Amnesia and the Self That Remains When Memory Is Lost - Daniel Levitin - The Atlantic: "It was nice of you to come. It was helpful too. It's comforting to put together the pieces of my life, to see what I've done. To know that there were kind people like you who were in it with me. Thank you."
I walked down the stairs, past the rows and rows of identical apartment buildings, back to my car. Then I sat in my car with the key in the ignition, not wanting to move. Professor Pribram felt that when we lose our memory, we lose our entire sense of self. When I saw Tom, something fundamentally Tom was still there. Some of us call it personality, or essence. Some call it the "soul." Whatever it is, the tumor that took Tom's memory had not touched it.