The Russell Stannard Questions: Mind Over Matter

There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.

The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.

My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.

Q. The problem of consciousness.

A. How can your basic building blocks that are electrons, neutrons and protons combine to form atoms; atoms that combine to form molecules; molecules that combine to form complex molecules - complex molecules like organic molecules, biochemical molecules and molecules part and parcel of neurochemistry; the ultimate result being that this chain from the simple to the complex crosses a threshold from the inanimate to the animate and from the animate to the animate entity that is self-aware. It is a profound mystery why one has a fairly unique structure comprised of the same fundamental bits and pieces that comprise all other structures but yet one that can contemplate itself. That structure is the brain and the mind that resides within that structure. The brain is the only structure in the cosmos that can examine itself and yet that structure is ultimately comprised of just electrons, neutrons and protons. However, is there really a problem if that structure can ultimate figure out how to create another structure that also has consciousness. In other words, intelligent and conscious biological software can deliberately give rise to an artificial intelligent and conscious string of software and in doing so thus create a Simulated [Virtual Reality] Universe that houses or contains an apparent (but artificially) intelligent and conscious biological entity or entities that wonders whether or not there was an artificially intelligent software program that gave rise to it. That sort of reminds me of the human who dreamed she was a butterfly who dreamed it was a human, or was that the butterfly who dreamed it was a human who dreamed she was a butterfly.

  

Q. The free will/determinism problem.

A. I tend to have a belief in absolute causality, much like both Newton and Einstein who believed in a regular clockwork universe. If X happens, Y follows. All the laws, principles and relationships of the natural universe were forged at the time of the Big Bang event and once that clock was set in motion, all else flowed from those first established laws, principles and relationships. So, in other words, determinism rules, okay? That equally holds true if we’re in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe, regardless if we are, like a character in a video game a ‘puppet-on-a-string’ or the avatar as a stand-in in a simulated world for someone in the really real world, or as the consequence of someone programing a set of laws, principles and relationships then hitting ‘run program’ and standing back to see what eventuates. We’d all like to think we have free will, but if we are programmed to believe that, what harm has been done if you really do believe that what you had for dinner was something you freely did choose to have.

Q. Does complete understanding require more than solely physical explanations?

A. By complete understanding, one has to incorporate those seemingly nebulous things that reside within the mind, things that seem far removed from the physical world of forces and fields and particles and actions and reactions, etc. These so-called nebulous things revolve around consciousness and the subconscious, thinking (that’s clearly a neurochemical process), memory (clearly chemically encoded), creativity, emotions (definitely chemically driven), morals and ethics, right and wrong, a soul, spirituality, free will, etc. However, all these sorts of concepts reside in the brain or in a part of the brain normally identified as the mind. Whether mind-in-the-brain, or just in or a part of the brain, the brain is ultimately composed of fundamental particles that make up atoms that make up molecules that ultimately make up your neurochemistry and thus your brain and structures within. The proof of the pudding that these so-called nebulous concepts reside in the realm of the physical is that these concepts or things can be altered by physical things – physical happenings like injury (you can be knocked unconscious) or lose consciousness in sleep; chemical things like drugs, lack of sleep, the aging process and related can have decided effects on aspects of your personality, etc.; biological happenings like disease also can have profound effects on some of those so-called nebulous things. They can also be altered by your own self, being creative and via thinking deep thoughts which is an electrochemical process (you might think ‘morals be damned, crime does pay’) and of course closely related, the lifelong learning process (as in learning and altering your learning about say morals/ethics; right/wrong) – as you learn, you may find that what you thought was crystal clear, black and white, is really murky and grey. The learning process (formal or otherwise) can have profound effects on your belief systems and worldviews. Learning clearly has foundations in neurochemistry.   



You Are A Mystery: Part Two

There’s something very odd about you. You have self-awareness about you, but not self-awareness about anyone else (human or animal). How did that happen? How did you acquire your own sense of self-awareness? You began at conception, so presumably self-awareness was programmed in at that moment yet didn’t eventuate until later. When it comes to the concept of you, there’s a lot of explaining required.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHY ARE YOU, YOU?

