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To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

quantamagazine.org

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Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#21

Post by notheguyouthink »

stickydink wrote: post #19
adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

Passing time without any knowledge or memory is probably the main reason to be taking drugs in prison. Yours sounds like the perfect, side-effect free solution!

Interestingly, I wouldn't use it for that (if at all), because it doesn't actually pass the time at all. You still live the time, experiencing it in full. Ie, a boring day would still be a boring day.

On the flip side, a drug that let you retroactively forget would be heavily used I bet. Traumatic experiences are often wished to be forgotten. Though, I wonder what a human would be like if they didn't have negative experiences. One who was able to remove a big portion of mind shaping experiences. Further yet, I wonder if your mind ever truly forgets. If a dog bites you as a kid, and then you take the forget pill, are you still afraid of dogs?

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#22

Post by 1996 »

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

anterograde amnesia is a property of some anesthesics used in emergency: the basic idea is that it may hurt, but the patient won't remember.

(actually, it is more of a dissociative effect - ketamine does that)

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#23

Post by limeblack »

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

Haldol often can cause complete memory loss in a portion of the population. I have actually worked with drug. Has a bunch of other side effects long term so I don't reccomend it.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#24

Post by cryptozeus »

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

No I would not want to take it. "buyers remorse" will be so huge that I will regret for the rest of my life. For example if something bad happened then its fine but if something good happen and I can't remember, that would suck !

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#25

Post by misterprime »

jeffwass wrote: post #15

Relevant convo between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (My choice of Italics highlights). Below excerpt from A Study in Scarlet , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887. —— My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled…

That makes a lot of sense. I need to reconsider my podcast and reddit habits.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#26

Post by whymauri »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #20

I only skimmed the piece, but it doesn't look like it touched on the fact that the brain apparently "resets" during sleep (edit: specifically to foster new memories the next day, from what I gather). I have seen several articles in the last couple of years about the brain shrinking, etc, during sleep. A quick search pulled up, for example, this piece: https://www.newsweek.com/brain-synapses-shrink-during-sleep-...

One of my favorite papers on the subject, from a colleague's lab:

"Unstable neurons underlie a stable learned behavior"

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5859e85dd2b8571a0a859...

>Motor skills can be maintained for decades, but the biological basis of this memory persistence remains largely unknown. The zebra finch, for example, sings a highly stereotyped song that is stable for years, but it is not known whether the precise neural patterns underlying song are stable or shift from day to day. Here we demonstrate that the population of projection neurons coding for song in the premotor nucleus, HVC, change from day to day. The most dramatic shifts occur over intervals of sleep. In contrast to the transient participation of excitatory neurons, ensemble measurements dominated by inhibition persist unchanged even after damage to downstream motor nerves.

Brain circuitry truly is amazing. The connectome is vital to the function of the brain, and slight perturbations can severely damage that function; however, the connectome can change over night even in the context of precise motor skills. It's a sort of Catch-22.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#28

Post by linkmotif »

Micheal Pollan in Botany of Desire has a lot of good stuff about the importance of forgetting: https://books.google.com/books?id=Woywyw8LlcgC&pg=PA162&lpg=...

> For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#29

Post by CuriousCosmic »

cryptozeus wrote: post #24
adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

No I would not want to take it. "buyers remorse" will be so huge that I will regret for the rest of my life. For example if something bad happened then its fine but if something good happen and I can't remember, that would suck !

Alternatively, what happens if you are accused for a crime that you didn't commit during your "blackout period"?

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#30

Post by IAmGraydon »

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

Such a drug exists. Namely, anything of the benzodiazepine class.
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