As I was browsing my web homepage (it's Yahoo!) I spotted a featured article titled
"People with Super Memory". Since we have been discussing memory in class quite a lot, I thought I would benefit from it. In fact, the article was fascinating. It was about four individuals who are confirmed with a condition called ‘super memory’. All of these people can tell you what happened on a random date and most can remember everything in their life starting at a young age. Most of the people have written books about their condition and one man is in talks of a production. But I have to wonder, would this positively or negatively affect their life? I can see it being helpful at some points in their life but most times it must be problematic. Would you like to have a ‘super memory’? It’s interesting to think about what it would be like if you did! (Image via Yahoo)
Whoa, that would be extremely weird if you could remember everything. Personally, I think it would have many positive impacts such as excelling in school because memorizing would be so easy and taking notes would just be an extra precausion. However, would these people ever feel the need to take pictures, save artifacts? I hope to always be able to remember memorable events, such as my first cross country race or fun vacations, but if you could remember everything, would the important memories lose their significance?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't choose to have a super memory because the negative effects would be too overwhelming. As humans, we remember traumatic events very clearly, what if you always remembered every detail of every mean thing said to you and every bad memory? Although we lose the good memories as well, I would want the ability to move on and let things go without always having certain memories locked in my mind. Also, the knowledge that I forget things allows me to appreciate every present moment, knowing that everything is clearest in my mind as it happens. Admittedly, it might be very neat to go through a whole day remembering everything, but I don't think I'd want the ability any longer. Also, I want to retain my current remembering abilities- the idea of having Alzheimer's is horrifying to me, and I would never want to forget my family, friends, or who I am.
ReplyDeleteAddressing Katie's question, I do think that if you had this condition, new experiences and memories would be less significant. On some level, it would be really cool to have the ability to recall every detail of your life. Every moment you experience, story you hear, book you read, and conversation you have will be remembered. In clarity. But what happens if you want to forget something but can't? Do these memories extend to how you felt during a given moment, or just the moment itself?
ReplyDeleteThat picture is gorgeous :U
ReplyDeleteI'd hate to have super memory. As it is, I already have too much mental chatter and I worry about a lot of things in the past that don't matter, or things fairly recent that I shouldn't allow myself to worry about too much. Sometimes I'll remember something incredibly insignificant I said a couple days, weeks, months, or sometimes years ago, and I'll just start worrying about it because it was a minorly embarrassing moment or something. If I'm really tired in the morning and I'm biking to school, I'd like nothing more than for my brain to be totally silent, but often I'll be sort of half spacing-out and thinking about a ton of different things at the same time, and re-imagining things, and it is truly exhausting. And I don't even have that great of memory.
On one hand whenever I hear about people with such crazy abilities like this I'm amazed by it and almost feel like I'm missing out, because it can be incredibly useful for things like remembering peoples' numbers and knowing game trivia (as told in the article), but I could definitely see myself as a person who would have a lot of difficulty with it.