Presumably prior to your conception every other conception resulted in a not-you, that is, every other conception resulted in someone else (human or animal). Now that might not be the case since 1) you wouldn’t remember if once upon a time you were a T-Rex or a Woolly Mammoth or a Neanderthal or Queen Cleopatra, or 2) an historical conception that would have been you naturally or spontaneously aborted before any memory could set in.

Presumably every conception that has eventuated since yours has been a not-you, or in other words someone else (human or animal). [Since plants don’t have minds or self-awareness I’ll eliminate them from consideration here.]

The question arises, why was your conception and your conception alone you and not a not-you, that is, why wasn’t that conception too someone else (again, human or animal). 

Presumably every conception after your demise will result in a not-you, or someone else (human or animal). But if there could have been a self-aware you in the past, then also presumably there could be another self-aware you in the future – I guess you’d call that reincarnation.

But a puzzle arises here. If there could have been you in the past, and/or you in the future, then what’s preventing the conception of another you here and now? You would have to know, or so I suspect, otherwise you couldn’t call that other you, you. In other words, it’s apparently okay that there can be multiples of you in time, but not in space. Since that makes little sense, it’s more logical to suggest that in the history of all conceptions, past, present and future, one and only one turned out to be you and all others were not-you, or rather someone else (human or animal).

I think it is safe to say that there’s not another you in existence right now, otherwise you would know it by experiencing it.

You are your brain. You go where your brain goes. If I destroy your brain (while the rest of your body is kept artificially alive on life support), I destroy you and your self-awareness or consciousness. If I destroy your big toe, I do not destroy you and your self-awareness or consciousness. If your body is about to go kaput – now say it is riddled with cancer, and say someone else with a healthy body that is brain dead. Then if your brain is transplanted into that healthy but brain dead body, then that self-aware you goes along for the ride and you are the proud owner of a new body – sort of like moving house. You retain your self-aware you-ness. That would apply if your brain were transplanted into a machine (cybernetic organism) or even into that sci-fi staple, the brain-in-a-vat.

So where does the self-aware you go when the brain runs out of puff? The self-aware you will end up going where the brain goes, so that self-aware you too will run out of puff at the same time to decay or be pickled in a jar, or whatever. That also raises an interesting question – as I said above, if I destroy your brain I destroy you: but what if I destroy your brain by picking it off one cell at a time. Surely there would come a point where you would lose your sense of self-identity while still having some grey matter left intact.

Speaking of ‘what if’ scenarios, it’s not difficult to copy information, from the fax machine to the Xerox machine to making copies and backup copies of documents on your computer. It’s easy to make copies of CDs and DVDs (legally and illegally). It’s easy to download audio and video (legally and illegally). The question arises; eventually it should be possible to copy you, or your brain – all the information, memories, knowledge, experiences, etc. storied there – while leaving the original data in your grey matter intact. You would still be you in terms of that ‘you are your brain’ observation, but would you now also be a ‘you are your software’ housed inside some hardware inside some machine or computer? Would this be the ultimate self-aware dual-you that seemingly couldn’t apply to you and your clone, or to you and your identical twin?

RESOLUTIONS & CONCLUSIONS

The entity that is you began at conception. That’s the bedrock fundamental given. The only thing unique about you at conception was your DNA – I’m not aware of any chromosome or gene that has been identified as the “you” or “mind” or “self-awareness” chromosome or gene as opposed to the sex chromosome or a gene that gives you this or that trait. Your DNA is unique. It can point the finger at you in evidence if you commit a crime.

But that doesn’t really work since you’d then also be you if you were cloned or you would share your self-awareness with your identical twin, and that’s clearly not the case. Your clone or your identical twin has their own unique sense of self or identity. 

Every conception has the potential to turn into identical twins. If it doesn’t eventuate, out pops one unique being with that one self-awareness. If it does eventuate, out pops two unique beings each one with an unshared self-awareness. Very strange, except if the brain is you and there are two brains (one each for each twin) then there will be two separate-and-apart beings with self-awareness. The caveat is as long as the split into identical twins happens before the brain develops in the embryo then two separate-and-apart beings with self-awareness will result. 

