From the NY Times,Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory. Quite startling new research being done on memory, which could change the way we deal with traumatic events. The drug allowing the editing of these memories may only be a few years away but what are the implications? if we experience something and it makes us who we are but that experience is taken away aren't we changing who we are?
best quote from the article comes at the end:
Yet as scientists begin to climb out of the dark foothills and into the dim light, they are now poised to alter the understanding of human nature in ways artists and writers have not.
Which also brings up the question are memories reliable enough to be edited in the first place? Recent research indicates that memory is more slippery that we would like to believe. In a study I am reading for research into a new project written by New Zealand researchers, Maryanne Garry, Matthew P. Gerrie titled, When Photographs Create False Memories they argue that memory itself can be fabricated. So, how will these new drugs know whet they are deleting 'real' memories or faked or fantasy memories? and what of these memories contribute to who you are?