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Are we losing our ability to remember?

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Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#141

Post by Groxx »

suyash wrote: post #101
sixdimensional wrote: post #61

I once took a class in college, “Cars and Culture”. I never forgot a line from that class - that “cars provided an extension of our legs”. Ever since then, I have told many people and thought to myself many times, that tools, take Google for instance (search and indexing), knowledge management systems (Wiki and other techniques) - these are all extensions of our brains. We evolve with technology, and it evolves with…

That's a dangerous path to tread, I would never compromise my cognitive abilities with technology, technology is an aid when I need it and I know when not to need it and try to use my God given brain. Suggest you start using your brain or risk loosing it, specially when you can't even remember what to search on Google.

When this same argument is applied to other places, you end up with stuff like "if you don't grow your own food, you're risking supermarkets disappearing and you starving".

It's true, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile risk. Nor does it imply that the other approach is risk-free / has no downsides.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#142

Post by mrmonkeyman »

Buttons840 wrote: post #140
sixdimensional wrote: post #61

I once took a class in college, “Cars and Culture”. I never forgot a line from that class - that “cars provided an extension of our legs”. Ever since then, I have told many people and thought to myself many times, that tools, take Google for instance (search and indexing), knowledge management systems (Wiki and other techniques) - these are all extensions of our brains. We evolve with technology, and it evolves with…

"Are we losing our ability to walk?" Yeah. Kinda. Not really. I bet people had to walk more before cars though.

Actually, yes. Obesity is a very real issue and 90% ofthe population is quite unfit in general. So we can walk, technically, it is nowhere as fast or as graceful as it had been.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#144

Post by jp57 »

asdff wrote: post #132
ohduran wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that Brave New World was more prescient than 1984: you won't be forbid to write, we'll instead give you something more fun and distracting to do instead.

So many parallels between Brave New World and our current world. It's honestly disturbing. The class divide between rich and poor is in there. The intellectual divide between knowledge workers and laborers is in there. The dopamine consumption cycle that stymies creative thought of the masses is in there. The willful ignorance of there being any problems at all is in there. That book is disturbingly prophetic. It's h…

It's almost as if these things have always existed.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#145

Post by drdaeman »

franze wrote: post #90

Whenever I do a SEO workshop I ask 3 questions to my audience: * How often did you Google this week? * What was the last thing before the last thing that you Googled? For the first question, I get laughs. For the second one blank stares. Later, I shoot another question: * What is the last thing you read, that you googled before, top to bottom? For the last question everybody looks at their feet. The use case I optimi…

Can be argued that Googling is simply unimportant. It is not an extension of a thought process (as pouring a cup of tea is not an extension of our digestive process), it's simply something trivial that we do and immediately discard the memories of that as of having no importance for us. Humans are - I believe - goal-oriented, so whenever we want to discover something that's our goal, not the process that led us there (unless something memorable happens along that process).

IMHO, what we remember is the task and its outcome, not the trivialities that brought us from one to another. Which makes me wonder why the last question puzzles people.

I don't readily remember my search history, because I just discard the memories of reaching for something (unless there was something exceptional, which is rare). It's like driving to the restaurant, when there are multiple ways to get to the place. I do remember the outcome (dinner) but unless something happened on the road I probably would need to think/reconstruct if I'd be suddenly asked about the particular roads I took.

Same with the articles - I do remember what I was interested in today (as opposed to "what I've searched for", a subtle difference), and what were the results - things I've read top-to-bottom. Although maybe not in true historical order, but typically the last one is still correct.

To summarize:

- "How often" - unimportant, as the count rarely has a value. Need to enumerate and count things, and that's quite a tedious mental process.

- "What was the last thing before the last" - typically unimportant, as historical order of unrelated events rarely has a value. Needs some mental processing to sort things.

