I found the essay’s use of representational drift especially fruitful because it gives scientific language to an experience many people know inwardly: the memory remains, yet the self who returns to it is no longer quite the same. That helps avoid two simplifications at once—the fantasy that identity is fixed, and the opposite fantasy that change dissolves responsibility. If memory is continually rebuilt, then the ethical question becomes what we do with that rebuilding. The line between change and progress matters here: not every alteration heals, but alteration can become healing when it is ordered toward a good that the self can actually live by.
I found the essay’s use of representational drift especially fruitful because it gives scientific language to an experience many people know inwardly: the memory remains, yet the self who returns to it is no longer quite the same. That helps avoid two simplifications at once—the fantasy that identity is fixed, and the opposite fantasy that change dissolves responsibility. If memory is continually rebuilt, then the ethical question becomes what we do with that rebuilding. The line between change and progress matters here: not every alteration heals, but alteration can become healing when it is ordered toward a good that the self can actually live by.