Memory Hackers

SOURCE

Memory is the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, we’d be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future. From our first kiss to where we put our keys, memory represents who we are and how we learn and navigate the world. But how does it work? Neuroscientists using cutting-edge techniques are exploring the precise molecular mechanisms of memory. By studying a range of individuals ranging—from an 11-year-old whiz-kid who remembers every detail of his life to a woman who had memories implanted—scientists have uncovered a provocative idea. For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays intact. But now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others. We are discovering the precise mechanisms that can explain and even control our memories. The question is—are we ready?

I had the lovely opportunity to catch this Nova special the other evening and it totally blew my mind. The special is called Memory Hackers and it details several different scientific experiments done within the past few years that involve analysis of the hippocampus and the implantation of false memories.

One of them is an 11 year old boy who seemingly can remember every detail from every day of his life. I suspect this kid has already been selected to work for some sort of intelligence agency to be trained in total recall when he's old enough.

Another experiment details how they manipulate the brain cells in a lab mouse with fiber optic light sensors in order to stimulate growth of neurons and implant new memories.

And one of my favorites for reasons relevant to ATS is a psychologist who uses the power of suggestion in her words to convince her patients that they had committed a crime that they did not commit.

The implications discussed in this documentary are mind boggling and unprecedented. It really opens up the door to explain many a phenomena involving the paranormal, mind control, abductions, etc.

They also talk about a classic case in neuroscience where they removed the hippocampus of a patient in order to prevent his prevalent seizures. When the procedure was complete he could not remember most of his life and he lacked the ability to remember things that happened to him on a daily basis post operation. They managed to get him to learn how to draw a perfect star, and it was this experiment that led to the discovery that memory is not limited to one part of the brain. Neuroplasticity teaches us that new cells can be formed and new thought processes can be reprogrammed to function in alternative sections of the brain.

Give it a watch, and let's discuss these breakthroughs!

Put the word "hacker" onto something and holy F### mind blown someone is hacking into stuff, I see a title like this and think wow people really are suckers. Yeah manipulating people one way or the other either through mental abuse or coercion or physical abuse or coercion is one thing, people do not hack into people memories I don't care how you cut the #.

a reply to: Brotherman

Hey buddy, wanna drop the hostility and maybe watch the video before you make an utter fool out of yourself?

I didn't name the documentary. That being said I think hacking is quite appropriate in this context. Hacking is not limited to the definition of its use in the realm of technology. Hacking is something that is intrinsically connected to our species. The very essence of consciousness and it's function is a form of hacking.

So maybe tone it down a little bit?

a reply to: ColdWisdom

The video is some new age bs. In my day and age apparently before it was called "hacking" it was called torture or coercion, whether physically or mentally. I'm glad you got here a few months ago and can set me straight.

look if an 11 year old can remember every detail of his life in all his 11 years to be scientifically verified means ever detail has to be recorded or remembered by someone of something. If the kid can verify the stuff on home video it doesn't mean anything, I can sing in Japanese to if it is the theme song to YuYu hackashu from 1993.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

I saw the title of that special, and (due to the media's overuse of the word hacking) it did turn me off wanting to see it. But, after reading your OP, I think it might be worth the time to see now (book by the cover lesson I guess). If I get to it tomorrow, I'll let you know my impressions on it too. Hopefully this thread is still here and not 404'd due to hostility and senseless bickering, which seems to be the latest craze around ATS for some odd reason.

Thanks for changing my mind.

a reply to: ColdWisdomThanks Wisdom for this good thread. I can understand the hostility to these findings as they undermine much if not all of what many people think themselves to be. Same for basic psychology. Way back when Freud and the boys were laying it out with their theories many people called it crazy for the same reason. The powerful elite though understood it's worth and began to use the malleability of the masses for their own purposes.

a reply to: Brotherman

The video is some new age bs. In my day and age apparently before it was called "hacking" it was called torture or coercion, whether physically or mentally. I'm glad you got here a few months ago and can set me straight.

What did you used to call Neuroscience back in your day & age?

The 11 year old, as you can imagine, does not remember anything prior to ages 3-4. The reason for that in him and the rest of us is because our synaptic pathways are not developed enough to sustain long term memory. They do, however, connect him to an fMRI & an EEG machine to map his synaptic networks and to observe his brainwaves.

Again, if you had cared to even watch the video or read my OP before blindly reacting you may have had something intelligent to contribute to this thread.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

I can attest to that age finding. My earliest real and lasting memory is of the Apollo Moon landings. And I was not much older than that at the time. Prior to that time, they are more shadows of images and flashes of scenes....disjointed and without context.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: Brotherman

The video is some new age bs. In my day and age apparently before it was called "hacking" it was called torture or coercion, whether physically or mentally. I'm glad you got here a few months ago and can set me straight.

What did you used to call Neuroscience back in your day & age?

The 11 year old, as you can imagine, does not remember anything prior to ages 3-4. The reason for that in him and the rest of us is because our synaptic pathways are not developed enough to sustain long term memory. They do, however, connect him to an fMRI & an EEG machine to map his synaptic networks and to observe his brainwaves.

Again, if you had cared to even watch the video or read my OP before blindly reacting you may have had something intelligent to contribute to this thread.

Maybe I did, and maybe they didn't care to use someone in their 80s either. Using terms like they do is a manipulative causation to stay away from something like this, starting with click bait and ending with manipulation.

What kind of point are you trying to make with the op? You are saying that Hacking means an awful lot more then it does? I still think it is manipulative. You do not have to agree, you posted the OP so I don't really expect you too. We can agree to disagree then I leave here, I go back to painting stuff and you go back to the hard science of hacking brains.

a reply to: Brotherman

Maybe I did, and maybe they didn't care to use someone in their 80s either. Using terms like they do is a manipulative causation to stay away from something like this, starting with click bait and ending with manipulation.

