Memory, Imagination, and Consciousness in Funes the Memorious and Meurs

Memory, Imagination, and Consciousness in Funes the Memorious and Meursault  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Consciousness separates humans from sense perceiving â€Å"garbage heaps.† Jorge Luis Borges, in â€Å"Funes the Memorious,† and Albert Camus, in â€Å"The Stranger,† explore the causes of consciousness. They are philosophers who write fiction to answer the question, â€Å"What makes us aware?† An imperfect memory and imagination define our reality. Funes can be aware of other realities because has a perfect memory. Meursault reveals that the missing element for Funes to possess consciousness is imagination. I will define consciousness, assess memory and imagination as essential, discuss metaphor as a manifestation of consciousness, and isolate the affect of the awareness of other consciousness’. Without memory, we could not compare a past object or idea with a present one. Memory allows us to enhance past objective observations with present sensory perceptions. Because we have an imperfect memory, that is, we cannot remember every detail, we embellish. We give a past idea or object an identity independent from the external world because we perceive and imagine it differently than our initial sensory reaction. We change our original reaction with our imagination. Thus, creative people experience life more vividly. In the process of consciousness, we first remember something imperfectly, and then qualify it with other embellished thoughts. The act of thought, then, is not consciousness. Thought is the comparison of one object to another. We are not conscious because we notice a difference between two things. Once, we embellish the relationship however, we create an internal reality that is an imperfect copy of our true sensory reaction. We possess consciousness... .... Together, Camus and Borges show us that through our imperfect memories and our distorting, lying imaginations, we obtain an individual identity. Works Cited Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths: â€Å"Funes the Memorious†. New York: New Directions Publishing Co., 1964. Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York: Random House, 1988. Christ, Ronald. The Narrow Act: Borges’ Art of Fiction. New York: Lumen Books, 1995. Hart, Thomas R. Jr. â€Å"Borges’ Literary Criticism.† Modern Critical Views: Jorge Luis Borges. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 5-20. Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton, 1976. Mà ¼ller, Max. The Science of Thought. London: Longmans Green, 1887. 78-9. Sarte, Jean-Paul. â€Å"An Explication of â€Å"The Stranger.† Camus. Ed. Germaine Brà ©e. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1962.