So what does that leave?

Barcodes! We’re all familiar with barcodes. Each barcode or ISBN or ISSN or credit card number or social security number or account number or tax file number identifies a unique product or book or serial or credit card or social security recipient, etc. Now let’s just suggest that each and every self-aware you that was, is and will be IS (not HAS) a barcode. Of course if you are just a one-off, that lone conception that resulted in you while all others resulted in a not-you, well the same applies. You have a barcode. Your clone would have a unique but different barcode; your identical twin ditto.

You can have more than one you or self-awareness per mind when you consider dual, split, multi-personality syndromes. But you cannot have one you in dual or multi minds. You don’t wake up now and then again 12 hours later halfway around the world with another identity and another set of self-awareness. It’s odd you can have the one but not the other. But perhaps you can (accidentally) be given more than one barcode though two individuals wouldn’t be given the same barcode.

Two identical minds cannot view the same reality since they have different barcodes. From the moment of conception on, or at least from birth, identical minds will diverge into diverse separate and apart mindsets because of that.

That sort of applies in the inorganic world too. All non-living, inorganic bits, would have a unique barcode too – all electrons would share the same barcode; all grains of table salt, ditto, and so on. Yet, one grain of salt or one atom of oxygen can not experience the same sense-of-self (if that has any real meaning) as another grain of salt or another atom of oxygen. Since electrons and oxygen atoms and salt crystals have no self-awareness, it boils down to things that have the same barcode can have vastly different cosmic histories.  Each electron is identical (same barcode), yet each electron has its own unique cosmic history. Be that as it may.

What’s a barcode? A barcode is mathematics, or a mathematical number. That’s also what computer software code is – a sequence of mathematical numbers (in this case in binary code).

So, my theory is that there is a software subroutine that’s your barcode, and when that runs and interacts with other subroutines, well, that’s you and that’s your sense of identity and your self-awareness and your day-in-day-out life. When your subroutine starts running, that’s your conception. When your subroutine terminates, you do too – that’s your death.

Now that implies a software programmer but that doesn’t of necessity translate into something supernatural – like God.

All this certainly explains why you have self-awareness while not having self-awareness of anything or anyone else. You may have a partner, children, siblings, etc. but their minds are as foreign to you as your mind is to them, just like your big left toe cannot know what it’s like to be somebody else’s big left toe.

I guess, by the way, calling you unique because you have a unique barcode, well to some people that barcode could be called a soul – a rose by any other name.

There is one other explanation. There only exists one self-awareness full-stop and that single consciousness is you. All else is a figment of your imagination or a creation of your dreams. Nothing really exists apart from you (or rather your mind) and you alone. If that’s the case, I guess that makes you God! 

You Are A Mystery: Part One

There’s something very odd about you. You have self-awareness about you, but not self-awareness about anyone else (human or animal). How did that happen? How did you acquire your own sense of self-awareness? You began at conception, so presumably self-awareness was programmed in at that moment yet didn’t eventuate until later. When it comes to the concept of you, there’s a lot of explaining required.

Before we start, just a brief note that for all practical purposes, the terms “you” and “mind”; “self-awareness” and “consciousness”, is all pretty interchangeable and synonymous. 

SOME YOU, YOU, YOU TRUISMS

Assuming the Universe was created some 13.7 billion years ago, ‘you’ that will come to pass were in a state of non-existence for that duration – then ‘you’ undergo or underwent a phase transition to existence for roughly 100 years or so, then ‘you’ will undergo another phase transition back to non-existence for another lot of billions maybe trillions of more years. What’s the point? However, think of all those might-have-been self-aware entities that never were and never will come-to-be. These never-ever entities have had and will have a state of non-existence from alpha-to-omega. The question now is might your ever-so-brief phase transition be a positive or negative aspect of your overall alpha-to-omega state of non-existence? I guess only you can answer that philosophical point-of-view. Now you have to admit that there was nothing overly distressing or traumatic about your 13.7 billion year pre-natal non-existence. So, that being the case, there’s unlikely to be anything overly distressing or traumatic about your post-existence non-existence. Rest assured it will be just as peaceful, quiet, stress and tax free.

