As
I recall, I've spoken on the subject of memory in the past, although
I can't remember very much about what I said.ii
As far as I remember, however, I mentioned the idea mostly in
passing, and this time I'd like to focus on some aspects that I find
interesting and intriguing.
We
live in an age when the need for memory is becoming less and less
important. (More critical very often is the inability to forget –
or the inability to have others forget.iii)
With internet searches, we can find out much more than we were ever
able to remember when it was necessary to either know it ourselves or
to go to the library to learn it, and we can access the information
far more quickly than before. And it's no longer necessary to
remember the multiplication tables or more complex mathematical
formulas. As long as your computer is working, you can find out
almost anything you need to know. You can even see pictures of it.iv
And
notwithstanding Santayana and the others who have voiced similar
concerns, there isn't even any need to know history. It's all on
line. You don't have to remember the
Maine, the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11. A few clicks of your
mouse and you'll have more information about those events than
you could possibly remember. That kind of ability is no longer of
importance. Don't waste your neurons and synapses on them. Memory
and history are things of the past.
Yet
we are fixated on memory. We used to be happy when we could teach
some mice to run through a maze, and we offered them rewards for
doing so. But we've gone well beyond that now, and beyond Pavlovian
responses as well. We can now pick memory apart – we can identify
its pieces. Long-term and short-term memory used to be the main
categories that we considered, but now we deal with working memory,
episodic memory, semantic memory, instrumental learning, motor
memory, and other types.v
Memory
has become an industry. Not just the chips in your computer. Study
of memory is an important academic pursuit – whether animals or
plantsvi
are the subject. How memory works is a significant issue for
education and, recognizing that numerous nations are outpacing us in
this area, we have to be concerned with all the issues that relate to
learning in any way. It would be wonderful if our kids could
remember history or science as well as they remember hip-hop lyrics.vii
Mnemonics and test results rely on memory, but more important is the
knowledge which we can acquire, and the ability to relate that
knowledge to facts previously learned. If we are going to create
something new, we need to know (and remember) what's old. We have to
stand on the shoulders of those who came before.
But
there are other needs which memory fulfills. For example, it's
critical to our commerce. Our advertising depends on it. It's
important that consumers remember our brand names and all that we've
taught them about the quality of our products. It doesn't matter if
the claims are true, as long as we get enough people to remember them
and to buy the things we make or market.
And
we need memory in order to play games. How else can we expect to get
to the 36th level of whatever it is that has our
attention. And the chess masters, as well as those who play games
like Concentration, won't do very well if their focus on the game at
hand is not supplemented by additional information that they learned
and remember.
More
important though, we're concerned about Alzheimer's disease and other
forms of dementia. And not only because we might forget how to
utilize our computers. We hear almost daily of people who have
wandered off and who lack any concept of where they are going or of
how to return home – if they remember that they have homes. As the
population ages, memory loss is becoming a more and more serious
problem. It's a problem for the patients, their caregivers, and the
American economy in general. For example, according to the
Alzheimer's Foundation of America, the medical cost of the disease is
one hundred billion dollars annually.viii
And that doesn't include other dementias, nor the fact that the cost
is certain to go up. (Of course all that money has to go somewhere,
and that's to nursing homes, home healthcare workers, scam artists,
and anyone else with an idea about how to benefit from the situation.
It's all “zero sum.” The money doesn't disappear. Someone gets
it.)
But,
from my perspective, the greatest merit of memory is that it allows
me to have memories. They're not the kinds of things that Google can
fetch for me. They're personal. No one remembers my childhood, or
that of my children, as I do; no one can call back my college days or
my courtshipix
of my wife as I experienced it. And no one wants to. Everyone has
memories of his own. Nostalgia. Déjà
vu. Sometimes the memories are real and sometimes they're
idealized. And sometimes they're created from the “whole cloth.”
In any event, they'll be forgotten when we forget them. But that's
OK. Those memories will disappear as we will – as those who came
before us did.x
We all want to be remembered, but we know that our stories will soon
be forgotten. How long does a legacy last? In fact, how long does
your own memory last?
So
if you're thinking about remembering something for a long time, or
being remembered for a long time, fuggedaboudit.
Next
episode: “The Only Thing” – Henry Russell Sanders's philosophy
and ours.
I It
was Bob Hope's theme song, from “The Big Broadcast of 1938,”
in which he starred. He sang the song with Shirley Ross.
ii The
older I get, the more I forget. I try to deal with that problem by
making lists. Whenever I think of something interesting, I write it
down. Unfortunately, however, there are times when I can't make
notes. Like when I'm in the shower. I think of things that I want
to remember and try very hard to keep them “on line,” but I know
I'm going to forget a lot of my ideas. And that's one of my most
accurate insights, since I frequently forget the unwritten thoughts.
iii Delete:
The Virtue of Forgetting
in the Digital Age,
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
iv You
can even see pictures of memory. Here's Salvatore Dali's
“Persistence of Memory.”
I
don't understand it either. (If the picture does not appear on your computer, you can see it by going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory)
v I
can't remember them all and doing so is too complicated anyway.
vi http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201401156399/research/move-over-elephants-mimosas-have-memories-too.
(Don't say things you don't want them to know. They may remember.
And they may tell them to someone else.)
vii In
my day it was batting averages and car models – at least among the
boys. I don't know what the girls' obsessions were.
ix Does
the whole idea of courtship exist as it did more than half a century
ago?
x Do
you remember your great grandparents? Or those who came before
them? Or even after them. Each generation makes way for the next,
and too many memories would occupy too much space and keep us from
making our own. And it's our own that will sustain us as we get
older.
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