Say someone wronged you badly ten years ago. Now, they've turned their life around completely and want to apologize to you. But the only way they can still face you is if they're allowed to forget the conversation afterwards. So you would remember the apology, but they would not. Does this apology still carry meaning, or is the meaning gone the moment this other person forgets it?
Think of your post painful breakup. Now think of that final conversation/argument you had with your ex before it ended. Imagine you could hypothetically transfer everything you felt during that conversation TO your ex...they would understand your pain, your gratitude, your disappointment - everything. But here's the caveat, the moment you transfer it, you no longer remember the conversation whatsoever.
Would you do it?
Overall there will be plenty of overlap between the two for almost everyone no doubt...but in the instances when a memory is only one or the other, which would you choose for yourself?
We sentence criminal offenders to jail for their crimes, and then at some point say they have fulfilled their obligation to society and "served their time"...then release them from prison.
But what if technology existed where their memory could be wiped clean of having committed the crime at all. For those who are truly repentant and consent.
Have they earned that after serving their punishment, or is it important for them to keep the memory of their crime?
(I acknowledge there are exceptions abound and that the specific do matter, yes. So please just take this question with a grain of salt for the general hypothetical it's meant to be)
Say you have the ability to implant a happy memory in your significant other's mind...a vivid, detailed memory of a day you were deeply happy together that makes their life feels fuller as a result and they would never know you implanted it. But it never actually happened.
Is this a gift or a violation?
Say that once a year, everyone making over $10,000,000 / year is given a choice:
They can skip paying taxes for that year, but only if they agree to experience 24 hours of the lived-memory of someone struggling financially.
Do you think society would be better off with the taxes or with the swap?
Say there was a button that, when pressed, would eliminate one of your biggest insecurities and you wouldn't remember ever having it. But nor would you remember struggling through it and overcoming it. As a general hypothetical (but for important context, asked by a stroke survivor experiencing memory loss), I'm curious enough to ask if the mental health community here thinks "growing via forgetting" in this way feels healthy or...not.
Say an 8-year old child witnessed something they shouldn't have. But there is a futuristic procedure that can remove the memory of it completely, and they would have no idea anything had ever happened. However...the child says they want to keep it...they say it made them feel brave. Should they be protected from the trauma anyways, or is their bravery theirs to keep?