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The growing science of memory manipulation

scientificamerican.com

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Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#101

Post by lr4444lr »

paganel wrote: post #69
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…

> tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. For almost two decades now I believed that "Total Recall" was mostly science fiction, that almost none of it will happen in real life anytime soon. Looks like I was wrong. [1] Philip K. Dick was a genius, with Paul Verhoeven not too far behind. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzFuycHn_0

Upvote for referencing "Total Recall".

My favorite line in the film was actually a clever aside, when Quaid is being solicited by one of the mutant clairvoyants with an offer to tell him his future, his sardonic rejoinder is, "how about the past?".

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#102

Post by Kaiyou »

aloknnikhil wrote: post #10
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…

It also complicates the legal system as it exists today. The fact that artificial memory can be induced in someone's brain makes believing a witness a lot harder. So in addition to social and ethical concerns, it also upends the legal system.

No, witnesses should never be believed. Especially not if you have a bunch of witnesses that tell you the same story. Sounds unintuitive, but it's true. And we know this for at least a hundred years, already. If anyone is interested in further reading on this, I recommend "Mass Psychology" by Gustave Le Bon.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#104

Post by Chathamization »

joe_the_user wrote: post #29
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…

Unfortunately, I've got news for you, fallible and manipulable memories have been around for a long time. For example, see the research of Elizabeth Loftus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus

Yeah. The widespread belief that memory is reliable - a false belief that this article propogates - is probably a lot more problematic than any of the research being discussed. It's not uncommon to see people presented with facts suggesting that their memories are false, and respond by dismissing the facts ("That can't be true, I remember it, I was there").

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#105

Post by tomaskafka »

lostjohnny wrote: post #86
Kbelicius wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not possible IRL. > If I want my picture gone from the high school yearbook AFAIK right to be forgotten, at least in EU, is the right to request that search engines do not display information about an individual that is factually incorrect, obsolete.... it has nothing to do with deleting actual information.

This! The right to be forgotten (or to oblivion) is just the right to have your private informations deleted and the guarantee that what you delete online is really deleted and nobody can recover it. It's not the right to be removed from other's people memory.

Hey, you have the credit card PIN in your memory, no one has removed it, you "just" can't recall it. Good luck getting your money.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#106

Post by altcognito »

roenxi wrote: post #97
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. I'm not aware of any evidence that we can believe our own memories. Memory is much like eyesight. There is a very complex process going on to give you the illusion of a clear and consistent picture that is at odds with what the messy and biological process we rely on can actually achieve. The basic problem is that people don't by and large scientifically assess the…

This is what rationalization looks like. "Oh, well, memories are kinda inaccurate, so, it really doesn't matter if we modify them wholesale." Fairly dangerous rationalization.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#107

Post by sn41 »

paganel wrote: post #69
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…

> tampering with memory is indeed the most dangerous thing that could happen to humanity. For almost two decades now I believed that "Total Recall" was mostly science fiction, that almost none of it will happen in real life anytime soon. Looks like I was wrong. [1] Philip K. Dick was a genius, with Paul Verhoeven not too far behind. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzFuycHn_0

"We can remember it for you wholesale" is the original short story, I think. Philip K. Dick's works taken as a whole, are mind-boggling. At some point, I want to work through Ubik.

Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish sci-fi author of works like Solaris, called Western sci-fi "A Hopeless Case with exceptions" - one of the very very few exceptions was Philip K. Dick. There's also a nice essay on Philip K. Dick specifically. [1], [2]

[1] https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm [2] http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?253191

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#108

Post by hammock »

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…

Well, info on the internet is different than a memory. And perhaps books, speech recording etc are the antidote anyway to tampered memories - making an argument to strengthen First Amendment protections.

More powerful than personal memory, though, might be common knowledge. As they said at Epsilon Theory (using Harvey Weinstein as an example),

Even if everyone in the world believes a certain piece of private information, no one will alter their behavior. Behavior changes ONLY when we believe that everyone else believes the information.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#109

Post by tomaskafka »

buboard wrote: post #78
koonsolo wrote: post #57

On the other hand, this could mean that people will not have to study anymore (eg a new language), because they can just download it to memory. "Oh man why does this Speak French download takes an entire 3 hours!?!?"

"Downloads taking too long? Subscribe to our notifications service. Get faster downloads for just a single daily memory implantation of a product you 've never bought but already love! Hurry up, supply is limited!"

No, you'll just have a free learn-french-in-3-seconds course by Google, which will bundle a set of preferences (like cheeseburger, detergent, or designer bag brand) from advertisers who are paying this. At this point all that remains of "you" is a bag of meat.

Re: The growing science of memory manipulation

#110

Post by WhompingWindows »

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…

Memories are already highly infallible, we have numerous examples from eyewitness testimony to Trump's fabrication of Muslims cheering to any time someone else's story became your story because "its a good story". So, I don't think memories being changed is radical, it's par for the course IMO.

You think mouse scent memory being tampered with is more dangerous than mass nuclear weaponry or bio-engineered pathogens?

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