognizable; the only way the observer can know that the caterpillar and butterfly are *the same* is by witnessing the whole process&mdash;maybe you tried this in an elementary school science class. Moreover, if you perform <a href="http://www.wired.com/2008/03/butterflies-rem/">classical conditioning on a caterpillar</a>, the butterfly retains the memory. Few would deny that the caterpillar and the butterfly are the same organism.
Similarly, in the chrysalis, <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/">a caterpillar digests itself</a> into a loosely differentiated soup. It emerges a butterfly. Its new appearance is entirely unrecognizable; the only way the observer can know that the caterpillar and butterfly are *the same* is by witnessing the whole process&mdash;maybe you tried this in an elementary school science class. Moreover, if you perform <a href="http://www.wired.com/2008/03/butterflies-rem/">classical conditioning on a caterpillar</a>, the butterfly retains the memory. Few would deny that the caterpillar and the butterfly are the same organism.

It is self-observation, in the form of memory, that preserves our identity as we pass through the many transformations (willful or otherwise) that constitute life. Memory is what gives life a sense of flow; it enables us to compress the many different forms our existence takes into a comprehensible narrative. Memory gives continuity to life’s many interruptions and breaks.

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