Memory without trace

Yes, but one of the problems that Braude brings up, is that the residual bit is itself a form of memory.

Think of a book. It may contain lots of things that you don't need to remember. However, you still need to remember something about the subject matter of the book to be able to access it. At the very least you need to be able to read the language in which it is written. So at least some memory can't rely on traces.

David

I haven't got a clue what your going on about there...
 
One clue maybe that many people come back from NDE's and other similar experiences, reporting a timeless state - complete with Akashic records! That is very hard to imagine, I know, but there is probably a danger of thinking too cautiously here.

David

Oh dear...
 
How do you expect to practically move access to information forward in time.. other than in spatial patterns of matter (physical traces)?

How does a spatial pattern actually serve as information without memory?
 
O

So we can't represent the forum in any way other than looking at it in its entirety. In human memory terms, this would be like storing a video of one's life, and mentally scanning it every time one needed to remember something!

I think that contention is flawed. First there's the comparison to software which, for many reasons, is invalid. (And again reinforces my contention then many here are rooted in phsyicalism) But more importantly, you posit software designed for one thing and then raise usages that require a different design. To make its simple - let's say one wanted to know how was optimistic. A ten-point scale could be used and a stored procedure could add an entry for anyone greater than a 5 to a table of "optimists" So a query about optimists would simply return the entries in that table. IOW it would not require querying the entire database.
 
Last edited:
It is an error to think of memory as an infallible record like "storing a video record of one's life".

Without looking it up, give a summary of all the skeptiko posts you made last Wednesday.

That doesn't wash. Whether or not memory is an "infallible record" cannot be determined by looking at the attempts to access that (possible) record. Additionally just because there's a record (if there is) doesn't mean that it's tagged with day/date, forum name, etc.
 
I feel like Dr. Braude's paper is long enough to get his point across, but it would be cool to see him write one comparable to Dr. Gauld's in length for further elaboration and argumentation. Then again, one comment that I see in a lot of IM reviews is how difficult of a read chapter 4 is, so maybe the comparative brevity of Braude's essay works to a bit of an advantage.

I feel like one needs both? I mean some elucidation on Braude's part for why computer memory doesn't cut it would've been a nice addition to his essay? As I recall even the updated version doesn't make clear why this is the case?
 
What would be an example for a non-physicalist explanation for memory?
I don't have a handy example. My primary interest is in exploring not rehashing. People access "memories" about "events" that aren't within their current physical and sometimes not within any physical.
 
How does a spatial pattern actually serve as information without memory?

It's just intertwined, and the pattern is always orthogonal to how you process it, (at least that's the best way to understand it).

I will try and give an example... Braude can only share and pass his ideas through time to you... because he's recorded access to them in spatial patterns of matter (his book).

Take a dot in Braudes book, it's meaning, though processing, becomes clear through it's context.
Now it's a full stop.
Take some contrasting lines... processed contextually with the surrounding patterns, now it's a letter.
Take a letter, it's meaning is defined by the context of the surrounding pattern of letters... now its a word.
Take a word now it's meaning is defined by the surrounding sentence.
The sentence by the surrounding paragraph...
the paragraph by the surrounding chapter
The chapter by the whole book... so on, and so on.

What becomes clear though this, is that to understand the meaning of the book by reading it, requires you to be able to contextualize everything you see, even if it was a millisecond ago, 10 minutes ago, of a day ago. You must be processing through time, and such processing must interfere with itself across time too. What you read in the past, is interfering with you in the future.
 
That doesn't wash. Whether or not memory is an "infallible record" cannot be determined by looking at the attempts to access that (possible) record. Additionally just because there's a record (if there is) doesn't mean that it's tagged with day/date, forum name, etc.

I agree, but that appers to be how David wants to characterise our memory function.

In the words of Elizabeth Loftus:

"Many people believe that memory works like a recording device. You just record the information, then you call it up and play it back when you want to answer questions or identify images. But decades of work in psychology has shown that this just isn't true. Our memories are constructive. They're reconstructive. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.”
 
It's just intertwined, and the pattern is always orthogonal to how you process it, (at least that's the best way to understand it).

I will try and give an example... Braude can only share and pass his ideas through time to you... because he's recorded access to them in spatial patterns of matter (his book).

Take a dot in Braudes book, it's meaning, though processing, becomes clear through it's context.
Now it's a full stop.
Take some contrasting lines... processed contextually with the surrounding patterns, now it's a letter.
Take a letter, it's meaning is defined by the context of the surrounding pattern of letters... now its a word.
Take a word now it's meaning is defined by the surrounding sentence.
The sentence by the surrounding paragraph...
the paragraph by the surrounding chapter
The chapter by the whole book... so on, and so on.

