Bridgeman appears to equate epistemology with ontology, but these are different issues. While memory recall may be needed to know or PROVE conscious experience, it does not COMPRISE conscious experience. Conscious experience matters greatly even in the absence of the memory needed to prove that it occurred. An account of consciousness must not establish an epistemology so stringent that ontology gets lost in the process.
1.1 Bridgeman appears to equate epistemology with ontology, but these are different issues. While memory recall may be needed to know or PROVE conscious experience, it does not COMPRISE conscious experience. Imagine you are offered a choice for your upcoming surgery: A conventional anesthetic that (as best anyone can ascertain) prevents awareness of pain as the operation proceeds, or Bridgeman's "perfect" anesthetic. Which would you choose? No one prefers to experience excruciating pain, even with the firm knowledge that it will be forgotten immediately thereafter. For this reason, scopolamine and other amnestic agents are not preferred anesthetics for general use, but compromises selected when some patient awareness is beneficial, as in childbirth.
1.2 Conscious experience matters greatly even in the absence of the memory needed to prove that it occurred. You'd choose the conventional anesthetic whether asked the day before surgery (owing to your assumptions about the continuity of personal identity and experience), or just as the scalpel plunges in. It is only when memory comes into play that the choice seems to lose importance. Memory, necessary for subsequent knowledge of conscious experience, is not the same thing as immediate experience, and may obscure its very nature. An account of consciousness must not establish an epistemology so stringent that ontology gets lost in the process.
Bridgeman, Bruce (1992) Qualia and Memory. Response to Laming on Bridgeman on Consciousness PSYCOLOQUY 3(24) consciousness.9