http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/download-memories-retrieve-later-130603.htm?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews (http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/download-memories-retrieve-later-130603.htm?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews)
QuoteUSC's Berger says there's one big obstacle for actually copying and uploading a complete set of human memories. They seem to disappear when they aren't being used.
"We can go to a microchip and say here are a few bytes of memory, we can see them anytime they want," he said. "It's like buying a Sears catalog of memories and you look through these bins and see what's there. But that's not the way it works with humans or animals. When we use the memories, that's when they appear. But when we don't we don't know where they are."
Pretty sure I know why this is. 8)
:?
Call me slow, why's that?
Personal theory - the brain doesn't record things, like on videotape. I'm pretty sure it stores bullet points and then "renders" the memories when we access them. Process seems related to imagination. You know what a tree looks like and you know what a rope is like. Every time you remember swinging on a rope swing, you're just imagining a generic tree and a generic rope then playing out specific events in your head.
Best way I can explain it. Is personal theory so may well be bullshit.
That is a perfect explanation of how my memories work, actually.
People seem to get really annoyed by that.
I'd really need to spend some time checking out those natty brainscan clips where you can see all the bits lighting up in response to stimuli but I'd hazard a guess that most of the same stuff will show activity if you tell someone to remember an event in their long term memory as if you read a book to them, with the exception of the parts that process language which will be present in the book version. There will then be one tiny little part lighting up in the memory excercise. This is where the memories are stored.
My guess is it's so small they've probably missed it, given that all it is is a couple of crib notes and not gigs and gigs of total sensory input.
I like the "render" term. Nice insight Pent. This lines up with some of the parallels I've seen in NLP & Zazen/Martial-Arts meditations.
Also stuff like this: http://www.livescience.com/34776-virtual-body-merges-with-real-body.html
Think about the way your brain more or less invents your peripheral vision, based on what it looked at earlier and what it thinks is there and take it from there.
Technically speaking events that you remember are not actually seen in totality, especially if it's something that happens quick, like a car crash or something. The shit I remember from such scenes isn't even like being there, most of it is like watching it happen to me from a third person perspective.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 06, 2013, 08:05:00 AM
Personal theory - the brain doesn't record things, like on videotape. I'm pretty sure it stores bullet points and then "renders" the memories when we access them. Process seems related to imagination. You know what a tree looks like and you know what a rope is like. Every time you remember swinging on a rope swing, you're just imagining a generic tree and a generic rope then playing out specific events in your head.
Best way I can explain it. Is personal theory so may well be bullshit.
That's basically my understanding of it, and this is also why it's so easy to plant suggestions that change people's memories.
You'd probably like this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130604134251.htm
QuoteJune 4, 2013 — A series of studies conducted by an Iowa State University research team shows that it is possible to manipulate an existing memory simply by suggesting new or different information. The key is timing and recall of that memory, said Jason Chan, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State.
This is a great talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyewitness_testimony.html
Sweet. I actually have a couple of false memories. I'm not privy to how exactly they came about but I'm pretty sure it was a psychotic hallucination that kind of "took"
It's interesting stuff.
tv {credited the GROUP }} not the singer }}} was it? S.A. | i donno
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 07, 2013, 04:21:45 AM
It's interesting stuff.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 06, 2013, 08:05:00 AM
Personal theory - the brain doesn't record things, like on videotape. I'm pretty sure it stores bullet points and then "renders" the memories when we access them. Process seems related to imagination. You know what a tree looks like and you know what a rope is like. Every time you remember swinging on a rope swing, you're just imagining a generic tree and a generic rope then playing out specific events in your head.
Best way I can explain it. Is personal theory so may well be bullshit.
Dunno if this vid would interest you then...
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3323870.htm
From the transcript:
QuoteI saw a person years ago who had a severe brain injury in a car accident and he was knocked out for nearly a month. About a year later, the first time they put him in a car, he just panicked and was flooded with memories of the accident. Now this man did not remember anything about what happened so how could he have memories? When I spoke to him, the pictures that were coming into his mind was of himself lying mangled in the car. And what these pictures were, were actually a reconstruction of photographs of his mangled car in the local newspaper except he had put himself into that photograph.
