Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA01134 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 10 Mar 2002 12:57:11 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: is forgetting adaptive? Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 07:51:57 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F2455LqN33HFnwpGR88000051da@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Mar 2002 12:51:58.0286 (UTC) FILETIME=[5D550EE0:01C1C832] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Thinking of what Daniel Schacter says of possible evolutionary advantages to
transience (reduction of memory for specific things as a function of time)
in _The Seven Sins of Memory_, one wonders if a "perfect" or permanent
memory store might actually be an evolutionary albatross. What would happen
if you never forgot anything? What if you could recall every explicit detail
of every event in your entire life like it just happened? Could you function
normally with such a cognitive overload? Would you eventually run out of
room for new memories?
In the short-term it might be good for me to recall that I have some frozen
dinners in my freezer so that later I can cook a meal. The ability to
maintain this short-term information may have long-term survival advantages
harkening back to ancestors that needed to recall momentary sources of food
or caches on the savannah. OTOH, would it do me any good to remember that I
had a particular brand of frozen microwavable dinner in my freezer back say
10 years ago? Would it do me any good to painstakingly recall every package
of microwavable dinner I had ever retrieved from my refrigerator? Maybe the
basic ideas that I can buy these dinners at various local supermarkets and
that I have recently stored them in the freezer would suffice. In the
ancestral environment, likewise, it may have been advantageous to remember
that certain areas were where food had often been stored in the past, but
not the explicit details of every cache. Would it do the savannah dweller
any good to remember that particular cache from 10 years ago when there are
more recent caches to recall?
If something is no longer current or pressing, why remember it? Wouldn't it
be better for this memory (or at least its particulars) to recede, allowing
space for newer, more pertinent, information?
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