Not Really Off-Topic: An Argument Against Reason

P1: Memory is the primary foundation of reason
P2: If the primary foundation of reason is unreliable, then reason is unreliable
P3: Memory is unreliable
C: Reason is unreliable

Now, let me say from the get-go that I don't accept the conclusion, but the argument is valid and seems quite sound. P1 seems obvious to me. I can't undertake any of the doxastic practices of reason without memory. I could not create the above argument unless I remembered what a syllogism is, and how to put one together, what soundness and validity are, etc. There is no process of reasoning that does not rely on memory. We have to remember how to do math, how to do science, etc. And in science experiments have to be remembered and so on.

If you cannot trust your memory, then you cannot trust your reason. Yet memory is currently being undermined day in and day out by psychologists and neuroscientists. Science is building a mountain of evidence that memory is not reliable.

Here are a few examples:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201203/unreliable-memory
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/07/ideas-bank/your-memories-are-made-to-be-reliably-unreliable
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2010/06/our-fresh-old-memories/


All you have to do is Google "memory unreliable" and you'll get a plethora of information on the subject. Now, let's say I am convinced by all of this that memory is, indeed, unreliable....like, generally unreliable. Then I have no reason to really accept any of the outputs of reason, since everything humans do when it comes to reasoning relies on human memory. In point of fact, my ability to reason is undergirded by a broader trust in my own ability to remember, and the abilities of others to remember as well.

So here's the rub, no matter what evidence science comes up with to the contrary, I will and indeed must always trust my memory and the memory of others. For science itself, the very methodologies of science, would be undermined by the removal of trust in memory. Science, by undermining memory, would be undermining itself, and my ability to trust the outputs of the scientific method.

Indeed the above argument CANNOT WORK, for if it did work, then indeed I would have no reason to accept the argument itself. It would be, ultimately, self-defeating. For I could not trust the argument if I did not trust my memory. This shows a limit of science: it cannot undermine its own foundations. Logic is a limit on what can meaningfully be said. Reason that undercuts its own foundations is not just false, its meaningless.

Extra bonus thought (God I love the freedom of blogging): There are evolutionary psychologists who are coming up with good 'reasons' why memory is and would be unreliable. They are creating an evolutionary account of the human mind that undercuts our ability to trust memory. But indeed that only leads to the conclusion that evolutionary psychology itself is unreliable. This reminds me of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.

Tentative conclusion: I am justified in rejecting any evidence that undermines my ability to reason using evidence.