Memory and imagination

[vaneramos]

Tonight en route to Toronto I heard the CBC Radio program Ideas air an interview with Endel Tulving about the science of memory. Fascinating. The gist is that long-term memory has traditionally been lumped together, but he distinguishes episodic memory, which involves memories of past events and experiences, from semantic memory, which is everything we know about the world. Episodic memory is where most people derive their identity. But people can know a lot of things without access to episodic memory. In fact people with complete amnesia due to brain damage may not know how they arrived in the room while still knowing facts like the capital of France or the chemical formula for salt.

He also suggested that the way our brains access episodic memories is remarkably similar to the way we exercise imagination. In fact it's hard to distinguish how we remember past events from how we imagine future ones. Which brings us back to the question: what is time? We have no sense organ for perceiving it the way we can perceive space by sight, touch or sound.

I have poor episodic memory. Often when talking to school friends it hits me how poorly I remember past events. This can be a problem living alone, because it's easy to forget recent experiences of feeling connected. I know (semantically) I have friends, but I forget episodically. My imagination stretches momentary loneliness into the past and future.

Somehow in the midst of this radio program I was struck with the intense complexity and beauty of life.

I mistrust the practice of applying gratitude to improve one's state of mind. I'm not saying I'm against it, it just feels unnatural to me, and sometimes ignores part of the truth. But beauty is something I value and can always hold onto. I wonder whether I would feel better if I made a daily practice of focusing on something beautiful.

Comments

[blt4success66.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this information! It's rather interesting.

I hope you have a grand weekend!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You too!

If you like this kind of thing, you can listen to Ideas in streaming audio on CBC Radio weeknights at 9 p.m. (and you can choose from any of Canada's five time zones). Recently I've caught several programs while driving in the evening (one was about Darwin and another was about meat and ethical alternatives to vegetarianism), and liked them so much I'm going to try listening at home when I have the chance.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

We have no sense organ for perceiving it

Yeah, the mind. The Vedic traditions talk about "mind" as one of the senses, the one that informs us about ideas or abstractions. The Greeks talked about mind as the organ that perceived Logos. The Taoists talked about mind being vulnerable to illusions in the same way as vision or hearing.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Tulving made some other interesting statements about the mind. Scientists keep looking for organic traces of specific memories within the brain, but he doubts whether they exist, suggesting the mind is to the brain as music is to a piano. A piano does not contain music; it only produces music when certain factors act upon it. So the brain is more like an instrument than a record.

Recently I've been reminded how susceptible my mind is to illusion. Sometimes I discover my clear, specific memories of events are incongruent with other trusted perspectives, and even my own written records. I suspect happens to everyone to varying degrees. I was married to someone who never forgot anything but imagined additional narratives which were untrue.

Marilyn Powell, who conducted last night's interview, said she met a woman who possessed no episodic memory and relied entirely on her husband to remember everything. Although my lack is not so complete, I've forgotten vast tracts of my life. I think I should start systematically rereading my personal journals, which are extensive from the past 15 years. I've hardly read any of them because they're so overwhelming, however I bet I would learn a lot.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

My mom does it all the time ... "forgets" things she doesn't want to know, invents things that never happened, replaces actual memories with ones that make more sense to her way of thinking. She's not stupid or suffering from Alzheimer's in this, she has always done it. I can't count the number of times I told her stuff as simple as "I'm going to the store and will be back in 5 minutes" and when I get back she's in a flap cause she doesn't know where I've gone and how long I'll be away. But she also forgets major, important stuff that she's been told repeatedly.

[pippasporch.livejournal.com]

Wow, this touches me on so many levels! I also struggle remembering certain episodic things, and this most definitely has an effect on my perception of my relationships. When something goes wrong in a relationship, that disconnection stretches backwards, making me doubt the connection that was there, and forwards, making me fear for the future of the relationship - often upsetting the partner.

Employing my imagination when reality is less than satisfactory is a STRONG way of coping for me, and that all makes sense now. Though I do worry if it might finally scatter my perception of reality...

Thanks for sharing, Van. VERY insightful! And I KNOW that making a daily practice of focusing on something beautiful can have a powerful effect. May it bring you light in every way possible!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, this program really fitted a piece of the puzzle for me. I've noticed that I don't remember things the way many people seem to, and sometimes I've worried that I'm already beginning to lose brain function. It was a little reassuring to realize that this is just one shade in the spectrum of human experience. It also gave me some clues for tools to work around the problem.

May our imaginations shed light!