- "What is the last thing you read" - beats me, I do remember what I've read. May need some mental processing (going through my "reading history" and confirming that I've reached this by searching), but besides a possible surprise factor not really a puzzling question.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#146

Post by Barrin92 »

sixdimensional wrote: post #61

I once took a class in college, “Cars and Culture”. I never forgot a line from that class - that “cars provided an extension of our legs”. Ever since then, I have told many people and thought to myself many times, that tools, take Google for instance (search and indexing), knowledge management systems (Wiki and other techniques) - these are all extensions of our brains. We evolve with technology, and it evolves with…

but the analogy to cars does not hold. They're not extensions to our legs in a genuine sense of the term. They don't improve, or interact with our physical capacities. On the contrary, they atrophy our legs, make us fatter, and produce urban pollution.

They're not a technology that enhances or melts with the human who uses it, it doesn't vanish into the background, the car doesn't even evolve much, rather the environment changes to fit the car, if anything hindering evolution, it displaces the natural ecosystem, it doesn't become part of it.

The same can be said about technologies weakening memory. They look like an enhancement maybe, but they may actually just cause impairment of function, becoming a crutch.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#147

Post by osrec »

I read somewhere that before the advent of paper and books, ancient civilisations would keep epic stories in their heads. After we started writing things down in larger volumes, committing entire "books" to memory was not needed, so it became less prevalent and eventually stopped altogether.

I guess smartphones may further reduce what we need to commit to memory, which will probably have some implications in terms of neuro-plasticity - i.e. it may well shrink (or at least change) parts of our brains.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#148

Post by hindsightbias »

SonnyTark wrote: post #139
spicymaki wrote: post #32

I feel that in general we are consuming a lot more information than we really need. I am not sure the human brain was evolved to handle a large amount of information that does not have any physical references. I find myself not only forgetting myriad facts and figures, but also mixing up information or having false memories. Many of my memories have nothing to anchor on. I think the trend today is to prime the brain…

You just made me realize how confusing it must be for our brain to receive a high density of pointless information projected into it when we binge-watch a TV show through a weekend.

After a week of work I cleanse my brain watching golf. Dont really like it but I sleep better than watching basketball or football.

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#149

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

Barrin92 wrote: post #146
sixdimensional wrote: post #61

I once took a class in college, “Cars and Culture”. I never forgot a line from that class - that “cars provided an extension of our legs”. Ever since then, I have told many people and thought to myself many times, that tools, take Google for instance (search and indexing), knowledge management systems (Wiki and other techniques) - these are all extensions of our brains. We evolve with technology, and it evolves with…

but the analogy to cars does not hold. They're not extensions to our legs in a genuine sense of the term. They don't improve, or interact with our physical capacities. On the contrary, they atrophy our legs, make us fatter, and produce urban pollution. They're not a technology that enhances or melts with the human who uses it, it doesn't vanish into the background, the car doesn't even evolve much, rather the environ…

Your claim, that cars doesn’t become part of the ecosystem, got me thinking of this clip:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife/player?clipID=20160713-...

Re: Are we losing our ability to remember?

#150

Post by Wistar »

scotthtaylor wrote: post #65
sixdimensional wrote: post #61

I once took a class in college, “Cars and Culture”. I never forgot a line from that class - that “cars provided an extension of our legs”. Ever since then, I have told many people and thought to myself many times, that tools, take Google for instance (search and indexing), knowledge management systems (Wiki and other techniques) - these are all extensions of our brains. We evolve with technology, and it evolves with…

Yeah, I agree with you (nicely put btw) — what I find disconcerting is the fact that it's happening so quick, i.e. I notice myself evolving and changing over weeks/months and becoming increasingly reliant upon the external data stores. Pretty crazy we can adapt that quick!

Related: I have definitely lost my once lifelong habit of reading at least a book a week. It's down to about a book a year. Reading was such a big part of who I am and yet I now struggle to read a book. I keep buying them, however, I suppose in the hopes I can convince (shame?) myself to read by sheer volume of what I have bought and haven't read.
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