That video's actually a revisit of the repressed memory controversy, and it seems evenhanded.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 06, 2013, 08:05:00 AM
Personal theory - the brain doesn't record things, like on videotape. I'm pretty sure it stores bullet points and then "renders" the memories when we access them. Process seems related to imagination. You know what a tree looks like and you know what a rope is like. Every time you remember swinging on a rope swing, you're just imagining a generic tree and a generic rope then playing out specific events in your head.
Best way I can explain it. Is personal theory so may well be bullshit.
That is supported by my experiences.
Related: I often have what i call memories of remembering, where I remember that i remembered something before but have lost the actual memory. It started after i learned that memories can change with every remembering and I started paying attention to why i was remembering what i was remembering.
I also have at least one false memory: as a kid, I clearly remembered(and still do, though not as clearly) having a dream that i never had. My mom had that dream and told me about it.
You guys might like this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130619122123.htm
I just came to PD hoping to find something about the nature of consciousness and cognition, given that I have spent the last hour or so reading things about it and now my brain is churning. I especially like p3nt's take on the mind "rendering" memories from a reservoir of recorded shorthand notes. This portrays the brain as an instrument of sorts that streams experience at one's consciousness like a TV, which is in line with the popular conception of the brain as primarily a processing device.
I have lately been wondering about the nature of consciousness, and the more I read, the more I realize I know practically nothing about it despite my natural tendency to be stuck in my head analyzing my own thoughts and behaviors all the time. I have learned that "awareness" is not as conscious as I assumed.
There are people who are completely blind, but are also completely unaware that they are blind. Conversely, there are people whose visual hardware functions just fine, but who could not tell you the first thing about what they were looking at -- though they can have instinctive, physical reactions to what they see. Among many other things this means that the things I see are not the source of my consciousness.
There are people who are to various degrees disassociated from their physical surroundings. For example, a victim of a stroke for whom nothing on his left side exists at all. Not that he lacks sensory input there -- his consciousness is just completely unaware that the left side of his world is there at all. Doesn't cross his mind. So, I can infer that where I am has nothing whatsoever to do with who I am.
Other links point out that memory is unreliable and susceptible to suggestion; beliefs and assumptions and just about anything else I presently consider "true" is just as likely to be a pile of biases, assumptions, faulty logic, and magical thinking as they are to be anything worth using in my definition of myself.
Telarus provides a link above that discusses how the human brain will accept and relate to just about any sensory input it is given. Robotic body parts and virtual reality are, as far as our physical brains are concerned, just as good as where and with what we were born. The next logical step to downloading one's memories is, of course, merging one's entire consciousness with some kind of robotic or computerized hardware.
I highly doubt that science will arrive at a point where that is considered possible in my lifetime, but say they do, and they devise some method to demonstrate and assure people that it actually works. I wonder whether I would be overjoyed or horrified at such a prospect. Would virtual, conscious immortality be worth the price of knowing that my "Inner Voice" really was just the chemical and electric phenomenon of a randomly mutated blob of amino acids, after all? Would my future, computer-based self at some point in the future come to the conclusion that I'd just rather not know that, so I could go on with whatever my life looked like at that point? If not, what would that mean for my perception of humanity? If so, what fantasy would I invent or subscribe to, or what amount of my whole psyche would I be willing to part with, in order to cover it up?
This is rambling. Apologies.
What if you're already a copy, V3x?
Quote from: hylierandom, A.D.D. on June 29, 2013, 04:14:30 AM
What if you're already a copy, V3x?
I am. That's why I am troubled by the notion of being copied again. Have you seen what happens to the Mona Lisa after it's been through a Xerox eighteen times?
Quote from: V3X on June 29, 2013, 04:16:46 AM
Quote from: hylierandom, A.D.D. on June 29, 2013, 04:14:30 AM
What if you're already a copy, V3x?
