quote

.

Here's today's quote from A Word a Day.

"We now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust's jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection."  -Oliver Sacks, neurologist and writer (b. 9 Jul 1933)

I have heard this in more than one of my neuroscience classes.  I believe it is true.

It's disconcerting, when we've grown up believing in that "fixed, like jars of preserves" model, if we discover that someone else has a different memory of an event.  Especially if they have proof that they are correct and we are wrong (a photograph, perhaps).

Having learned that our memories are plastic, rather than carved in stone, I'm no longer sure whether what I remember is what really  happened or not! 

It is still disconcerting, having grown up thinking memories are unchanging, but I'd rather be disconcerted by the truth that two people's memories of the same event can be quite different than be baffled and aggravated by the reality that other people remember things differently than I do.



Thinking about it -- even "preserves in a larder" change over time.......  They surely aren't the same in 20 years as they were when freshly put up...............

.