I give you a state of “non-existence” rather than “no existence” pre-natal and post-death on the grounds that IMHO the fixed and absolute laws, principles and relationships of the newly formed cosmos – physics in other words – was established at the point of the Big Bang event and thus we have a deterministic clockwork Universe (as per Newton and Einstein) and where all subsequent events unfold according to plan (via those absolute laws, principles and relationships).

You had no say in being you. You had no free will in the matter, which is a bit unfair; a bit of a bummer in that you were drafted into being you. You are all alone trapped inside your own mind, from which, excepting death, there is no escape from. So who are you going to sue?

“You” is that which you call yourself “me”, or “myself”, or “I”: indicators of your own self-awareness.

I am to you “the other” and you are to me “the other”. We share lots and lots of traits from basic biochemistry through to organs and organ systems up through basic body shape and structure plus a basic knowledge and understanding of the workings of life, the Universe and everything. We do not share any sense of our own sense of self-awareness. We each have our own unique sense of self. We can’t get inside each other’s head – which is probably a good thing. I have no comprehension what it is like to be you, or be my cat or the bird feeding outside the window at the bird feeder. So be it.

Your brain, and my brain, in fact all normal human brains, share one thing. The brain is the only organ capable of studying itself! Now that’s profound!

WHY ARE YOU UNIQUE?

You are a one-off unique being among all humans who are and who have ever been; among all the animals who are and who have ever been. You are one shot in a trillion – then add in all those eggs and sperm, all those that might-have-been. But what really makes you unique? 

What makes you, you? At first glance it would appear to be memory, experiences, knowledge. But you became you at conception at which time you had no memory, no experiences, or knowledge. So, scratch that idea.

Perhaps what makes you, you – your uniqueness – is the unique way your brain, hence your mind, is hardwired; that plus your unique brain chemistry.

Though you are unique, in theory there can only be a finite number of ways of wiring up the brain and the mind it contains. There could in theory have existed or could now exist another duplicate set of your brain wiring – that too must be you but you and that other you would never know (or even probably suspect), or would you, and your alter ego. After all, if there are an identical two of you out there, each should be experiencing what the other is experiencing as well as what they are experiencing. If that doesn’t make your head hurt, nothing will!

But there has to be a connection between you at conception and you of today, be it 1, 10, 25 or 50 (plus) years on down the track. It’s not brain wiring or brain chemistry either since at your conception there was no brain, hence no wiring, and no brain chemistry.

So what does that leave if it is not memories, experiences and knowledge nor hardwiring of your neurons and brain chemistry, etc.?

Aha – What makes you unique is that you are hardwired by your unchangeable DNA (except here your identical twin and/or clone would be you too with the same arguments that should have made your head hurt earlier).

DNA apart, a clone isn’t you. DNA apart, an identical twin isn’t you. Even if I were to use my home chemistry set and recreate your mind – atom by atom; molecule by molecule; neuron by neuron; and house the finished product in some sort of receptacle (brain-in-a-vat), it still wouldn’t be you. You would still be you, separate and apart; as the you that is trapped inside of your own mind.

Yet, there are a finite number of combos of DNA, so again in theory there could have been, or currently is now, another you out there in la-la-land, but again you and that other you would never know (or even probably suspect), but then again, maybe not.

In any event, we can suggest that what makes you unique starts with your DNA at conception, then builds on that by adding hardwires and building your neural network as you grow up, culminating throughout the rest of your life by the accumulation of memories, experiences, and knowledge.

Yet, your body’s, even your brain’s atoms, molecules, entire cells are replaced on an ongoing basis. Why doesn’t that alter who you are or your self-awareness? You were not the same being at age five as you are, were or will be at fifty, yet you are the same. Very mysterious!