I am. That's why I am troubled by the notion of being copied again. Have you seen what happens to the Mona Lisa after it's been through a Xerox eighteen times?
Well, it would explain a lot of people really well. A copy's never quite as sharp as the original.
Quote from: hylierandom, A.D.D. on June 29, 2013, 04:14:30 AM
What if you're already a copy, V3x?
Statistically the odds that you're not are so small as to be non existent.
Basically, if you accept that, at some point in the future, hardware powerful enough to simulate your consciousness and a virtual environment will exist then it follows that such technology will become commonplace. So if there's a couple of million simulations floating about and only one real universe then the chance you're experiencing the real world and not a simulation is a couple of million to one.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 01, 2013, 05:29:35 PM
Quote from: hylierandom, A.D.D. on June 29, 2013, 04:14:30 AM
What if you're already a copy, V3x?
Statistically the odds that you're not are so small as to be non existent.
Basically, if you accept that, at some point in the future, hardware powerful enough to simulate your consciousness and a virtual environment will exist then it follows that such technology will become commonplace. So if there's a couple of million simulations floating about and only one real universe then the chance you're experiencing the real world and not a simulation is a couple of million to one.
:aaa:
(https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3420472064/hE0551D31/)
It gets better :evil:
Given that, we're probably in a simulation and have just about gotten to the stage where we can make our own simulations, within the simulation, is the "real" universe that our simulation running in itself a simulation?
How meta-simulated are we?
Is there a processing limit on the original or any subsequent simulations in the tree? If so, what happens when it's reached? Maybe we're the end of the line, the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. Perhaps the first person to boot up a working simulation will crash what they thought was reality and the universe will suddenly turn blue, with meaningless white text filling spacetime with absolute memory addresses, exception codes and advice on what to do if the error persists after reboot
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 02, 2013, 04:16:59 PM
It gets better :evil:
Given that, we're probably in a simulation and have just about gotten to the stage where we can make our own simulations, within the simulation, is the "real" universe that our simulation running in itself a simulation?
How meta-simulated are we?
Is there a processing limit on the original or any subsequent simulations in the tree? If so, what happens when it's reached? Maybe we're the end of the line, the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. Perhaps the first person to boot up a working simulation will crash what they thought was reality and the universe will suddenly turn blue, with meaningless white text filling spacetime with absolute memory addresses, exception codes and advice on what to do if the error persists after reboot
You would really like David Marusek...
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:49:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
If it's a simulation, I have some issues with the environment. In fact, I'd kind of like to meet the programmers behind the Meetrack. With shitty sticks.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 02, 2013, 05:58:49 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:49:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
If it's a simulation, I have some issues with the environment. In fact, I'd kind of like to meet the programmers behind the Meetrack. With shitty sticks.
I think it's one of those "Easter Egg" things. Programmers have a fucked-up sense of humor.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:59:50 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 02, 2013, 05:58:49 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:49:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
If it's a simulation, I have some issues with the environment. In fact, I'd kind of like to meet the programmers behind the Meetrack. With shitty sticks.
I think it's one of those "Easter Egg" things. Programmers have a fucked-up sense of humor.
So do I. Arrange introduction, pls.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 02, 2013, 06:00:30 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:59:50 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 02, 2013, 05:58:49 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:49:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
If it's a simulation, I have some issues with the environment. In fact, I'd kind of like to meet the programmers behind the Meetrack. With shitty sticks.
I think it's one of those "Easter Egg" things. Programmers have a fucked-up sense of humor.
So do I. Arrange introduction, pls.
:lulz: I'll do my best.
So, you're saying this:
(http://rampageproductions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/computer-geek.gif)
is what God really looks like?
Yeah, pretty much.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 02, 2013, 05:49:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on July 02, 2013, 05:21:39 PM
Then again, no matter if we're real or a simulation, it all adds up to "normal", in our experience, anyway.
Yes... and what's the difference between "real" and "simulation" if the simulation is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from reality?
You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.
(http://www.thedailyenlightenment.com/The%20Matrix-Buddhism%20Connection_files/mat10.jpg)