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The growing science of memory manipulation

scientificamerican.com

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Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#41

Post by raxxorrax »

hos234 wrote: post #31
slim wrote: post #9

The mere possibility of tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. In fact we don't have to imagine, I believe I've been subjected to "mass gaslighting" on multiple occasions recently on the internet : some piece of information I'm sure I saw on the internet suddenly completely disappears. Google + Facebook + "right to be…

Whats preventing the gaslighters from being gaslighted? It's not a bad thing if we can change Putin or the Saudi Head Looneys memory and behavior. These kind of Debates always get won by the Edward Teller's in the room.

I believe more in Putin changing your memory than the other way around. Small details I suppose. And that I believe that Putin would indeed nuke you before letting that happen.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#43

Post by beobab »

raxxorrax wrote: post #27
dclowd9901 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, witness testimony should never be or have been the sole basis for convictions. Peoples’ memory is so fraught with error that it’s basically useless on its own merits.

I think this is an exaggeration. Witnesses often try to be as helpful as possible and in doing so may supply too much information they themselves aren't able to verify. Of course that can prove to undermine their statements in the first place, but I don't believe attesting memory failures addresses the core of the problem with witness reports.

And yet, direct witness statements from two helpful people standing next to each other, made immediately after the event can vary so wildly that you would wonder if they are describing the same event.

paraphrased from "The Invisible Gorilla: and other ways our intuition deceives us" (Chabris and Simons)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003P9XE56/

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#45

Post by wruza »

lopmotr wrote: post #44

Artificial memories in humans have already been done. In the 1980's there was an epidemic of psychologists implanting memories of sexual abuse in children who grew up believing they had actually been abused.

Interesting how much of #metoo could relate to these phenomena.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#46

Post by function_seven »

lopmotr wrote: post #44

Artificial memories in humans have already been done. In the 1980's there was an epidemic of psychologists implanting memories of sexual abuse in children who grew up believing they had actually been abused.

I have my own example of this. Something I remember with clarity, but didn't happen. Not as horrific as sexual abuse, but close enough to convince me how fallible our memories are.

A few years ago a friend an I were having dinner at a restaurant. The waiter came by to serve water, and as he was filling our glasses, he would raise the pitcher up very high above the glass while saying to himself, "Easy, Franciso... Eeeasy!" It was funny.

Except that's not what happened at all. What really happened was that we were there at dinner when my friend told me the story of some other time he had a waiter that did just that. He must have described it to me in sufficient detail for me to form the mental image and merge it with our dinner that night.

A couple years later, I start telling this story as if I had been there, to a group of people that included my friend from that night. That's when I learned that it was a false memory.

It was disorienting to say the least. As soon as this was pointed out to me, I did remember the real conversation and him telling me.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#47

Post by bryanrasmussen »

wruza wrote: post #38
slim wrote: post #9

The mere possibility of tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. In fact we don't have to imagine, I believe I've been subjected to "mass gaslighting" on multiple occasions recently on the internet : some piece of information I'm sure I saw on the internet suddenly completely disappears. Google + Facebook + "right to be…

But imagine having much better memories than you have now. It is much better to wake up and go to work knowing that you spent a good vacation last three month, than having boring eternal life of a regular worker with low wage. Forget that your SO cheated on you. Believe that all people are good. If you’d sell memory tampering devices, are you sure that most of them would be used against someone other instead of on bu…

imagine starting every day of your working life thinking you just got done with a wonderful two weeks vacation, energized and ready to continue on with your employment tasks! in fact with our new happy memory management service your employees will never need to take a vacation, weekend, or fake sick day again - because they will think they just did!

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#48

Post by justinjlynn »

weinzierl wrote: post #40
slim wrote: post #9

The mere possibility of tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. In fact we don't have to imagine, I believe I've been subjected to "mass gaslighting" on multiple occasions recently on the internet : some piece of information I'm sure I saw on the internet suddenly completely disappears. Google + Facebook + "right to be…

In "Ghost in the Shell" there is a sub plot with a man who talks all day about his family until it is revealed to him that it is all false memories. I always found this one of the most horrifying scenes in the movie.

Indeed. For me, the worst bit is that they explicitly, for no reason other than to inform us, say they won't be able to repair the damage.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#49

Post by dilyevsky »

slim wrote: post #9

The mere possibility of tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. Imagine not being able to believe your own memory. In fact we don't have to imagine, I believe I've been subjected to "mass gaslighting" on multiple occasions recently on the internet : some piece of information I'm sure I saw on the internet suddenly completely disappears. Google + Facebook + "right to be…

> Imagine not being able to believe your own memory.

Done. Memories are notoriously unreliable and you shouldn’t treat as ultimate source of truth.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#50

Post by macrolime »

sysbin wrote: post #7

The next most interesting direction the researchers could go would be if deletion is possible. I’m assuming the question of deletion being even possible would be amazing to find certainty. I’m speculating for an existing memory to be deleted, it has to be rewritten and thus typical deletion is impossible without rewriting. Once all this is perfected, the future technology of brain interface for humans will have even…

It's not the next step. That was the previous step. It's already known and demonstrated many times that deletion is possible, so now they wanted to know if they could also create memories.

See more in Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_erasure

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