Upgrading My Memory

I don't remember what I wrote about last week. I don't even remember what I had for breakfast. Do you think in the future we will be able to upgrade our memory? Think about it. Our memories must be stored in cells in our brain and the common thought is that we do not utilize 100% of our memory capability.

As an example:

Imagine that the website, "Facebook" represents the total body of knowledge in the universe. Then we are most definitively screwed.

It is well accepted that cinnamon can boost your memory capability. I read that and after about thirty or forty lines of "premo cinnamo" (also know on the street as Smacker Jacks, Having a Lemur on Your Back, Sri Lankan Puddle Brown, and the bewildering Buns),  my memory was increased so large I completely forgot what the hell I was doing. When the best they can say is that "...[cinnamon] could help the memory", that isn't what I am looking for. That's like saying "you may prevent forest fires" , or "alcohol can kill brain...things in your head amjig.", or that "12 million tons of concrete may make the Hoover dam.". Okay so that last one might be true but the point is I need a sure thing, and not a boost either, I need full throttle supersonic rocket ignited acceleration for my deadened memory cells.

It won't be long before someone comes up with a way to change our diet, take a drug, or somehow change the chemical properties or the physical properties of the brain that will increase our memory capabilities. How about that?

On the down side we will be flooded with e-mails spamming us with subject lines like: "Add 5% to Your Capabilities Today!". I suppose it will also cut down on the number of times I can be excused for something because I forgot.

We may talk about, not brain transplants, but brain expansion kits. Would that be 128 GB? or did you want to add the super 1T size? If we do not use all of our current capability, what is the best guess for total memory function. That's right 100% maxed out ability. Unfortunately when I tried Goo Gooing this question most sites referred to my memory abilities. Anything would be an improvement for improving my memory, even a swift kick in the medial temporal lobe will knock a few memories loose and clear out some free cells (which would immediately be snapped up by important plot twists in Gilligan's Island episode number 30 in which the Skipper gets cracked on the head and he loses his memory).

I am sure the military is already working on this problem and if not than the comic book industry would do well to create their next super hero from memory enhancement therapies. Can you imagine, "Deep in the heart of Up To Know Good Labs scientists have isolated a new protein from the neural core of a Norwegian Sweat Moth that is so powerful they think it will give normal people the memory capability of..well of a Norwegian Moth. But who to test it on?"

My guess is that there would be no lack of volunteers for the trials. The only problem is reminding the volunteers to show up on time.

"Oh, that was TODAY. Sorry I have a very important toenail to cremate."

Now if we could upgrade our memories, in what way would you like to be able to upgrade? Would you like to be able to store more memory? to have a faster recall, to be able to remember things down to the minute details? Perhaps one of the upgrades will be to more efficiently erase bad memories keeping only the good stuff for long term storage.

I'm guessing that we don't want to mess with this stuff. I kind of like not remembering everything. Sure it would be nice if I could remember ALL of my kids names but hey, 50% is passing...I think. Upgrading memory might just be a case of TMI. I mean, there has to be a healthy level of information and beyond that we just end up thinking too much and we don't want people thinking too much, especially Californians.

In the western expanse of North America, the same land that brought us, "Total Recall" and "Willard", we now find out that researchers have been able to revive "old memories in mice!" I didn't read the entire article (I think...well maybe I did) but I would be scared to revive old memories of rodents with sharp claws and teeth using psychodelic drugs and possible electro-shock therapy.. I mean isn't that what slugs are for.

I love how at the end of the article the researcher from Boston University supports the idea of rodents and "mental time travel". So were the mice the only recipients of the drug therapy?

So now we not only have a super hero whose memory is too big for his pants (or whatever) and now we have very angry mice with stimulated rodent memories that can travel time and are right now...even as we speak...looking for their car keys.

On the East coast however researchers think they are closer to cracking the memory caper. Scientists were able to isolate specific neurons that controlled specific memories. That's right! They could remove the neuron and remove the memory altogether. They say this proves that memories are physical rather than conceptual. I think it means we should watch out for MIT guys with sharp pointed sticks. Perhaps someday they will be able to create new memories and plant them in our brains and we wouldn't know the difference. Hmmmm. Now where was I last summer?

