{"id":50088,"date":"2024-03-05T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T13:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=50088"},"modified":"2024-08-27T02:20:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T16:20:41","slug":"fuzzy-plastic-memories-i-a-guest-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/fuzzy-plastic-memories-i-a-guest-article\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuzzy Plastic Memories I, A Guest Article"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“…that’s what I remember…”
 
Image<\/a> by Michelle Raponi<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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Introduction<\/h5>\n

In the recent article on the challenges facing Generative AI and how they can be overcome, I listed a number of Quora contributors whose work I will always read. One of them is Franklin Veaux.<\/p>\n

Today I am presenting one of his Quora answers in full, with his permission. I was going to follow it with analysis and how it relates to gaming, but my notes on the subject grew to the point of overwhelming the original article, so they have been offloaded into a Part II to follow next week.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can two people have two different memories of the same event?<\/h3>\n

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A guest article by Franklin Veaux<\/h5>\n

Originally published Feb 2, 2024<\/a> on Quora, by the author<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s really easy: Memory doesn\u2019t work the way you think it does.<\/p>\n

A lot of folks think memory is a recording of events that happened around you, like a videotape from a camera.<\/p>\n

Nope. Huh-uh. Not even close.<\/p>\n

Memory is whack, y\u2019all. Like seriously. Your own eyes don\u2019t even tell your brain what\u2019s going on (look up \u201csaccadic masking,\u201d if you want to go down a trippy rabbit hole, that shit is wild<\/em>), but more to the point, memory is a jumbled, non-linear series of subjective impressions and emotions, all mixed together.<\/p>\n

And it gets weirder.<\/p>\n

Memory recall is destructive. That means every time you remember something, that memory is basically (simplifying a bit and handwaving over the mechanics of how it works) erased and rewritten.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not all! Memory is state-dependent, too. Mediation of emotional memory is handled (mainly) by a structure in the brain called the amygdala, and it recalls things most easily that have an emotional resonance similar to whatever emotion you\u2019re feeling right now.<\/p>\n

Put simply, it\u2019s easier to remember things that make you sad when you\u2019re sad. It\u2019s easier to remember things that make you angry when you\u2019re angry. It\u2019s easier to remember things that make you happy when you\u2019re happy. That\u2019s why when you\u2019re in love it\u2019s easy to recall all the things that delight you about the person you love, but after you break up it\u2019s easier to remember the things that annoy you about them.<\/p>\n

When you recall something, your recollection can be filtered through and distorted by your current emotional state, which means when the memory is rewritten your current emotional state gets rewritten with it. So after you break up with someone, even your happy memories can shift to anger or sadness.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more!<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t remember everything about a situation, only what\u2019s relevant. Which means what\u2019s relevant to you at that particular time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in my old cognitive science class in university, we talked about how fake \u201cpsychics\u201d can con people during cold readings by exploiting the fact that you only remember what\u2019s relevant.<\/p>\n

A group of college kids was told they were going to receive a psychic reading, and videoed during the reading without their knowledge. The \u201cpsychic\u201d (actually one of the researchers) would spit out a bunch of rapid-fire statements about them all in a row, responding to the ones that got a positive response.<\/p>\n

Afterward, the college kids were interviewed about how accurate the \u201cpsychic readings\u201d were. They were all amazed: \u201coh my god, this complete stranger made 5 predictions about me and they were all true!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then they were shown the tapes, and they were amazed. The \u201cpsychic\u201d made 90 or 100 predictions. By pure random chance, 5 were true, the rest weren\u2019t. But the college kids literally didn\u2019t remember the incorrect predictions! Not until they saw the video did they realize how many there were. Their brains discarded them as irrelevant.<\/p>\n

So why do people remember things differently? You only store what\u2019s relevant to you. What you store isn\u2019t a recording of events, it\u2019s a twisted wibbly-wobbly mass of subjective impressions and emotions. You modify your memory every time you recall it. Your emotional state influences how you recall (and rewrite!) it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bloody miracle we manage to remember anything at all, really.<\/p>\n

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About Franklin:<\/h5>\n

Franklin is a Professional Writer who lives in Portland, Oregon. His Quora content has amassed 1,075.6 Million<\/em> views since June 2012, and his writing has appeared in Huffington Post, State, and Forbes magazine.<\/p>\n

He has admitted to GMing D&D on at least one occasion.<\/p>\n

He has written or co-written a number of novels, including:<\/p>\n