Memory

"Doesn't make a difference whether I know about it. Just because there are things I don't remember doesn't make my actions meaningless. The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?" -- Lenny (Memento)

What is a good objective indicator of the truth of something? The scientific method says observation. Can you hear, feel, touch, taste...? Can you repeat it? Can you make the same thing happen again?

(Can we trust our senses? Can we trust ourselves to interpret them right?

Are you familiar with the black swan metaphor? It's an extremely unlikely event that takes place that only in retrospect, upon reworking our understanding of how the circumstances work, becomes not so unlikely.

We are trapped within the limitations of human thought. We use the knowledge of the world around us to come to new conclusions without necessarily questioning if that knowledge is in fact true, because it's too much to look at at once.)

In George Orwell's 1984, characters try to create new objective truths by manipulating memory. Records of people who used to exist are erased, and no one speaks of them. Did those people even exist at all? How can you tell?

In Memento, Lenny seems to want to believe that his actions are changing something. His inability to create memories, though, will leave him in such a state that he'll feel the same about the events afterwards as beforehand. Lenny says that memories are "irrelevant if you have the facts," but what creates the facts?

Disconcertingly, this inability to get a feel for the objective existence of actions, lives, and universal laws, does not only apply to Lenny. Even though most people do not have a disability that prevents them from getting new memories, memories can still not act as the objective truth by which it is possible to measure our actions.

"Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted."

What can't?