AMIDST A MEMORY-BASED WORLD, HOW CAN HUMANS STAY QUELLED BY OBLIVIONS?

Memory, thus, once overly prominent, may inflict distresses for the rest of one’s life.

9 min readJan 14, 2022

We, given our pre-installed absent-mindedness, have run ourselves into such desperate troubles that arouse in us every poignancy [that such a human property can rarely get uninstalled].

Dismally enough, seldom could us remember anything conducive to today’s test, the songs’ lyrics, the place on which we irresponsibly threw the key that costs us punctuality, the must-have-been memorable days to family members that engender every self-gnawing behavior, nor every other invaluable, seemingly monumental memory.

This world, at its very core, demands us to store as much data as possible, whilst tilting towards those with extraordinary memories as the should-be prototype. We humans have held heaps of memorizing contests — to eventually showcase the in turn inability of the audience, or to buy some them some fun upon remembering what the contestants can not. Another evidence of which is the acclaimed, emblematic, fervently propagated invention of Doraemon’s memory bread .

Perhaps in an education epoch where remembering everything — from multiplication tables, mathematical formula, the periodic table of elements, poems, and historical landmarks — sits atop every other human capacity, memorizing has preoccupied us as a must-have capability before one is considered talented and successful. And oblivion, in turn, has piece by piece unveiled as a de facto obnoxity.

So, why MUST we forget, thus never capable of memorizing everything?

1. To forget is to remember

Beware of your every wish — even when it aims at a superpower — a prominent memory. To remember the essential whilst leaving behind others sounds wondrous enough wonderful, still, that is never the case: we, after all, may coevally conduct both. While overly deep memories may offer an upper hand during study or at work, to stay incapable of dismissing some memories also is no less poignant.

Our human brain, after all, gets us to commemorate both the wonderful and the horrible. It, by the same token, also lets both redundant and not-that-redundant memories slip from memory. By no means can the brain evaluate and classify memories on its own — which, however, is no less redundant. Since our brain never functions as a mere cache responsible for data storage, to remember everything is in turn never a priority. The human administrator even actively deletes information so that processing information can be more efficacious. It, after all, is not purely to store data. It is our brain since it optimizes our every decision.

In fact, not only those struggling against memory-based lives underestimate their brains’ forgetting mechanism. Since the epoch of neuroscience decades ago, oblivion, bizarrely enough, has yielded the least interest among neurobiologists. Michael Anderson, a memory researcher at Cambridge University, even wondered, “How is it that the field of neurobiology has actually never taken forgetting seriously?” [1].

Before delving further into every forgetting benefit, let us beforehand scrutinize some basic, related definitions.

First, forgetting is defined as the inability to retrieve previously acquired information [2]. This, however, is set a pre-installed automatic process to protect the brain. Since we are perpetually exposed to a large amount of visual, audible, sensual, and even abstract information, most of which are thereafter discarded to fence off brain overloading, sparing brain power for other more critical tasks. In this manner, we, after all, only commemorate what seems quintessential to the brain, whilst doing away with the redundant rest.

There exists the so-called forgetting curve to describe the human forgetting process, that much of what we have attained (yet actively neglected) disappear after some one or two weeks [3].

In a high attempt to explain the mechanism of oblivion, scientists have come up with quite a number of theories, with the most prominent of which being the (1) Interference Theory and (2) Decay Theory. The former, one one hand, describes memorization as waves wherein old information is displaced, overwritten, or affected by new information waves, which in turn engenders oblivions of some information [4]. Meanwhile, the latter theorizes that memories leave “traces” in the brain, which decay over time unless reinforced. In this manner, information leaving deep traces in the brain morph into long-term memories; whilst others decay sooner or later, and how soon depends on the depths of which [5].

Even though these two hypotheses are still somewhat flawed and incomplete, empirical neuroscience experiments have proven that both of which are sounding. Having observed that our memories are stored in the creation of new cells and neural connections, researchers concluded that new memories (new cells, new connection and decrepit links being done away with) inflict critical damages on old memories, yielding oblivions in surging degrees [6].

Nevertheless, experimental observations have evidenced that memories are by no means as obscure as ink stains, thus the oblivion of which is a far cry from books’ inks fading away under the impact of universal entropy. Forgetfulness, in all likelihood, seems more intentional, as memory depletion is engendered by the convoluted mechanisms of numerous cells and molecules. Being physiological changes in the brain, active mechanisms from the governor, thus, seems pivotal to these cells.

There exists every type of memory (256 in total, according to Endel Tulving, a memory expert), each with different encryption, cache, and regeneration rules, which evidences that in turn, there is every other type of oblivion. We [given our limited time] are hereby categorizing those into two brackets of passive and active forgetting mechanisms [7].

Passive forgetting is interpreted as the latent process within the brain that allows normal thinking ability. For example, as soon as we are exposed to a new mathematical theory, we memorialize the principles while leaving behind specific cases. In visual language, whilst homing in addition, the governor actively overpasses the results of each specific calculation to spare rooms for the mechanism of which to aid learners in similar problems. Painstakingly memorizing each, in contrast, may even hobble the brain’s capacity in solving any other new problems.