What is crystal clear is that self-awareness or mind isn’t something nebulous or intangible. It’s all grounded in matter and energy. You have no self-awareness at conception. It is debatable if you have any self-awareness at birth. You have no self-awareness when you are naturally asleep or when you are artificially put to sleep – say for surgery. Like the surgery example, you can change your own state of self-awareness artificially, legally or illegally. You have no self-awareness in a coma and there are other medical conditions, especially in the elderly, where self-awareness isn’t evident either.  

To be continued.

Human Reality Revisited: Part Two

In these life and times of your day-to-day activities, going about your business in this four dimensional space-time you find yourself stuck in, I doubt whether you question that what you experience is anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What you see is what you get, and what you get is really real reality, absolute nuts-and-bolts no question about it reality. If that’s what you think, think again.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

REALITY OUTSIDE OF THE STRIKE ZONE: THE NEBULOUS OTHER

What if someone or something else is pulling your chain? So far I’ve gone on the scenario that there’s a really real reality out there for you to experience and absorb. You are pulling your own chain; dancing to your own tune. Now what if some significant other is calling the shots?

You are a natural entity with wetware rooted in carbon chemistry

- A bit outside the scope of normality or what passes for normality, there are whole textbooks full of case studies of brains that haven’t been hardwired up quite correctly and so you’ve cases of people hearing colors or mistaking their wife for a hat or who have multiple personalities or seriously believe they are Alexander the Great, Jesus, or say President Kennedy.

- Although it doesn’t necessarily follow, there are those who believe that those who see ghosts or aliens or angels or the Loch Ness Monster are fantasy prone; just internally generated visions that’s all in the mind. Can shamans, mystics, gurus, and related really visit an otherworld of alternate realities, or are they too just fantasy prone, with perhaps some help from smoking the good stuff. Of course if they are experiencing such things, well that in turn might be evidence for alternative realities.

- And don’t we as adults construct an entire fantasy world for children – Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, even the Bogyman who’ll, we say, do nasty things to naughty kids. Don’t children on their own construct fantasy worlds they live in along with invisible playmates? I wonder if there’s anything really different in principle between children believing in their invisible friends and adults putting their faith in invisible deities.  

- Adults too immerse themselves in fantasy worlds from putting on virtual reality helmets to boldly go (the 20^th Century version of the Star Trek holodeck), to actually dressing up in Star Trek or Star Wars outfits as various characters from those (and other) fictional worlds, to participating in all sorts of role-playing scenarios. Though one would hope that when doing dress-up for masquerade balls and attending fantasy conventions, the adults would be aware that they are doing make-believe. You’d hope that though some fans (fanatics?) can get really carried away to extremes, like naming their kids after their favorite fantasy character, collecting thousands of items of memorabilia, even say modeling and outfitting their home to resemble the interior sets of say the Starship Enterprise. It’s been done! Though I suspect this must be a modern phenomenon. I don’t recall ever hearing about people in the 17^th, 18^th or 19^th Centuries playing at King Arthur, holding mock battles and jousting contests, though maybe I’m wrong on that. It’s certainly common today for hundreds to play dress-up and reenact Civil War engagements, and there’s many a wannabe cowboy out there in suburbia. 

- Your natural brain-in-a-vat scenario might be where some ‘mad’ scientist has cultured some brain cells in a petri dish and eventually grown a full-sized brain-in-a-vat which is kept stimulated 24/7 with electrical impulses – your reality. Or, perhaps your body has aged and kicked-the-bucket but your brain – still alive and ‘kicking’ – has been removed and kept alive but in ‘storage’, but still requiring stimulation, pending a suitable transplant into another body whose brain has died.

- Your natural brain is being manipulated scenario. Say you’re a patient in a hospital in a coma, or undergoing a neurosurgical operation and your brain is being stimulated in an effort to determine what’s what. Perhaps that stimulation is what you take, while in your coma, or under-the-knife, to be your reality – but all you sense and remember is really being induced. There might even be a time dilation effect. Presumably you could electrically stimulate the brain such that the brain would experience or remember years worth of experiences but the applied stimulus is just taking a few minutes. 

- You’re dreaming. You are really a bug-eyed-monster from the planet Zork; or a pussy cat; or even a human; but you’re asleep and dreaming this alternative lifestyle which in this dream state you are interpreting as your actual reality. Until you wake up, your dream IS your reality.

