Previously: Cellular Memory 3 February 2009
Now, some 15 years later there have been an abundance of studies that do indeed suggest that memory and personality might continue and have influence on people that have had organ transplants, the memories & personalities of the deceased (donors) to the living (recipients).
Now, "memory" here is a tricky thing, and as it rather defines our existence I should clarify a few things. Memory surviving death is no new thing. This is the purpose of books, - to keep alive the memory of the author, of sculpture, art, architecture, which preserve if not the artist then the memory of their point of view, their genius. Our collective memory as a species has evolved, from the earliest oral traditions to reading, writing, film, audio, and now finally digital.
So then perhaps it's not memory, by it's nature non-local and outside ourselves, but our identity.
Our identities are largely shaped by the memories we have (and how we choose to remember them). Changes in physical self are a form of permanent memories, scars, most people remembering when/where/how they lost a limb, and their attendant feelings, or a certain relationship that altered their viewpoint on the world, or a catastrophic misfortune (or fortunate windfall) that completely and utterly remade their universe.
Consider the Bible (Western) as a form of collective memory - when it was (at one point) the one thing that Western Civilization had in common - everyone had at least some exposure to it, and many had considerable. Nevermind that it may well be largely (literally at least) lies & fiction, it formed in some ways a cornerstone of "our" memory. Even to react adversely to it is merely a matter of personal taste, there was no denying it's existence, merely it's relevance or veracity.
Now consider memories - starting with the simpler organisms and moving forward. A sea-sponge pressed through a sieve will over time reassemble itself. What memory(ies) does it have of it's prior existence? A planarian can be divided up to 279 times, and each piece will regrow itself and preserve a "memory" - for example, a trained response towards light. Is this now memory? Or is it identity and evolution? Consider that a woman diminishes her risk of miscarriage by indulging in performing oral sex. The habituation to the sperm/fluids of the male make her body less likely to reject the fetus. (Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30980918/). A vaccine is the introduction of a "memory" into the body in preparation for a fight, much as Neo downloaded fight programs in "The Matrix".
Or of Epigenetic Triggers, which if activated before reproduction in Humans as well as other species pass the changes on to the offspring - memory, triggered, becomes a portion of identity in future generations.
Now on to the increasing evidence that organs (heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, etc) retain some portion of memory that survives upon transplant. I'm thinking of a bad Hollywood Movie wherein a heart transplant recipient unwittingly falls in love with the (naturally) deceased donor's wife.
But why not? We are all the sum of our parts?
Think here of the hand in The Addams Family, scurrying about on it's own nefarious business. Or the monster of Frankenstein, assembled from whatever was at hand, and therefor tearing itself apart with it's own separate ambitions.
There is so much research now being done on this, and - for a bit, a while, it seemed a romantic fiction, we took for granted the physical & chemical nature of the brain and thought it superseded all else, and there would no doubt be neurologists that would still argue this view, but it's time perhaps to take a broader look. Brain injury might impede the expression of personality and intelligence, but the brain might not be entirely the locus. Identity, personality, tastes even, are more probably bound up in the entirety of our physical existence than solely within our cranium.
And even that is coming under scrutiny...
Anyways, curious thoughts in curious directions.