Active forgetting, on the other hand, is a more prominent mechanism where the brain actively conducts biochemical activities in the nervous system to do away with potentially harmful memories (of negative experience, for example). Once the process fails, it gives way for every mental illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After all, the suffering of PTSD hails de facto from the poignant fact that we are capable of leaving behind what we should.

In conclusion, science sees forgetting as a pivotal process in catalyzing normal thinking, and eventually normal lives.

2. To remember is to stay obsessed

To understand forgetting, memorialization seems critical. Currently, memory is bracketed into two categories: short-term (encoded as the neural traces) and long-term (neural links). The memory, alongside the oblivion system, must live in harmony to ensure the brain perception of reality.

Every so often, we become heedful of the so-called “past”, given some sloppy memory of the previous months, years, or days; as well as the so-called presence, thanks to the clarity of every processed information. In this manner, were past memories kept intact, cognitive confusion, in consequence, is inescapable. Empirical experiments of which come from exclusive psychological experiences such as stimulant/drug uses.

As aforementioned, contrary to the conjecture that forgetting hobbles learning, the learning process of ours is only possible as long as the brain is “capable” of forgetting. “A very precise memory can cause many problems, because it makes it impossible to use memory to generalize things in the future”, asserted the PhD candidate Wimber at the University of Birmingham.

Should we, after all, remember a dog as a real object, thus genuine and not shammed by the brain, we would be preoccupied by the first dog in sight, and could rarely bear in mind any other dogs in the future. Bitten by a dog and obsessed by which, by the same token, will urge us to fence off every other thereafter [8].

This way, incapabilities of letting things slip from memory, as in some types of autism, may hamper one’s learning progress. Oblivion does away with details to wire more attention onto main points, serving as a helping hand in grappling new situations. This flexibility, at its core, is actually a part of human intelligence.

In fact, a such obsession is woefully common. In daily life, some metal-based events (such as emotions) are deeper injected into our brain, thus are more unforgettable, impacting every future experience — as severe as engendering PTSD and loss obsessions, grievous childhood experience, insecurity of broken relationships or s-e-x-u-a-l abuse [9], and as “mild” as cynophobia (fear of dog), glossophobia (fear of speaking, given the past bullies).

Memory, thus, once overly prominent, may inflict distresses for the rest of one’s life. Humans have even recorded Hyperthymesia syndrome, in which the “patients” commemorate everything abnormally vividly [10]. While we, for the most part, lose sight of how yesterday goes by (monuments only), these sufferers may fervently vividly recall their past 24 hours. They, in this manner, remember every day of their life as if each were memorable memory.

Which, to all appearances, is akin to a curse.

3. To scrutinize the world once we have learned that we are prominent at leaving things behind

Much of what we have known, felt and learnt will soon enough die away — the only problem is that we have been too heedless of which. Still, we do remember, yet what retained is always predominated by what having been consigned to oblivion. Once we have lived long enough, say some thirty years, can we recall every day of which, or only as many as some figurative monuments?

So, is the must-have-been real world, as we always purport, actually genuine in existence?

By no means is it an existential question to storm your minds every night — by all means is it an unassailable problem to our reality. Ever since neuroscience started scrutinizing consciousness, alongside the human memory, narratives, accordingly, have revealed their awful “fragility”.

For example, witness testimonies are being put under microscope as somewhat marginally less decisive after each case, given the in-between intolerable inaccuracy and inconsistency — every so woeful mishap that even the witness is always deluded, thus championing those blunders as though they had de facto experienced which.

There have been heaps of wrongful cases hailing from inaccurate individual (witness) statements, or even by groups of witnesses’. Dismally enough, never has our human memory been accurate enough to recall every such detail as “the culprit was in black”. The passive forgetting mechanism hard-wired in our brain, however, eliminates details and prototypical thoughts, thus having distorted witnesses’ stories, which in turn are far-flung from reality [11].

Researchers, in this manner, have revealed that witnesses are tilted towards applying social prejudices to personal stories, thus, drug-related suspects or those with criminal records are more prone to misidentification. It is not to mention every other memory prejudice that shapes the so-called experience-reconstruction [12]: straightforwardly enough, we, at times, recall the past events not from any actual data, but from the de facto rational prototypes raging within us instead.

Still, rarely could we recognize a such thing, even purporting that our conjectures must have been the case. Worse still, never are we capable of reevaluating the information recorded as “memory”, for the creator of which — our human brains — is what shapes our perception, instead of the other way around. After all, it seems rather sounding that we are woefully constrained by the artificial, brain-made reality, instead of the genuine reality.

Forgetfulness also provokes the very feeling as if “we were perpetually reborn”, or simply put, some bizarre senses upon envisioning our past selves. We, nevertheless, are rarely in a somewhat intimate relationship with those “old mates” — other than “well, so this was me in highschool”. Oodles of information have been ousted so that other new memories can be overwritten, which, after all, explains why humans, every so often, have been alienated by their own pasts (as some strangers’ lives extraneous to ours) .

This urges me to puzzle over whether who we are, if not the sloppy side projects of our human brains, or some randomly distortedly edited tape?

Still, let us consign it to oblivion — as always. Good night, then. Sleep tight.

___________

References:

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-remember-the-brain.../

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_theory

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_theory

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory

[7], [8] https://www.discovermagazine.com/.../why-do-we-forget...

[9] https://www.mayoclinic.org/.../symptoms-causes/syc-20355967