The sum of our yesterdays
Memories are important not only for learning and remembering but also because they form the basis of what we can imagine and create. In so many ways, we are what we remember.
Capital Thinking • Issue #762 • View online
Memory is an intrinsic part of our life experience. It is critical for learning, and without memories we would have no sense of self.
Understanding why some memories stick better than others, as well as accepting their fluidity, helps us reduce conflict and better appreciate just how much our memories impact our lives.
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“Which of our memories are true and which are not is something we may never know. It doesn’t change who we are.”
We Are What We Remember
Shane Parrish | Farnam Street:
Memories can be so vivid.
Let’s say you are spending time with your sibling and reflecting on your past when suddenly a memory pops up. Even though it’s about events that occurred twenty years ago, it seems like it happened yesterday.
The sounds and smells pop into your mind. You remember what you were wearing, the color of the flowers on the table. You chuckle and share your memory with your sibling.
But they stare at you and say, “That’s not how I remember it at all.”
What?
Memory discrepancies happen all the time, but we have a hard time accepting that our memories are rarely accurate.
Because we’ve been conditioned to think of our memories like video recordings or data stored in the cloud, we assert that our rememberings are the correct ones.
Anyone who remembers the situation differently must be wrong.
Memories are never an exact representation of a moment in the past.
They are not copied with perfect fidelity, and they change over time.
Some of our memories may not even be ours, but rather something we saw in a film or a story someone else told to us. We mix and combine memories, especially older ones, all the time.
It can be hard to accept the malleable nature of memories and the fact that they are not just sitting in our brains waiting to be retrieved.
In Adventures in Memory, writer Hilde Østby and neuropsychologist Ylva Østby present a fascinating journey through all aspects of memory.
Their stories and investigations provide great insight into how memory works; and how our capacity for memory is an integral part of the human condition, and how a better understanding of memory helps us avoid the conflicts we create when we insist that what we remember is right.
Memory and learning
“One thing that aging doesn’t diminish is the wisdom we have accumulated over a lifetime.”
Our memories, dynamic and changing though they may be, are with us for the duration of our lives. Unless you’ve experienced brain trauma, you learn new things and store at least some of what you learn in memory.
Memory is an obvious component of learning, but we don’t often think of it that way.
When we learn something new, it’s against the backdrop of what we already know.
All knowledge that we pick up over the years is stored in memory. The authors suggest that “how much you know in a broad sense determines what you understand of the new things you learn.”
Because it’s easier to remember something if it can hook into context you already have, then the more you know, the more a new memory can attach to. Thus, what we already know, what we remember, impacts what we learn.
The Østbys explain that the strongest memory networks are created“when we learn something truly meaningful and make an effort to understand it.”
They describe someone who is passionate about diving and thus “will more easily learn new things about diving than about something she’s never been interested in before.”
Because the diver already knows a lot about diving, and because she loves it and is motivated to learn more, new knowledge about diving will easily attach itself to the memory network she already has about the subject.
While studying people who seem to have amazing memories, as measured by the sheer amount they can recall with accuracy, one of the conclusions the Østbys reach is “that many people who rely on their memories don’t use mnemonic techniques, nor do they cram. They’re just passionate about what they do.”
The more meaningful the topics and the more we are invested in truly learning, the higher the chances are that we will convert new information into lasting memory.
Also, the more we learn, the more we will remember. There doesn’t seem to be a limit on how much we can put into memory.
How we build our narratives
The experience of being a human is inseparable from our ability to remember.
You can’t build relationships without memories. You can’t prepare for the future if you don’t remember the past.
*Feature Post Photo credit: Anita Jankovic on Unsplash