I believe he is right to a certain extent. Memories are certainly unreliable; we can come up with alternate endings and ideas in our mind that never existed in the first place. I have often thought I remember something exactly, when in truth, there are moments that I have fabricated. Leonard himself thinks that he has to find John G, when he fabricates clues for himself even after finding out he is the one who killed his wife, and Sammy Jenkins is in fact just himself. His guilt causes him to fabricate these memories of his wife, so he can’t remember what happened. However, I do think that the feelings that memories leave us with are not entirely unreliable. The details, or even the event itself may be inaccurate, but I believe the feeling or impression we have from those memories can be accurate, moreso than the actual memory itself. Hume would agree with this point– he believes that the mind is merely a succession of perceptions; perceptions that rely more strongly on feeling rather than accuracy.

In a similar vein, our memories are not more reliable than Leonard’s notes. Our memories are not perfect preservations of a moment in time, rather, they are impressions and feelings we got from that moment that are subject to change. Leonard’s notes are exactly that– just a way to capture a moment, but can change based on the context and are not necessarily reliable. Take his note about Teddy’s lies. He writes this note so he will perpetually chase after John G, but the note itself is inaccurate and his interpretation of the note once he forgets is also inaccurate. Our memories can never be accurate, but the moment still exists. Leonard’s notes may be accurate, but no more than our memories, because Leonard will never be able to recall that exact moment in time and what the true meaning behind the note was. His notes are just as susceptible to inaccuracy as our memories are. As Hume puts it: “for what is the memory but a faculty, by which we raise up the images of past perceptions”. For our memories, and Leonard’s notes, we use these tools to recall our past impressions, rather than the accurate moment in time.

I believe Hume would not see Leonard’s condition as any different from our own. Hume believes that who we are is made up of the exact moment in time in which we exist. Our identity is an illusion, and is instead a “succession of impressions, ideas, and memories”. Hume believes that the identity we feel comes about as a result of resemblance and causation. Resemblance concerns the idea that “memory…produces the relation of resemblance among the perceptions.” We can see this with Leonard, in that his notes, or his “memory” produces a sense of connection between events because of what he wrote down. He believes that Jimmy G is John G because he wrote it down, and therefore he believes Jimmy killed his wife. This is incorrect, and proves that Leonard’s reliance on these “memories” or his notes gives him a false sense of connection, and a false idea of who John G. is. Causation is that “the memory…discovers personal identity, by showing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions.” Leonard creates an identity outside of who he believes he is, but cannot comprehend this. When Teddy asks him who he is, and Leonard responds with his name and where he lives, Teddy tells him that’s who he was, but not who he is now. Leonard’s notes cause him to create the cause and effect of his wife’s death, and connect perceptions that have no connection. He creates his identity differently in every moment based on what he is told, but believes he is still himself because of his established identity. Hume believes the only true form of ourselves is who we are in the present moment. This holds true for Leonard– Leonard is himself in the present moment because he can’t remember what he did the moment before. The most accurate version of himself is in the present, not Leonard from San Francisco. Hume therefore would not consider Leonard’s condition different from our own– we are all who we are in the present moment, and our identity is an illusion that cannot be relied upon. The inaccuracy of our memory causes us to string together different perceptions and come up with an idea of who we are, but it is not true. The only authentic version of ourselves is who we are in the present moment, much like how the only accurate version of Leonard and the only person/memories he can trust is the person he is in the present.

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