[UA] Clockworks and Memories

[Gareth Hanrahan]

> I got a rather disturbing idea with this post. If a mechanomancer records
> dutifully whatever happens to him, and then sacrifices the memories of
> these events for constructs, can he still re-acquire the knowledge of what
> happened to him through his written accounts?
>
> I'm trying to distinguish the concept of memories and knowledge here. Going
> to One-Shots, if Uder Kram-? (don't have the book with me now, sorry) has
> written a detailed log of his wife's illness and death, and sacrificed the
> memory of her death, could he still gain the knowledge of his wife's being
> dead by reading his log? And then how about sacrificing the memory of ever
> having read the log, and then re-reading?
>
> It smells like the worst case of gouda cheese, but at the same time, I'm
> not sure how I'd handle it. Any ideas?

Ok...I'd handle it like this: It's possible for a clockworker to write down 
and later reread information about his past. If he uses this to retrieve 
knowledge lost when he sacrified memories, it sorta works. Uder could 
remember the fact of his wife's death. However,
1) he'd find it hard to keep that knowledge in his memory. He'd have to keep 
rereading the journal every few days to refresh the information. It'd change 
from being a mental blind spot to a mental cataract.
2) Although he'd regain knowledge of the incident, he wouldn't get back the 
memory. He could write down "Ella died on the 4th November, 1947, wearing a 
green dress and carrying her favourite umbrella", but he'd have no memory of 
the event. He'd just know that his diary said it happened.* Keep doing things 
like that, and it's Self check city ("my diary is more me that I am"...)

Gah. And once again, Tynes has got there first. "The Changeling" is a perfect 
example of this sort of thing....

> Antonio Rodriguez
Gar
http://www.mytholder.f2s.com

*: A clockworker uses a typewritten diary to keep his memory in order. A 
young con artist finds out about this, and sneaks into the clockworker's home 
while the old man is asleep. Hilarity ensues.

_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua