Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: tony6789 on 12/05/2006 14:30:18
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how...ummm....when..or..how do i ask this?.... What is memory and how,just how does it work?
NEVER! underestimate youth
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Apart from the generality of saying that you could write a book about it. It is perhaps easer to give an example. The crease on a piece of paper is a memory of it being creased. Memory is a record of an event recorded on a memory surface.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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Memory is really two different things.
It is the ability of the past to change the future (as in Hadrian's example of a piece of paper that has been permanently changed by a past act of it being folded).
It is also the ability to be able to recreate an image of the past from the present. The ability to recreate the past must imply that the past has changed the present (otherwise you would not have any basis within the present upon which you could recreate the past), but it does not follow that all changes that the past creates upon the present would inevitably allow a recreation of the past. If two different events within the past could have created the same present state, then the present state is not such as to be able to uniquely discern which of those past events had occurred.
George
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Memory is really two different things.
Is it? I don’t think so
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It is the ability of the past to change the future
You can't change the future. The only time you and alter is now.
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(as in Hadrian's example of a piece of paper that has been permanently changed by a past act of it being folded).
Well this is not correct. The memory is not permanent and is subject to the changes that the memory surface is subject to. Just as our memories are not accurate and are changed by our mind interplaying with them and new data being put in place.
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It is also the ability to be able to recreate an image of the past from the present.
It is not the past we recreate but our version of it.
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The ability to recreate the past must imply that the past has changed the present (otherwise you would not have any basis within the present upon which you could recreate the past), but it does not follow that all changes that the past creates upon the present would inevitably allow a recreation of the past. If two different events within the past could have created the same present state, then the present state is not such as to be able to uniquely discern which of those past events had occurred.
Well this is so full of wholes it not worth taking apart. Not your usual clear stuff today George.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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Originally posted by Hadrian
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It is the ability of the past to change the future
You can't change the future. The only time you and alter is now.
If the future is unalterable, then there can be no memory of the present.
It is true that the moment at which the change happens is the present, but the effect must create a different future (a future that is changed from what it otherwise would be), otherwise that future would have no memory of what is present now.
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(as in Hadrian's example of a piece of paper that has been permanently changed by a past act of it being folded).
Well this is not correct. The memory is not permanent and is subject to the changes that the memory surface is subject to. Just as our memories are not accurate and are changed by our mind interplaying with them and new data being put in place.
Ideally, I should probably have said 'persistent' rather than 'permanent'.
Nonetheless, I do think it is reasonable to say that the piece of paper has been permanently changed, but it is true that subsequent changes to that paper could (and will) add new memories that will modify the earlier memories, possibly in a way that will ultimately destroy the earlier memory; but even the destruction of the memory will not undo the change that created the memory, it will merely modify it.
I agree that our recollections (are they memories, if they are false?) are inaccurate, but this is because of the limitations of our ability to recreate the past in our own minds.
Ofcourse, the way our recollections work is very different from the way a video recorder works. Both have their limitations, but the recollections of a video recorder are at least consistent (at least insofar as the recording survives).
George
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All memory is inaccurate because it is subject to the memory surface it on and there is nothing in the physical universe that will stay the same forever. Everything is changing at some level. I would accept I relation to a living biological memory system a VCR tape or DVD is temporary more fateful to what has taken place but these too are subject to decay.
What we create in our mind as a possible future is done so in the “now” and then it becomes a memory of our thinking about a possible outcome. We can not alter past or the future. We can only affect the moment we are it. Yes we can plan and use the past to help us do this. But we can only put that plan into action in the “Now”.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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Originally posted by Hadrian
All memory is inaccurate because it is subject to the memory surface it on and there is nothing in the physical universe that will stay the same forever.
Memory is inaccurate for more basic reasons than that, because the recording process (whether it is the human eye, or a video recorder) will not record everything.
Beyond that, I agree that any record will decay over time (i.e. will be subject to increasing noise over time).
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We can not alter past or the future.
Insofar as the future is dependent upon the present, and insofar as we are able to change the present, then in changing the present, we inevitably change the future.
If you send your child to college, you will change his/her present, but you will also change his/her future.
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we can only put that plan into action in the “Now”.
Action can only be in the now, but the change that is a consequence of that action will be in the future.
If you are unable to change the future, it rather makes any action you take in the present somewhat futile.
George
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The percent is far from futile it is all we have. In death you are finally forced to let of all concepts of time and accept the moment.
I not suggesting that you should not have goals or work to an end in mind. I am saying that attachment to the outcome to the level that you identify with it is futile. What will happen will happen and you will ever only experiences in the moment it is happening, you can never experiences anything outside the moment you are in. Even thinking about an outcome can only take place in the “now”
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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Originally posted by Hadrian
In death you are finally forced to let of all concepts of time and accept the moment.
On the contrary, in death, we have to let go of everything, ultimately even the present, for ourselves; but what we hope to have left if the future we have helped create for others who are still alive.
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What will happen will happen
Ofcourse this is so, but hopefully you will have some degree of influence over what will happen; although without a doubt, you will never have absolute control.
George
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This is a very important question that we are looking at George. It one that I have spent many years working on even before I knew it was. I would say it has changed my life totally. This question and the journey it brought me on finally set me free from my pain and the control that my ego had over me. So much of my life was spent in the mad pursuit of fulfilment in some future time. I would be happy when I achieved this or that or got whatever I thought I needed.
I also became attached to the suffering of my early life to the point it defined me how I looked at the world. I lost all contact with the present moment and lived in the madness of psychological time travel driven by the needs of my ego.
Then one day when I was faced with my death and the bully in my head, (my ego) fled in terror of its pending annihilation. In one signal moment I became aware of its presences and realised it was not me. For the first time in my life I faced the “me” or the “I am” without being attached to the “me and myself” concept.
It took a long time for me to find the true understanding of what this experience was. There is a greater intelligence that is free of all pain that can only be experienced in the present moment. To some it is God to others it is enlightenment and to even other is simply the endless well of joy and peace that we all have access to if we look for it. Death plays an important part of this process. To be totally in the presences of this state of being your ego has to go through a kind of death and like all entities it will resist this with all it power.
It will use your mind and your emotions to undermine your every step to be free of it. It will keep you looking everywhere but the place where you have only chance of finding what it is you seek. It will bring your attention to the future with worries and fears. It will make you relive you failures and mistakes over and over as well as keep your pasts pain alive in you.
When we finally face death if we are free then we can choose to be in that moment in the total presence of endless joy and peace (the presence God) and be free of time itself. For in true presences there is no time. No past on future just an endless moment. But if we are in the power of our ego then it will resist this chance because it simply wants to survive.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.