SF thought

[fings]

Eating breakfast with my son, I had a thought about how when he was first born, and could not even talk.

And then I was thinking, that's just how our reproduction works. What if somewhere else in the universe exists intelligent life, where their form of reproduction includes copying memories? So that when you are born, you wake up with a full set of memories? I'm thinking a race that does gene exchange via pollination, where everyone has both "male" and "female" capabilities.

So when you are born, you have a full set of your mother's memories, up to the point you were born or thereabouts. And also, her mother's, and her mother's mother, etc. Getting vaguer and sketchier the further back you go, but still in existence.

No need to learn how to speak, or read, or any of those childhood things. Just gaining physical size and growth, and you remember going through that lots of times before as well.

Your siblings would have similar sets of memories, +/- stuff that happened to your mom between your births.

What would their society look like? Would such a species fear death in the same way?

You and your maternal cousins would remember being the same person two generations ago.

What if the memories were higher fidelity -- you could remember back 10 generations or more?

Comments

[fings.livejournal.com]

Thanks. The reason I went with everyone-both-gendered was to give everyone the chance to pass along memories. But a gendered world is interesting as well, in that males become dead-ends for passing along memories. I'm sure that in such a world, males would be second class citizens, viewed as ephemeral offshoots of their mothers. I could see males inventing writing, as a way to communicate their thoughts and memories onwards.