Post on 16-Jul-2015
transcript
Visualizing the Memory: History and Storytelling as Self-Preservation
Lena ZlockMarch 4th, 2014Watch the video here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0OReLx_VJc
Figure 1: Overview of the Memory Diagram
This is experimental philosophy at best: an imperfect, fearless science at worst. This is
a diagram of the memory in two parts: Current Memory and Historical Memory (or
Historical imagination). Current Memory refers to what you are experiencing right now on
the conscious level- reading this text, tapping your foot, absorbing the scent of cold coffee,
peering at your table lamp. Current Memory is everything you have ever known, including
things you cannot recall to the fore of consciousness at this very moment. It stretches all the
way to the back of your conscious existence, to your earliest childhood memories, or as far
ago as you can remember. If you made a timeline of everything you could remember, the
first data on that timeline would be the “back” of your memory.
Historical Memory is what you learned has happened. The difference between
Current and Historical Memory is that Current Memory is something you can naturally
recall happening to you. Historical memory is something you were told happened- you do not
remember experiencing it, or did not experience it all together. Instead, you are given this
recollection and your mind processes it into the historical memory deposit. In examining the
elements of the memory diagram, I will argue:
● Man is inherently an individual creature
● “History”- external to Current Memory and storytelling (including Current
Memory) are mechanisms of self-preservation
There are three parts to the Memory Diagram. A disclaimer- this diagram was
constructed without reference to neuroscientific, psychological, or other forms of
research. It is based off observation.
Part 1: The Current Memory
As explained above, the current memory is everything to the back of your
existence, as recorded by your mind. Imagine your mind and memory are like a
continuous Tetris game (hence the unbroken red arrow). The senses you are
bombarded with at a millisecond rate are the Tetrominos (Tetris pieces). For every
millisecond, the receiving mechanisms in your body are processing that data and
trying to make sense of it. What environment are you in? Are you safe? Are there
predators? Is anybody beside you? Do you know them? What do you smell? Is it toxic
fumes, or a really nice piece of steak? These sense Tetrominos are falling on top of one
another, often falling into place, often landing awkwardly. From the construction of the
Tetrominos you form a perception of yourself vis-á-vis your environmental state
(physical and mental). Literature of the self captures how the self changes in
correspondence with the environment. To quote Lost by Coldplay, “you might be a big
fish in little pond.” To the universe, you are a microscopic speck. Because our positions
are constantly changing, so is our “self.” In other words, the self is shaped initially by
the current memory- there is no fixed person. You can also see it like weaving a
tapestry ad infinitum. In a tapestry, you might want to establish a pattern. Humans
are creatures of pattern, because fundamentally we are trying to make sense of
things. These patterns can form preconceptions and biases. In turn, the
preconceptions and biases form opinion building blocks, that we use to confront the
world within and without us. Your Tetris game is unique because only you can occupy
that square of space in that second of time.
Why do we want to make sense of things? From a common-sense evolutionary
standpoint, we want to survive. We need to know, and we need to know what is right
for us as individuals Naturally, what is right for one person is fatal for another.
Rousseau put it best- “Man’s first concern is his self-preservation.” This concern is
foundational to his psychology. So what does it mean that we shape our world
outside-inside-out (or inside-out, if you are introspective)? It means the Renaissance
catchphrase, “Man is the measure of all things.” Everything we see, everything we do:
everything we name, shape, create is a function of our imagination. There is no
objective reality that exists outside of your head. Take the planets. You see a round
thing in the sky, you call it a planet (or what your linguistic impulses tell you to). You
ascribe to it a certain color, you form ideas about what its essence. You will probably
ask if it is harmful. “What happens if I eat it?” (Hint: you die). Good on you if you can
convince somebody else this is indeed the truth about the round thing in the sky
(especially if Person #2 argues it is an oval, that blasphemer!). The bumper sticker is
wise in telling us that perspective is what matters.
Stopping short of the metaphysical quagmire, what else can we extract from
the Current Memory hypothesis? We fear the unknown: this takes perfect form in the
idea of death. Like huge numbers, the idea of ceasing to exist- the hum of you drops
flat- is beyond mind’s grasp. At least from an empirical standpoint, we have no idea
about what happens on a deeply psychological level when you die. Where does your
memory go? Do ghosts exist? Certain religions and spiritualities give us a consolation
about post-death, but that is a separate conversation.
The idea of death is anathema to the purpose of memory, which is finding what
is right and what we can know (momentarily brushing aside Hume’s causation
problem and all of epistemology). Current Memory is a function of self-preservation.
Part 1(a): The Back of the Memory
Always fuzzy, always changing. But imagine this- you do not know if you are
losing your memory. Thinking of something and forgetting what it is (“I am trying to
remember what planets have diamond showers” ) is not losing your memory, but 1
rather acknowledging one aspect of the Tetromino piece. The back wall separates
1 Answer: Saturn and Jupiter.
Current Memory from Historical Memory and Imagination.
Part 2: Historical Memory and Imagination
The blue arrow, unlike the red arrow, is broken. Historical Memory is not a
Tetris Game, but a jigsaw puzzle plus 100 bonus pieces. We learn it in fits and starts,
bits and chunks. Innately, we do not feel “history” is a part of us, like Current
Memory is: it happened in the past, it is behind us. This is at once the struggle of a
history teacher, and the core failure of modern social studies education. If we are
zooming along on the current memory continuum, theoretically why should we care
about what happened behind us and is now stuck in the past? The historian will object
and say that is history is relevant 24/7, but you cannot blame the middle schooler
disenchanted with “old dead guys” and “dusty things.” The natural approach to events
external to Current Memory is cemented in the education system.
Nevertheless, Historical Memory and Imagination are also tools of
self-preservation. But because of their external nature to the self, they are more liable
for plying, skewing, arts, and crafts. On the individualism premise above, “history” is
entirely subjective. When brought through storytelling, we try to fit it alongside the
Tetris game- what we know, what we need to know, what we want to know.
Storytelling is an art, and all art is political. While on the surface we might claim to tell
a story for the sake of its survival, we are telling it to affirm our beliefs.
Fundamentally, why we tell stories is to reflect and make sense of things. What
connects the Tetris game to the Jigsaw puzzle is putting together the pieces, just at
different speeds. If we knew everything the moment we were born, there would be no
mind, brain, or imagination, just a simple shuffle from birth to death without a clue.