ABSTRACT
The connection between memory and consciousness is so deep that people often assume that 'memory' means conscious memory. This chapter discusses the way consciousness figures in relation to one form of memory, episodic memory. It proposes a general definition of memory as the present use of past experience, where 'experience' does not imply consciousness. The chapter considers the role of consciousness in theories of episodic memory. It proposes that the conscious feeling of pastness results from embedding the representation of a past experience within a representation of the present. The chapter considers why it is difficult to show how consciousness is involved in animal memory and consider what tests might be persuasive. It offers reasons to think of memory and consciousness in terms of teleofunctional representation, where a representation has the function of varying in accord with an item, because that variation relation has contributed to survival.