- One or many? You could philosophically argue that the sum total of life, the universe and everything is illusionary and just the product of Your Mind. Life, the universe and everything (all else but your mind) is just Your Mind playing games, a created illusion or construction to keep Your Mind from being bored. Or, you see someone in the shops and you conclude that as you see them, they see you, and both of you have a perception that there’s a really real reality and both of you are a part of that. That’s the common sense worldview, but the universe doesn’t always play by common sense principles. Of course it’s possible that the both of you are all part of a larger mass hallucination; that you aren’t The Mind, but rather one of the creations of The Mind of someone else. 

There is no way you could distinguish any of the above realities from your perception of what’s really real.

WILD PITCH, ERROR ON THE THROW

You are an artificial entity

Needless to relate, there has been a massive amount of theoretical and practical research dedicated towards the goal of creating an artificial mind, a silicon chip mind or a mind made out of silicon chips, machine intelligence, otherwise more commonly known as artificial intelligence. The reasons are manifold, from just the academic pursuit of seeing if it can be done for the sake of seeing if it can be done, to practical applications like designing robots that can assist in making the lives of the handicapped or elderly or the lonely more bearable or beating the pants off of some egomaniac chess champion, to putting artificial intelligence to the same sorts of creative use that wetware intelligence is put to. Perhaps an artificial intelligence can put two and two together and come up with a Theory of Everything, the Holy Grail of physics. Artificial intelligence can also boldly go where wetware intelligence cannot since silicon chips are a bit more durable under extreme environmental conditions than flesh-and-blood.

Put another way, if Mother Nature can evolve flesh-and-blood intelligence, then that flesh-and-blood intelligence can create and evolve machine intelligence (and ultimately that machine intelligence can further evolve and advance the capabilities of machine intelligence). The basic reason is that there is no difference in principle between a squishy neural network, and a silicon chip network. It all operates on electrical connections, complex connects it is true, but just wiring. Now, the question arises, is your mind a squishy neural network or a silicon chip network? There’s also a third possibility. Your mind isn’t physical at all – squishy or silicon – but mathematical. Your mind is just computer code. 

- Your artificial ‘brain’-in-a-vat scenario might revolve around the idea that you, or rather your mind, is just a processing machine sitting on a bench top or on a shelf, maybe as a prototype, being fed data (that’s your reality) to see if your silicon chips are able to ‘think’ outside the box relative to your mind just being a sophisticated adding machine.

- Your artificial ‘brain’ is manipulated (programmed) scenario might be akin to you being a fully functional robotic android though programmed not to know in order to better integrate into the society that created you. If you cut yourself and bleed and feel pain, that’s just a programmed illusion. When you ‘die’ (your programmed use-by date) you’re recycled/reassembled – a form of reincarnation. Most of your memories are false ones programmed into you, so you believe you had a childhood for example.

- Finally, you are neither flesh-and-blood nor silicon chips. You’re just bits and bytes inside a computer. You’re a piece of software. You’re a simulated being just existing in virtual reality, created by others; manipulated by others without any awareness of this on your part.

Thanks for the Memories

For Starters, A Personal Disclaimer: What follows is 100% my own thoughts on the subject of memory. I haven’t done any independent readings or research on the topic, not wanting my own ideas to be otherwise or somehow influenced by what no doubt millions of others have speculated on.

Introduction: Maybe neuroscientists would disagree, but I think the phenomenon of memory is one of the greater mysteries in science. What can we agree on from the start? Well, whatever memory is, it resides in the brain and is a function of brain chemistry. We know memory is biochemically based because biochemical’s like some drugs, alcohol, etc. can affect memory. Ditto the aging process which is ultimately biochemical in nature.

The biochemicals have got to be complex enough to not only store and provide the recall of the memories they represent, but versatile enough to provide recall not only for sight, but sound, smell, taste and touch as well. In addition, they have to be of such a nature that can provide combinations and sequences of these sensory memories. They also need to be able to store non-sensory bits like your memory of how to do addition so you can add up numbers in your head, as well as on paper. Ditto, the abstraction of the memory of how to look things up – all those factual bits and pieces of things you’ve never bothered to actually commit to memory, or have long since forgotten (like all those boring dates and places in history). There’s also the complexity of what makes up memories to draw on any number and variety of them to assist you in your current situation.  

