Monday, November 16, 2009
On the Power of Reflection
I can't help but agree with Hume's assertion that one's memory of a feeling is not as strong as the actual feeling itself, but only to a certain extent. When he claims that the strongest memory is duller than the weakest feeling, I feel compelled to disagree. This may seem very odd, but it is something I have experienced strongly on countless occasions: certain perceptual cues can elicit feelings and emotions from my past. For example, last winter there were a few pieces of music that I listened to almost ad nauseum , and when I listen to them now, I instantly experience a kind of deja vu; just about everything I felt during the winter when listening to the piece I suddenly feel again. Memories and emotions will reappear, and I'll even be reminded of physical perceptions, such as the feeling of the biting cold on my skin, or the taste of hot chocolate. These memories may not be as strong as the originals, but they do possess a superior quality (at least in my opinion). When I listen to a piece of the music, the result is a compression of everything I felt at the time into one big, unified feeling. The memory combines everything from that era and creates a nostalgia that simply cannot be described in words.
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I cannot agree more with what you've said. I think I was trying to say something similar to this and you were able to express the idea better. I like the example you came up with about listening to music. I know I have similar memories, especially for songs that I have heard on old video games. As soon as I here them, I can almost feel like I'm playing the game.
ReplyDeleteI also agree, but in the sense that I think Hume was trying to argue we never experience the same feeling twice? When you remember something, say some good time you had a party or the video game, you don't remember EVERY emotion and feeling you had. Rather, you remember the best parts. So in the sense we can "re-experience" the best parts is completely true, and all the mediocre or "unimportant" items are not entirely remembered (this can apply for bad memories as well, say a traumatic experience with water for instance).
ReplyDeleteCharles Byrne said...
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating interpretation of what is going on, at least sometimes, Eric: it's true that sometimes memories seem like condensed encapsulations of entire experiences.
One issue is that it's not *always* true that memories or 'ideas' are this powerful, is it?
Another is that once again, I'm not sure that Hume would disagree, but rather that he would probably chalk up what you're describing to a *combination* of 'ideas' -- all that stuff you mention is *combined* to make a powerful feeling, and, in addition, the *emotions* that you associate with that sense memory can compound the feeling (though they themselves are not the sense memory itself).
I think what Hume is stating about emotion and memory is that memory can contain emotion and emulate an instant of emotion, but it is doomed to never actually be that emotion or event by which the emotion is drawn.
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