Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Binta Olabisi
Phi 2010
Tony Dennis
April 24,2019
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is a romantic science-fiction film about a couple
who both undergo a procedure to erase their memories after ending their relationship. The two
main characters, Joel and Clementine, became estranged after erasing memories of each
other,but soon after re-encounter and start dating again. One of the main themes of this film is
expressing that memory and identity are integral. Joel and Clem the past two years of their lives
in a relationship and when their memories are gone, they both feel lost and hollow. Somehow
they manage to find their way back to each other despite forgetting about each other’s’ existence.
According to English philosopher John Locke, the memory theory states that memory is the key
to defining a person’s identity. Content from this film allows one to question whether Joel and
Clementine are still the same people with the same identity after erasing their memories.We can
argue that Joel and Clementine both lost some part of their personal identity when they lost their
memories. Personal identity can be best investigated in this film after Joel and Clementine try to
figure out who they are and were after they erased their memory. The relation of personal
identity to memory loss can be examined through the memory theory and psychological
continuity.
Locke considered personal identity to be found on consciousness or memory rather than
the substance of the body or soul. He also defines a person as a “thinking intelligent being that
has reason and reflection; their consciousness cannot be separated from their thinking. A person
is conscious when they recognize his or her self as his or herself at different points in time and
space. In terms of the personal identity theory, we can prove that erasing the characters
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1 Dennis, Tony. “Ch4Sec1ppt.pdf.” Lecture, Florida International University,March,2019.
memories erased a part of their identity. Personal identity can be related to the memory theory
which states that identical persons are those who share at least one experience or
autobiographical memory; this suggests that any change in one’s self is a change on their
identity. According to Locke, as long as a person is their same self and rational thinking being,
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they have the same personal identity. But when there’s a change in self,there is a change in
personal identity; any change in personal identity says that the self has changed.When Joel and
Clementine alter the information from their minds that proved they were once together, they
were erasing an impactful part of their life and memories. Locke says that being to be one’s self,
one must be thinking and thinking is accompanied by consciousness; so a person identifies with
their self when they identify with their consciousness. So we have to ask ourselves if Joel and
Clementine were conscious after erasing their memories. They were both in pain and were not
thinking rationally when they went through the procedure, they were also put to sleep to
complete the procedure; which we could argue that they were not fully conscious of the decision
they were making. After the procedure they lost a part of their memory and a part of their past
,which means they don’t remember who they were during those times. So we could say they
were not truly consciousness after the procedure because they were not aware that they had
erased a lot section of their memory from their lives.Which means, according to Locke, that they
don’t identify with themselves ,and they don’t have the same personal identity they did before
because something did change. In the movie we see changes in both characters personalities.
Either way Locke’s view on the memory theory also says that a person shouldn’t be held
2 Schick, Theodore, and Lewis Vaughn. 2010. Doing philosophy: an introduction through
thought experiments
. New York: McGraw-Hill, 269.
responsible for something they don’t remember doing. When Joel gets into his car and starts
crying after he finds out Clementine went to Lacuna to erase her memories of him, he blames
her. From our reading we can say that Joel shouldn’t blame her for doing so because she doesn’t
even remember doing it;this also brings up the idea of consciousness.Joel is angry and a bit
aggressive when he learns that Clem erased him, so he decides to go get the same procedure
done. We could argue that Joel might not have been conscious or wasn’t thinking clearly when
he decides to do it as well; halfway through the procedure, he regrets it.A consequence of the
memory theory is that two persons can inhabit the same body as long as they have different
memories. This proves that Joel and Clementine became different people after the procedure
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because the before and after of both of them have different memories; one of them remembers