Of course this is only in the future. For now our world is safe from four legged memory perturbed rabies monsters. Has anyone seen my car keys?

(Please share this with a friend, another human, or even with a Californian.)

Stronger Memories

So you have brushed your teeth and are about to climb into bed when something reminds you of a memory. Sometimes, for me, it is a song that is playing, an advertisement on the radio, a smell, or just random neurons that fire in a logic that defies all logic. My wife and I like to refer to this phenomenon as "synapses". Does this happen to you?

Now if the memory was a good one, it might ease the transition to REM, but if it is a painful memory it might be enough to postpone the much desired sleep until the wee (I think this refers to the mid hours of the night when I usually have the urge to get up and pee) hours of the night.

So on such a given night I might lay awake trying to find away to exorcise the bad feelings, perhaps by replacing them with a more positive memory. I also like to try and run fantasy scenarios in my head to distract me, but I find I have to put a lot of effort into designing a fantasy or conjuring that good-vibed memory chock full of restorative energy that I start to wonder if "bad" memories are stronger than "good" memories.

So for this blog it is off to Goo Goo land. So I first delve into an article in Psychology Today entitled, "All Memory Is Not Created Equal--Positive Memory Seepage", in the introduction I learned that, "Intrusive thoughts are not just bad thoughts or flashbacks. They can be intrusive from positive memories as well."


So now I am completely screwed, not only do bad thoughts intrude on my personage but good ones too? Now I just want to block out everything. According to the article good memories are easier to recall than bad and that the bad memories serve an important function for "emotional reinforcement". Wow, if bad memories provide emotional reinforcement than I am Fort Knox.


I am not even close to being the only person blogging about this too. There seems to be a lot of discussion regarding emotional influence on our memories. I think that makes some sense to me, that events that inspired stronger emotions will have a longer staying power and I would imagine a greater chance to work their way into my life when I least expect it. That is probably why I don't remember any French even though I studied it for (gulp) seven years of hard labor..or is that laború or something. I was never inspired by my French studies and my only achievement was to juggle for my French teacher which at the very least amused her. It didn't help when she said, "Ah now we know what you are good at." Of course, she might have said something else, I didn't really understand because she said it in French (I think). I did learn something in French class though. I can ask for a cheese omelette but that is about it, on the other hand I can tell you what I was wearing and what I ate for lunch the day I sneezed all over Laurie S. (name withheld for the sake of some privacy and because my brain has erased some vital memory slots reserved for remembering all the words to every Monty Python sketch ever written) in Junior High. I went to an "open" junior high and so literally everybody in the school could see and hear my faux pas (more French!) as I covered the back of her head with adolescent snot molecules. Sure, you couldn't really see anything, but the coodie patrol was all over it. Actually, I think only I noticed it and that Laurie was rather non-chalant (French ?)..or as non-chalant as any young female teen can be, but to me I had dropped my pants in front of the entire school only to realize I was wearing Spider-Man pajama briefs underneath. This is a memory that will stick with me for the rest of my life and I would not describe it as particularly positive to me although if I saw it in a movie, or as a commercial for industrial strength shampoo it might cause a chuckle or two.

If everybody including scientific studies say that positive memories are more accessible and long lasting than negative ones, why do I feel like the bad memories are winning the war for emotional balance? Why do I struggle with blocking memories? Perhaps if I can really relax the good memories will eventually win and the bad memories will subside and retire deep into my brain stem unless, of course, I have to sneeze again.

Cheese omelette anybody?

Something Between Black and White

I imagine this will start to sound like a movie review and to some extent it is but to some extent it isn't. So where to start? If it were possible, I wish I could see a movie and have one reaction to it and then see it again in a different place and at a different time and my feelings towards the movie would be completely  different. This is a hard experiment to create because our memories can be so vivid that re-watching the same movie has the power to transport us back to the time we first watched it and therefore not really see the same movie but in a different way, rather we are seeing the same movie in the same way we saw it the first time even if physically we are in a different spot. Sometimes, however, there are naturally born opportunities that create such an experiment.

