A person existing at a particular time is the same person as one who existed at an earlier time, if the later person remembers experiences that were had by the earlier person, i.e. if the later person remembers being the earlier person.
1. People forget things they have experienced. If I no longer remember what happened on a particular day, does that mean I'm no longer the person who experienced that day?
Response: Change the criterion to say that (a) the later person could remember the earlier person's experience, or to say that (b) the later person only needs to remember some of the things the earlier person experienced.
But what does "could" mean here? It's possible that some experiences are forever lost to memory. And if you want to say that the later person did a certain past action, even if he can't remember it, because it was done by an earlier person whose experiences the later person does remember, then we have to start all over and establish that the earlier person is the one who did the forgotten action. (Consider Reid's argument about the boy and the general.)
2. People can have false memories, i.e. seem to remember things that never really happened to them. Remembering Napoleon's experiences doesn't make you Napoleon.
Response: Change the criterion to say that the later person has true memories of the earlier person's experience.
But what makes a true memory different from a false one? What makes a memory true is the fact that the person having the memory was present when the original experience occurred: that is, that the person remembering is the person who had the experience. But this is just to say that the later person is the same as the earlier person.
So now the memory criterion says, "A later person is the same as an earlier person if the later person remembers the earlier person's experience and is the same person as the earlier person." You could just leave out memory altogether, and you'd have, "A later person is the same as an earlier person if the later person is the same as the earlier person." This statement is true, but dumb. It hardly tells us anything about personal identity.
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