I had a memory today of a house I've never been to. It took me a while to convince myself it had been some dream I didn't write down. Now it's a memory of me telling you about a memory that may or may not actually be real.
Memories are what makes us who we are, maybe, probably, even more so than genetics. I suppose it would fall under 'envornment'.
It's upsetting to me when i know i'm losing memories, and it's a wonderful feeling when i remember something that i havent thought of in such a long time.
So i wonder, can memories be gone forever, or are they just stored in some part that is much harder to access?
Think about how that sentence demonstrates how flawed humans are:
"So i wonder, can memories be gone forever, or are they just stored in some part that is much harder to access?"
Our memories make us what we are, but we store them, unwillingly, in places that are difficult to access.
Genetics and environment are a huge influence in what make us who we are primarily because they are what put us in the location where the memories are taking place and what program how we will react.
Take the fact that we were born in America and narrow it down from there. Then take into account our genetic history.
Could the fact that i'm absent minded be because my ancestors were?
well, i think its in-arguable (un-arguable?) that humans as a species are flawed, physically and mentally, but our flaws seem to be, at least, less promounced that that of most other species. The fact that we're not as fast as cheeta's, we dont have gills like fish, seems to be offset by our opposable thumbs, cognitive recognition and 'conscious' (which i dont plan on turning this into a debate about, haha
( ... )
Did you try to compare your memory of an event with someboby else's? I did, and the result was disastrous.
I remember a friend of mine tell me how he watched the recording of a event which he was sure he remembered in every detail, and how shocked he was to see that everything was absolutely different. "Even the wallpaper was different, I couldn't believe it!"
Obviously, memory depends on perception. The more important question is: what does perception depend on?
Indeed i did, and indeed it was disastrous. You are right, the more important question would be perception.
One of the things i was thinking about when writing this entry was lessons from literature and film. Take for instance 'Waking Life' (a favorite of ours to reference). Someone wouldn't even need to watch the entire movie to learn something valuable about life. However, because the action is happening to Mr. Wiggins and not us we move on understanding what the lesson was, but not absorbing it. Our perception is from the outside, and thus our memory is also from the outside. Then again, this could just be a problem with American audiences.
"We all learned the lesson from Orwell's novel 1984" Have we, or will we understand what lesson we learned once we're surrounded by it.
Learning lessons seems wishful thinking to me. Afraid to admit 1984 has come true, we try hard to persuade ourselves we learned its lesson, but actually we lack the courage of our convictions, don’t we?
I think we believe that we’ve learned a lesson from a book or film only if that book or film outside resonates with what we feel inside. That’s the case with ‘Waking Life’: it’s exactly what i feel (or what i believe i feel at least), so i say it’s worth learning lessons from. For all this, there’re people who are totally indifferent to this movie.
Maybe the best art can do in this respect is reveal things we’re too frightened or too unwilling to admit. Usually resonance is too powerful to resist, so we submit to it saying it’s a revelation, a lesson to learn. But is it really, or is it just the way things are, the way the outside coincides with the inside, however partially?
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It's upsetting to me when i know i'm losing memories, and it's a wonderful feeling when i remember something that i havent thought of in such a long time.
So i wonder, can memories be gone forever, or are they just stored in some part that is much harder to access?
Reply
"So i wonder, can memories be gone forever, or are they just stored in some part that is much harder to access?"
Our memories make us what we are, but we store them, unwillingly, in places that are difficult to access.
Genetics and environment are a huge influence in what make us who we are primarily because they are what put us in the location where the memories are taking place and what program how we will react.
Take the fact that we were born in America and narrow it down from there.
Then take into account our genetic history.
Could the fact that i'm absent minded be because my ancestors were?
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By the way, how are you liking Fragile Things?
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I remember a friend of mine tell me how he watched the recording of a event which he was sure he remembered in every detail, and how shocked he was to see that everything was absolutely different. "Even the wallpaper was different, I couldn't believe it!"
Obviously, memory depends on perception. The more important question is: what does perception depend on?
Reply
You are right, the more important question would be perception.
One of the things i was thinking about when writing this entry was lessons from literature and film.
Take for instance 'Waking Life' (a favorite of ours to reference).
Someone wouldn't even need to watch the entire movie to learn something valuable about life.
However, because the action is happening to Mr. Wiggins and not us we move on understanding what the lesson was, but not absorbing it.
Our perception is from the outside, and thus our memory is also from the outside.
Then again, this could just be a problem with American audiences.
"We all learned the lesson from Orwell's novel 1984"
Have we, or will we understand what lesson we learned once we're surrounded by it.
Reply
I think we believe that we’ve learned a lesson from a book or film only if that book or film outside resonates with what we feel inside. That’s the case with ‘Waking Life’: it’s exactly what i feel (or what i believe i feel at least), so i say it’s worth learning lessons from. For all this, there’re people who are totally indifferent to this movie.
Maybe the best art can do in this respect is reveal things we’re too frightened or too unwilling to admit. Usually resonance is too powerful to resist, so we submit to it saying it’s a revelation, a lesson to learn. But is it really, or is it just the way things are, the way the outside coincides with the inside, however partially?
Reply
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