Monday, May 12, 2014

A Trip Without Memory -- Feedback desired!

Now I'd like to do a thought experiment for which I'm asking some participation. I remember an article I once read, or I think it was a video lecture, with the general subject of happiness, and pitting a person's remembering self versus their experiencing self in the evaluation of the happiness of the person's life, and it was often found that the remembering self and the experiencing self were in disagreement about this. This was found out via a survey given to some volunteers in which they were asked about their dream vacation, first in general terms and then asking them to imagine they would not be able to retain any memories of that vacation, neither in their minds nor in physical form such as photos. It was found that people chose different kinds of vacations in the latter case, but it wasn't any further elaborated upon.

Such elaboration is exactly what I intend to do now since I think it is a very fascinating question to think about, also touching upon your general views of life (as the ultimate journey) and of the afterlife, or respectively your belief or disbelief in an afterlife and how you handle your perspective of choice.

So here goes... Imagine you are offered a free vacation, let's say for the duration of five days. You may choose any destination on Earth to travel to, no matter how much it costs. You will also be afforded a very generous budget, your food, accommodation, and any activities you may want to pursue will be provided for. But now here's the catch: You will be given all of the above for free under the condition of being administered a certain drug first which is engineered to completely erase your memory from the point when the drug is taken, but taking effect only after a specific span of time which can be accurately determined, being in this case the span of five days. Now let's not bother with the question of whether or not a so accurate (and perfectly safe) memory-erasing drug might be realistic - remember, it's just a thought experiment. Let's imagine the drug is perfectly safe with no risk of side effects, it would take effect only at the predetermined time to erase all memory of what happened during these precise five days.
Further conditions are that you are not allowed to take any photos nor to bring any souvenirs from your trip. With your generous budget you may buy whatever you like, but you will have to leave it behind before the five days have run out. In fact you will be required to bring nothing with you; you will even be given different clothes of your choice for your journey which you will have to return upon arriving back at "headquarters" - so no trickery such as for instance secretly writing "Maldives" on the inside of your sleeve to remind you of where you had been. You won't be allowed to bring back any written notes either, so no secret diaries or anything.

It's probably not fool-proof, you might say you would try to make friends with some person you meet on your journey and simply give them your address and ask them to send you a letter or an email later, telling you about your journey that you won't be able to remember. We can either disregard such possibilities, or you can instead elaborate, if you wish, about to what length you might try to go in order to break the rules and gain knowledge about your five-day mystery trip. But be aware that in case your trickery is detected you may have to pay back the full costs of your expensive vacation - that's also in the contract! ;)

You may, if you wish, also bring a friend or family member on the journey but who will, of course, have the same conditions applying to them.

So... now I'm looking forward to some comments. What kind of destination and activities would you choose, if any? Or would you prefer to reject the offer?

Myself, I think I would do the latter. I'm not sure, on the other hand it costs me nothing, nothing but five days of my life which might be very enjoyable - plus the mystery for the rest of my life of what I may have done during those lost days. But therefore it would be essentially wasted days - I'm a seeker, there are already enough mysteries about life, and I'm someone who by nature works towards goals. We are shaped by our experiences, but in order for this to happen we are required to remember them. An experience not remembered might only create problems in my life. There may already be enough forgotten dreams and other things in my subconscious that I'm unaware of... There is in fact this obvious parallel to dreams in this scenario. We go on such journeys each night from which we can't bring back any souvenirs or other physical items - but with some luck, and first of all practice, at least some memories. And I hate it enough when I can't remember my dreams.

Where would you go, if anywhere?

-- Seems I just found again the lecture   in which I first heard about the idea, it's quite interesting!

  

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