For instance, the movie "Flight of the Phoenix", a 2004 movie about how survivors of a plane crash in the Mongolian desert work together to build a new plane. It is a movie that examines human reaction in the face of certain death. It examines issues of hope and it examines questioning leadership, but in truth I didn't really have much of a reaction to the movie when I saw it except to feel really hot and sweaty which is normal for me because I live in a desert; although I would like to think I am not stranded here.

Now we jump a few years into the future to the 2012 Liam Neeson starred, "The Grey" about survivors of a plane crash in the Alaskan outback being chased by wolves and, without reveling any spoilers, fight the wolves and the elements until the wind bitten end.

This time however, the movie for me at least was empirically metaphorical. In truth, at the beginning of the movie I was thinking that this was a remake of "Flight of the Phoenix" but just made on the snow and snarling CGI wolves, but then something changed. I think my opinion changed when the Liam Neeson character referred to a poem that was written by his father (in the movie):

Once more into the fray
into the last good fight I will ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day

Now on the surface...the two aforementioned movies should have affected me the same, but the later emotional took me places the first did not. I attribute this to two main reasons. The first reason is the slight differences in the production of the movies. The first being the nature of a the movie. "Grey" is cold and calculated, "Phoenix" is hot and slow paced. In "Phoenix" the build up is to a one possible escape scenario. "Grey" is about staring down the ultimate possibility and continuing anyway. "Phoenix" is a movie. "Grey" is a visual metaphor. "Phoenix" is to be watched with popcorn and lots of cold beverage. "Grey" to be watched while you are huddling beneath a warm blanket shared with only your sacred trust (and perhaps hot chocolate). The second reason has nothing to do with the movie but with where I am at (mentally, physically, emotionally) right now. In truth I don't like scary movies I never have, but with "The Grey" I was able to see beyond the celluloid (digital or otherwise) and construct an understanding of the art that is beneficial to me. I am looking for art that will not only relate to me but will help me process.

"Time wounds all heals" or so we learn. Sometimes, the passage of time is a mysterious curtain that allows you to try and peek beyond it, beyond into the past and if we are lucky to contemplate our lives from two different points on the curve of time.

When the lights come on after "Phoenix" the dangers of the expansive desert are behind you, but with "Grey" you leave the theatre and enter the cold world filled with unexpected realities and dangers with white sharp teeth and yet you, as the voyeur, are armed with a renewed strength to jump "once more into the fray".

Did I Right That?

We are human (Duh) which means we make mistakes. I think that is the definition of human, but there are times in my life were I feel like the mistakes define me and not the other "stuff". Do you ever get so focused on a mistake that you find that your day is ruined?

Sometimes the mistakes are so trivial...even not in retrospect but since my expectations are set before the mistake is made, once I have made the mistake, emotionally there is no going back.

So now I have made some mistake. I work in food services and many people's meals are dependent on my proficiency. Maybe I forgot to order the food or maybe I switched the days of the week in my head and now I am preparing for the wrong group. These are the small fiasco's in life, the ones that we can sweat it out and let the chips fall where they may. It isn't like I live in a barren desert. Okay, I do live in a desert but a rather well stocked one by most perspectives. If I forgot an order I can usually make do (and more) with what is in the storeroom. But that doesn't matter. Once I have made the mistake, the rest of the day I question myself.

Okay, that is the small stuff. But what about the big stuff, life and death stuff. We often say it is more important to learn from your mistakes than not make them, but when the mistakes profoundly effect other people, there can be no solace for the victims because a lesson will be learned.

This type of mistake takes forever to heal. Even after the physical scars have healed (if at all) , the memory of that mistake is paralyzing. It is the memory of those mistakes that bothers me even more then the actual mistake and now I feel even more guilty for focusing on me again. Why should I even worry about my mistake when others have suffered, are suffering because of what I did ...or sometimes because what I did not do? Can we ever let these events go completely? Can someone who makes an egregious life altering error let the past go completely? Aren't we meant to be responsible? Is there a statue of limitations on repentance? On the other hand, if we are only regret, what are we?

In a recent Freakonmics podcast I heard Stephen Dubner say,"Bad things happen, it is what we do afterwards that matters."

I believe this is where true heroism is displayed. Someone who never does, will never err, but will never then need to reflect on his ways and find a way to "live with himself" despite his errors.

Today I will try and make tomorrow a better day.