fatguru,
This really depends on how you want to define "memory". Certainly
memory does exist, since it is the "knowledge of the past" which each
person does experience. Everyone who remembers does have memory.
But let's say hypothetically that, by memory, we mean, in other
words, "stuff accumulated in the brain over time". Then it would be
like the pages of a diary, on which are written words, sentences,
paragraphs, etc., which correspond to the author's experiences. The
act of recalling a specific memory is then a matter of finding the
page on which it is written.
Suppose, on the other hand, that specific memories are, in some
way, made to order. They aren't stored event-for-event, in writing, on
the pages. Recalling how you learned one day to ride a bike amounts to
something like having a sandwich made to order. The sandwich wasn't in
existence prior to being called upon. However, all the ingredients are
there, waiting to be incorporated into the synthesis of a sandwich.
Assuming that memories really do correspond to past events, what does
this scenario imply?
It implies that memories are syntheses of elemental ingredients,
and that there is some way of knowing how they are to be assembled for
any unique memory. But to know the rules for assembling a specific
memory requires that the memory itself already be, in some fashion,
stored. The rule for assembling the ingredients has to be able to
distinguish between learning to ride a bike and that camping trip just
a few weeks ago. The information always has to be present & accounted
for in order to recall it at will.
So, on the condition that each memory corresponds to an objectively
real past event, memories cannot be, ultimately, made to order. They
must be stored for the duration of one's life if they are to be
recalled.
As for the actual storage, it could be something other than just
writing down each unique experience as a diary entry. The full body of
your lifetime of memories could be reduced to a compression algorithm.
The algorithm is then a comparatively compact instruction for writing
out a memory in "longhand" (consciously). There would be, in turn,
another higher-order algorithm, with the job of frequently re-writing
the compressed-memory algorithm, each re-writing incorporating the new
memories as they are registered.
It should be noted that, if memory is more like writing passages
permamently on the pages of a diary, there still needs to exist an
efficient & effective system for finding the page on which a memory is
stored. This tends to suggest that, in order to search for a memory,
the essence of that memory has to be known up-front before the search
is even undertaken. There has to be some way to recognise the memory
when it's found in the diary. This again suggests something in the
nature of a compression algorithm, holding all past memories as a
whole object. So "memories as records of the objective past" are
probably compression-based.
There is of course another possibility. It's not out of the
question that each subjective memory is a sandwich, and the
ingredients are tossed together randomly for each recollection. Since
an individual's current mind-state is all the individual really knows,
the random assemblage of ingredients would constitue memories as vivid
as any which might correspond to objective events. There'd be no way,
from within the subjective mind, to distinguish between this &
memories of objective events. One wouldn't even know if there's more
to the Universe than the particular sandwich at hand exactly now. The
memory stored in that configuration of lettuce, black olives,
jalapenos, smoked turkey and mayo would be all one knows of anything.
And it wouldn't matter if that were the case. One would still be
compelled to make that drive to work- at the sandwich shop. |
