HOW DOES MEMORY CONTRIBUTE TO (A) INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY FORMATION AND (B) COLLECTIVE IDENTITY FORMATION?
The individual, prior to birth, is imprinted with sensations that help shape his/her existence. Prior to birth, knowledge of all things that the individual needs and has agreed to complete during the current lifetime is present in the mind and cellular structure. In addition to this, the individual is imprinted with the sensations from the environment into which s/he will be born. Birth accomplishes two things: (1) causes the individual to consciously forget these things and (2) solidifies all that has been imprinted into genetic codes that can be traced. In some ways, one could say that the individual is a composite of memories of other people, things, events, and places. Perhaps this is why humans spend a great deal of their lives asking: Who am I? From the moment we are born, we are bombarded with sensations, images, sounds, language, and structures that supposedly help us discover who we are. These things, shared with us from our families and communities, television/film, the stree
