Scientists seem to have discovered a way to eradicate one particular memory while leaving the rest of a person’s memory intact. Big issue: Should this treatment be kept under tight control and used only in very extreme cases? Or should everyone have the right to better memories? I was once on a TV show with Justice Scalia where this possibility was discussed. Someone quipped: "I sure would like to forget my first wife." Scalia responded: "The problem, sir, is you would end up marrying her again." (Thanks to Ivan the K.)
Peter: That is a great line from Scalia. Terrific. Well reveals his mind.
More demonic but fruitless in the end science. Scalia's quip reminds me of an inverse point of Churchill's in a famous essay, that if he could live his life over again remembering the former, say to try to avoid the Dardanelles tragedy, he would simply create a whole new set of circumstances with the first "correction" and then make a different set of "mistakes." This therapy reminds me also of Zeno's paradoxes of points, wherein he tried to confute the truth that being and life is always a whole. Aristotle answered decisively, which even if forgotten remains true.
For Robert, O.K. please tell us what Aristotle said about being and life and whole.
In the Physics and Metaphysics, admittedly tough reads, he sees each living being, and the cosmos as a whole, as one continuous motion. Various objections and points of view are raised and discussed dialectically, including many from the standpoint of mathematics. A. anticipated in many ways modern mathematical physics and the geometry of infinite space, which as you may know defines lines in terms of points, etc..... His work is indispenable in understanding the limitations of our physics for understanding the human being and being qua being. The new translations and commentaries by Joe Sachs of St. John's College give us contemporary access to these difficult texts in translation. Last year I taught these texts in a seminar with the Chairman of our Physics Department. It was quite an experience.
There is a very good plot line for a movie here somewhere.