Memory

Memories...what are they to us, who we are, who we may become?Perhaps locked within contains others, past lives, friends, or maybe the memory of someone who was not a past life but is there anyway. Do they run us, teach us emotion? With memory perhaps comes wisdom and possibly knowledge, of ouselves, and others. Tell me some of your opinions

Originally posted by Siphous


Memories...what are they to us, who we are, who we may become?Perhaps locked within contains others, past lives, friends, or maybe the memory of someone who was not a past life but is there anyway. Do they run us, teach us emotion? With memory perhaps comes wisdom and possibly knowledge, of ouselves, and others. Tell me some of your opinions

What are memories? imo they are simply bits of information that could be used at a later time for personal benefit in a multitude of ways.

Who are we? My screen name says Im William_Blake. In all seriousness, I believe were a pysical representation of our souls in some way. Obviously I cant tell you why were here or alive, but I have speculations.

Who may we become? There is a theory as follows, we live within our memories. I read somewhere that 17 minutes is how long your brain is 'alive' before you die. If when you dream, it can seem like an eternity, whose to say that the last 17 minutes arnt where youll be?

Memory, a fascinating topic. I remember that we used to test for short and long term memory before we decided what path to take in the assessment of an individual. I read a comment by one member in response to your query where he suggested memory allows us to benefit by using memory to assist us in better decision making, This process is essentially what we call intelligence, the application of learned information as applied to current circumstances.
When I was immersed in human dynamics we did not know how quantum mechanics would explain much about the function of the brain. The more we know about the electromechanical functions of our brain the better we understand our species in general and our behavior in particular.
I would welcome a compound that we could take orally, with no detrimental side effects, which would enhance our memory, short term, at least. Until that advancement I will be left with what has passed all these years for my…memory.
One possible advantage in medicine is the likelihood that quantum mechanics might explain whether Alzheimer might be the result of aberrant information transmission procedures between the neurons as one cell attempts to communicate with another.
What if the information travels the length of the neuron and is ready to be passed on to the awaiting target neuron but arrives before the transmission unit is prepared to transmit or the receptor portion of the target cell is prepared to receive? Might this explain the memory spurts followed by apparent unawareness manifest in Alzheimer victims?
I imagine research will tell us eventually; I hope this occurs sooner than later.
As to why our memory seems to help us recall our innocence even when we know full well that we're guilty, that's probably written off to our conscious personality's attempts to help us maintain our sanity by clouding reality, just enough.

skep

Memories are definately an interesting topic.
I do think that memories have the potential to shape who we are, however, we have the conscious decision on how to react to our memories. One thing to take note of though, is that memories are not direct captures of our past. Memories are very dynamic and our current perceptions shape how we view any given memory.
In my opinion, memories are just our biological way of recording our given lifes events, i do not think we can derive any hidden information about past lives or who we are from our memories...this is the role of consciousness and the soul.