City, Memory

Excerpted from notes written on 2019-08-31

Residents of a virtual city would be accustomed to the fact that their bodies and memories can be separated. If a part of their body is injured, they can fix it themselves, ask other residents or city administrators how to fix it, or, if all else fails, find a new body. While there may be no continuity in the body, there is continuity in experience, so, when changing bodies, memories imprinted on the body would disappear, but memories derived from experiences would be shared with the new body.

A city being damaged or breaking down is quite different from an individual resident being injured. Some cities might repair themselves, or be partially isolated and restored under the influence of administrators. But finding a new body? A city's continuity is tied not only to the current state that results from the history of its places being maintained, disappearing, and newly emerging, but also to the experiences of all residents who make up the city or briefly pass through it. While city administrators can record and later verify the creation and demolition of places, individual experiences in these places remain only in the memories of residents unless specifically recorded. Thus, a city's memory could essentially be seen as a collection of its residents' memories. Since both the places that make up the city and the residents who compose it are necessary for the city's continuity, transferring a city to a new body is not a simple matter.

Cities hold the memories of their residents, and the residents' memories form the memory of the city. Some cities lose their continuity when places holding memories are destroyed, while others lose continuity when the memories of their residents are destroyed. If it's confirmed that residents are being harmed due to structural issues in the city, the city's administrator must modify the structure. Since some places in the city may become inaccessible during modifications, structural changes must be approached carefully. Those who manage the residents' memories can be seen as the ones who are actually managing the city's memory. They must take extra care to ensure that memories are not destroyed when accessing, relocating, or modifying them.