Memory Is Not Unique to Humans: I’m probably stating the obvious here, but memory is not a characteristic that sets humans apart from other animals. While we can be pretty sure plants don’t have memories, experiments have shown that even relative simple fauna have memories, even if rudimentary. Certainly vertebrate animals have quite sophisticated memories. My two cats, for an example, have total recall over where their food and water bowls are located; ditto the litter boxes. They have memorized the geometry of the house. They know where the doors are leading to outside. They have learned and memorized where the sunny spots are and how they move during the course of the day. It’s no longer trial and error as it might have been on their first day getting used to their new surroundings.

Why Memory? Why do we have any ability to recall anything from our past at all? Well, the obvious answer is memory has survival value. I mean it’s important to remember to lock your door at night; remembering what is, and is not, eatable is also important; which is more likely to bite me, a shark or a dolphin – I can never remember but there’s this fin cutting through the water heading my way! It’s important to remember where your home, village, cave, whatever is. Of course you’re going to be in deep poo if you forget who your partner is or who your children are. I know there’s a reason why I shouldn’t jump off this high cliff, but I can’t remember what it is – oh well, it probably isn’t important, so here goes nothing – whee; splat! Memories should also be distributed throughout the brain; even one memory should be stored in a number of places is case disease or injury to one part of that organ results in total memory loss and forfeiture of survival.

Some Various Puzzlements: Okay, so here is this conglomeration of biochemical’s representing some memory of an experience of yours, a memory which, for the moment is out of sight and out of mind. The biochemical(s) are just sitting in the brain, sort of dormant. How is it that biochemical configuration activated, resulting in that memory no longer being out of sight and out of mind?

I can recall multi dozens of favourite film music themes – name a favourite film and I can recall the theme. Yet, I have lots of other equally favourite film music themes that just refuse to stick in my mind – ever. Why some and not others? I don’t know. Conversely, if I hear a favourite film music theme, I can usually, but always name the film. When however I can’t, it can be very frustrating! You know it like the back of your hand, yet it eludes you.

Memory and Thinking: Before you can recall anything, you’ve got to think of what it is you want to remember. It’s an active, not a passive recall. Before you can remember what you had for dinner last night you’ve got to think to yourself what’s the answer to what I had for dinner last night? But what prompted that thought in the first place? Maybe it was in response to a question someone else asked you. But that is of necessity not the only possibility. You could have thought of that yourself, maybe because you’re planning tonight’s dinner and don’t want to duplicate. Presumably there is a logical and independent reason why you would think of what last night’s dinner was prompting the biochemical chain of events that provided the memory and answer of what it was.

Memory and Dreams: I think that memory and dreams have relatively little relationship; aren’t that interlinked or connected. I’m going from personal experience here, in that most of my dreams (what few I can recall after the fact) are about imaginary people and places and events. Where real people, places and events are part and parcel of my dreaming, there is a unique spin to the dream scenario that has nothing to do with actual memories. Yes the people and or place and or events are superficially accurate, but it turns out to be an original story, and not a replay of an actual historical happening. While on the subject of dreams, it occurred to me that for all practical purposes being awake (using your active imagination) and asleep (dreaming) are really the same thing (not to mention that in both states your heart pumps and your lungs breathe and your stomach digests, your cells divide and ageing of course happens). Anyway, anything you can dream while asleep you could imagine while fully awake. So if dreams are an example of a possible simulated reality, so is the day-to-day active imagination scenarios your mind generates while you’re wide awake.

You Are Forgetful: In fact, you have forgotten thousands upon thousands of times more stuff than you can actually remember. Imagine if you could recall every minute of every day of your life – every dream; every word in every book, article, etc. you’ve ever read; every meal you’ve ever had and cooked; every headache and backache; every conversation; recalling every advertisement, jingle and commercial along with every other thing that’s ever annoyed you, like recalling word-for-word every boring lecture you’ve ever heard. What an absolute clutter that would be. So your brain is good at holding garage sales; hitting the delete key. Some memories are just lost for good and no amount of willpower or hypnosis is going to bring them back.

