# Human Memory Already Lived Outside the Body by Samuel Butler > "Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book." > **— Samuel Butler's answering writer**, *1872, Erewhon, Chapter XXV* ## Sources and Context - **Full source:** [Samuel Butler, Erewhon, “The Book of the Machines”](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1906/pg1906-images.html). The answering writer inside Erewhon argues that tools are extra-corporeal human members; the preceding sentence is restored from the full text so the pocket-book line has its referent. The speaker is a fictional character in Butler's novel; the author stages more than one position. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]] - **Article:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Extended Mind Thesis|Extended Mind Thesis]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Erewhon|Erewhon]] - [[wiki/Extended Mind Thesis|Extended Mind Thesis]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book." — Samuel Butler's answering writer, 1872, Erewhon, Chapter XXV https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-butler-memory-pocket-book ```