I would be curious to hear you elaborate as to why hacking is a manipulative term. And to be clear, I saw this on PBS. There was no click bait involved unless you are referring to the title of my thread which as I stated is the name of the Nova special.

I can also say that the title appeared gimmicky to me at first. If it wasn't for the fact that I give a lot of credibility to Nova and for the brief trailer they aired earlier in the day I probably would have dismissed it as something sensational and lacking of any substance. Fortunately, my first impression was wrong. Perhaps so is yours?

What kind of point are you trying to make with the op? You are saying that Hacking means an awful lot more then it does? I still think it is manipulative. You do not have to agree, you posted the OP so I don't really expect you too. We can agree to disagree then I leave here, I go back to painting stuff and you go back to the hard science of hacking brains.

I can tell you that in my OP the point is not to dwell on the definition or common use of the word hacking. Mainly, I am trying to start a discussion about the implications of implanting false memories with the use of technology, and other things neuroscience related.

The 30 minutes I watched particularly with the kid talking about knowing all this stuff is not much different then many people I know in regards to sports history and significant dates. The thing about it is, instead of use of why the child is of interest outside of the whole "oh yeah I have HSAM" and lots of gimmicky graphics and catch phrases leads me to believe it is a bunch of BS.

Besides the content that I have seen it is the presentation, that comes in such a manner that feels almost like an AT&T commercial, "it is like having a computer with me." "And I thought my memory was good and I am a doctor."
I would be willing to bet this Hack-u-mentary would be more telling if it came with the original pbs commercials?

I also think that it is scripted in such a way that actually leads people into the abnormal realm of study of viewing because the subject of memory itself probably will actually never be fully understood however and audience and likes and views are an awful lot easier to figure out and capitalize on versus real science regarding memory. In my regard for real science into memory I would think that instead of choosing an 11 year old when he was 9 to be a study that they might catalog and record him throughout his life. I know 40 year old men that relive the same day in meticulous detail almost every night sometimes causing physical violence and disturbance to their loved ones and homes they pay for believing they are actually in foregin countries being hunted and assaulted by long dead people, people that exhibit this phenomenon are not put on tv for a reason yet the trauma side of memory is a lot more heavier linked to the idea of oh I just remember to how hard wiring of life experience is linked to a memory, the difference is, the child saw the sports on tv versus the guy that experienced something with all 5 senses and a gut feeling. I have doubts that this is something worth my time to debate because not only do I think this Hack science is junk, I think that even if it is real scientists have put their chips on the wrong hand.

sorry for my bad grammar, I am bad at grammar while I work

Yeesh, neurolinglistics, NLP, hypnosis.

Oh my,

Here I was thinking that the video was referring to the experiment where they were able to map a and record to video a persons dream... Mind the signal they get is god awful... But it can be made out...

a reply to: CoBaZ

Yes I have seen that. There was an awesome TED talks about that technology.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom

One of them is an 11 year old boy who seemingly can remember every detail from every day of his life. I suspect this kid has already been selected to work for some sort of intelligence agency to be trained in total recall when he's old enough.

That was a 70s TV program called "The Delphi Bureau".

However, "recoding" of memories on the fly is a tenet of NLP. While it's one of those less accepted backwaters of psych, you can watch people do it nearly every day.

The example either Bandler or Grinder gives of this (can't recall which) is a woman who's at her wedding, enjoyed every moment of it, it's her fairy tale dream come true. And at the last minute, someone spills mustard on her wedding dress in front of everyone. "Oh, no, now everything's ruined" and she recodes all the good memories as bad ones. When in fact, nothing's really changed. But she'll recall it all as bad.

People do this a lot. And every time you recall something, it also is rewritten a little. If you think of it a lot, you'll reinforce it, but it will also...drift.

Wait, so if I don't believe in the Mandela Effect does that mean my memory was hacked?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

no it means you didnt give it 52 minutes to watch the video and get your head mind #ed by BS involving shoddy interviews with 11 year olds and half ass matrix graphics. Other then that yeah man, yeah.

a reply to: Bedlam

People do this a lot. And every time you recall something, it also is rewritten a little. If you think of it a lot, you'll reinforce it, but it will also...drift.

Correct! Every time a neuronal circuit gets excited the molecular composition changes a little. Every time we access a memory we are modifying it slightly.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Yep, we basically "reconstruct" memories, our brains aren't tape recorders or hard drives. We don't store memories like storing videos on a computer.

People seem to forget this.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: ColdWisdom

Yep, we basically "reconstruct" memories, our brains aren't tape recorders or hard drives. We don't store memories like storing videos on a computer.

People seem to forget this.

Is it hacking or manipulating then when people exploit this well known causation? I call it manipulation and a form of coercion, I think calling it hacking is a way to make it more attractive and acceptable.

It's a fairly decent documentary on how memory works, not sure why some people here have to be so salty about it. However I do have to say the way they compared memory recall to reading and writing a file on a computer did irk me. We don't "resave" a memory after recalling it, the act of recalling it simply reinforces the neural pathways associated with the memory, those pathways will degrade if not reinforced and when we are recalling a memory we often use our imagination to fill in the gaps, causing the memory to be altered by our imagination. That pill they talk about which eliminates their fear of spiders is clearly doing something much more subtle than erasing or blocking a memory. I have a normal fear of any poisonous animal, there is no bad memory I had which could erase that fear, it's simply a logical conclusion in order to avoid death. When those people are first asked to touch the tarantula, I doubt they were remembering a specific memory, the most active part of their brain would have been the emotional region responsible for generating fear. So I would argue the pill isn't really targeting any particular memory at all, it's some how dampening the neural pathways responsible for the feeling of fear and maybe the fight or flight response.