Earliest Memories: It would be a very odd individual indeed who could remember anything about anything from conception through to probably at least their second or third birthday – maybe later. Is there something about the brain’s biochemistry that inhibits remembrance from those first several years of experiencing sensory input?

Submerged Memories: You may not have read that book, or seen that film or TV episode, or listened to that piece of music or visited that building in decades, yet doing so today brings back to the surface nearly all the details you got all those decades ago. In other words, it’s not a new ‘from scratch’ experience.

Mental Blocks: Some people can be walking encyclopaedias of entertainment or sports trivia, but hopeless at learning and retaining a foreign language. Some people soak up historical names, dates and places with ease yet can’t memorize the chemical elements and associated symbols. Some people have no success at memorizing the multiplication tables, yet seemingly have a photographic memory of a favourite book(s).  Some people are walking dictionaries, yet some people, like me, can’t spell worth beans. My old man once offered to give me $10 (good bucks back in those days) if I ever passed a spelling test in school. His money was safe – I never did. The question is why seemingly all people have some sort of innate ability to memorise a particular facet of human knowledge, yet have a mental block to another. I’d assume that our brain’s biochemical base is pretty uniform across our species, yet it’s really, when it comes to memory, a case of different strokes for different folks. Further, I’m not aware that our animal companions differ in this way. My cats seem to be two peas-in-a-pod when it comes to what they recall. Do animals have mental blocks too?  

Short Term vs. Long Term Memory:

Very short term: Well, remembering dreams comes to mind. Usually, upon awaking, we don’t recall any dreaming at all. Sometimes we do recall one (the latest since I gather we have several per night), but it tends to fade very quickly. Of course once in a rare while it lingers on, and now and again, becomes part of your long term memory. There doesn’t seem to be a biochemical rulebook for this process however. Also very short term, I would suggest is the reading say of a chapter in a book, or watching a TV episode or film. Immediately upon completion, you can not recall verbatim the word-for-word, or image-for-image (scene-for-scene) contents. However, the overall theme of the contents or plot remains behind.

Short term: Well, I’ll define this as several days, perhaps weeks, before the memory’s elimination. After a week or so, it’s going to be hard to recall specific meals, and outfits worn and day-to-day doings from, after a week or so. Unless you keep a detailed diary, you’d be pretty hard pressed to recall in precise detail exactly what you did, the order you did it in, and the outcome(s) a week ago.

Long term: One off, traumatic, unique and rare occurrences are more likely to stick around in that brain thing of yours. For example, you’re more likely to recall the day you broke your leg, not the thousands of days you didn’t. Why, since your leg is okay now? Maybe it has something to do with the philosophy that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. By remembering the events surrounding your broken leg, decades after-the-fact, makes it less likely you’ll do it again. 

Specific vs. General Memories: As an example of a general memory, I can remember the quadratic equation decades after the various maths classes I had it exposed to me – yet in those subsequent decades, I’ve never had to put it to any use. It thus seems to be a pretty worthless thing for my mind to have retained. Another example of general memory – my mother didn’t care for pasta and never cooked it. If I or my father wanted to eat pasta, we had to make it ourselves. Again, a question of why? That gastronomic quirk of my mother’s no longer has any relevance in my life and hasn’t for decades, so why hasn’t that memory been erased unlike probably thousands of other equally irrelevant bits that have been deleted?

Summary: A good summary tries to address who, what, where, when, why – and how - central to the issue. ‘Who’ of course are we ourselves; ‘what’ is what our memory is all about; ‘where’ is the domain of our our brains; ‘when’ is now, a good a time as any; the ‘why’ is obvious! ‘How’, well that is ultimately our central point. This essay is saying a lot about ‘what’ memories are – its traits and characteristics – not ‘how’ it is what it is. Neuroscientists and biochemists may be able to explain all – someday.