I don't understand how the dot's meaning is clear through context, or how you can then get to lines being letters? It seems you'd first need to know about letters to understand what the dot is doing.

From there it seems the comprehension of letters would need something more than context? Someone has to teach you which symbols have meaning and which are not part of a language, which then requires they learn and maintain that learning through memory.

What becomes clear though this, is that to understand the meaning of the book by reading it, requires you to be able to contextualize everything you see, even if it was a millisecond ago, 10 minutes ago, of a day ago. You must be processing through time, and such processing must interfere with itself across time too. What you read in the past, is interfering with you in the future.

Here I suspect your'e right, memory indicates a special relationship with time. I do think our understanding of time in general is flawed, especially the idea of time as a spatial axis.

It just seems to me you have to have a mind with memory, though this mind may require some utilization of spatial extension in order to remember.
 
t, memory indicates a special relationship with time. I do think our understanding of time in general is flawed, especially the idea of time as a spatial axis..

Yes and without that "understanding" the entire way we conceptualize memory is suspect. If we accept that at fundamental levels events can be, and are, generated in any order the whole discussion becomes different.
 
I don't understand how the dot's meaning is clear through context, or how you can then get to lines being letters? It seems you'd first need to know about letters to understand what the dot is doing.

Well I've jumped in part way through it... right at the end actually... it was only the very briefest of examples. Everything is interfering from the past, right back to the beginning (whatever that is).

IMO You were taught to access this world through feedback, when you learn, you learn to access - and not learn the actual stuff itself from scratch. You store patterns/associations (fingerprints?). To learn a language is to create an access network, that allows you to to be interfered with from the past. The more similar the pattern, the more interfered with you are. Thus who you were a millisecond ago, is the very closest to who you are now, because your patterns (networks) are almost identical. Thus you get access to the past, seen through your own perspective, your own finger print.

Patterns and meaning (the result and the process), either can change. You can create new patterns of access, or alter meaning. Corruption of meaning is a real problem for language. The most reliable are languages in which part fully refers back to the rest, in that way it is caught, and cannot evolve, maths is a good example... it survives well through time, but is therefore incredibly rigid. But other languages can be changed more easily, they allow new things to come forth, and deliberate manipulation to take place.
 
It just seems to me you have to have a mind with memory, though this mind may require some utilization of spatial extension in order to remember.

Mind/memory are I'm afraid very wishy-washy to me. There just seems to be space-time to me, and matter-energy falls out of that. Space-time allows us to do something that we can't seem to achieve with pure coherence. It seems important, no matter how distasteful at times, to be able to jump out of coherence, and carefully manipulate the details.

I seem to be able to go in and around informational structures to learn, manipulate and alter things. Like the warp and weft of the cloth might be thought of as space-time, so I appear to be a needle and thread, able to move through this fabric, avoiding bits, and navigating to other areas, and in the process leaving behind some sort of space-time trail... that has something to do with me. Space-time is a bit like taking the rubik's cube apart to re-order it, rather than being restricted by the usually allowed movements.
 
I think that contention is flawed. First there's the comparison to software which, for many reasons, is invalid. (And again reinforces my contention then many here are rooted in phsyicalism)
Somehow you don't seem to get the point that a memory trace is a physical idea. The aim is to argue using that idea - and physicalism - to prove the idea is false.
But more importantly, you posit software designed for one thing and then raise usages that require a different design. To make its simple - let's say one wanted to know how was optimistic. A ten-point scale could be used and a stored procedure could add an entry for anyone greater than a 5 to a table of "optimists" So a query about optimists would simply return the entries in that table. IOW it would not require querying the entire database.

Yes, but the point about memory is exactly that - the memory can be used in all sorts of strange ways. Software is the most concrete and effective way to think about physicalism. Again, I am arguing from within physicalism to try to prove it isn't adequate.

David
 
Somehow you don't seem to get the point that a memory trace is a physical idea. The aim is to argue using that idea - and physicalism - to prove the idea is false.

To be fair the concept of a trace is also possible in Idealism. As Braude notes even a morphic field is a structure, and hence a trace.
 
Yes and without that "understanding" the entire way we conceptualize memory is suspect. If we accept that at fundamental levels events can be, and are, generated in any order the whole discussion becomes different.

Do you mean linear time is illusory, or the parsing of events is always user selective? Both? Or am I missing the mark completely? :-)
 
Back
Top