when we forget

[psycojones]

is it oblivion or absorption, emily dickinson asks, when we forget? when some new thought, feeling, or notion presents itself, we can't forget it or overlook it. when we have invited it in or agree to live in its company, maybe then it won't be such a preoccupation. it will be forgotten-not exiled into oblivion, but absorbed into being. ap, sub, faye, lara, and anyone else, i can not wait to here your answer to this thought.

[Lara]

It is absorption. Once we have experienced something, had a thought, a feeling or a notion, it is ours. It becomes part of our being, and shapes us into who we are. Everything we experience in our daily lives has an impact on who we are, whether we realise it or not, and no matter how minute.

[Stanislaw]

Nothing is really forgotten but put on a shelf untill we trip over it later on while putting something else away.

[Shea]

When I was suffering from that bad head cold, my husband kept telling me "Take vitamin C!" But I knew there was a reason that I beleived it was pointless to take it until I got better. [I promise I'm going somewhere with this.] Well, it took about 5 minutes of his "lecturing" on the benefits of vitamin C before I remembered something that I had studied while I was in nursing school several years ago and haddn't thought about it scince my intructor said it. All the symptoms you experience when you have a cold is actually cause by your white blood cells (of your immune system). Those little guys are what cause a fever (to burn off the bug), excess mucus (to "flush" the bug out), and it's even what puss really is. Your body already has all the white blood cells out and really is in no need at the moment to concentrate on building up more because it's doing its job by fighting that infection. (or something to that effect.)

I felt like I had found a long lost favorite coat in the back of my closet.

Needless to say that info got my husband to relinquish his insistance on my vitamin intake. I am, of course taking them regularly now.

[IWilKikU]

Read Tony Buzan's "Master your Memory". He talks about how to keep memmories that you forget from falling into the oblivian catagory.

[Cassandra]

Memories are absorbed, like Lara said everythng we see, do, hear etc.. influences and teaches us (It's my excuse for reading rubbish books). However sometimes memories are obsorbed so deeply that they become oblivion, like when you were little or the telephone number someone told you 5 minutes ago and you really need it but poof! it's gone.

Originally posted by Stanislaw
Nothing is really forgotten but put on a shelf untill we trip over it later on while putting something else away.

I'm sorry to difffer but I think some things truely are forgotten, there are things I've been trying to remember for years. Also what about when peole say 'hey you remember when...' and for the life of you you can't... I think those memoies fell down the back of the shelf.

In short, (please excuse my rambling ways) all memories are absorbed but some then disappear into oblivion, or maybe I'm just forgetful/

[Shea]

I've often found that the sense of smell is great for stirring memories

[crisaor]

Homer: everytime I learn something new, it pushes away knowledge stored in my brain. do you remember that time when I went to the wine factory and I forgot how to drive?

[atiguhya padma]

If it is absorption, when we forget, then what is absorbing? Is it the brain that is absorbing a thought? How can that be? A brain is merely matter. I don't see any reason to believe that a brain is more likely to absorb thought than a blade of grass is.

Then there is the mind. Maybe the mind absorbs thoughts. But the mind is no more than a succession of thoughts. Strip away all thought, and what are you left with? You are not left with a mind. Both Gilbert Ryle and David Hume have shown that mind is content-dependent. In the case of Ryle, he would say that the term 'mind' is a category mistake: a word used for a collection of things, in this case thoughts, images, impressions etc.

Meditators believe that they can experience nothingness, when they empty the mind of thought. However, if you are aware of an experience, that is not nothingness. If you are aware of something, anything at all, then you have content.

I don't think memory is a process of calling up something stored somewhere. It's not like retrieving a piece of information from a computer, or taking out a well-worn tome from a library. Every time we 'retrieve' a memory, we are in the process of creation. Just as we can never confirm any correspondence between our sense impressions and external reality, between the thing-as-perceived and the thing-in-itself; so we can never confirm correspondences between temporal states, between things as they were, and things as they are.

Then there is the problem of what being and thought is.....

[psycojones]

shea; i agree, smells can bring back and create memories. being a wine guy i count on the olfactoy. but i would like to also add that music brings back memories, more so than pictures for me. oh, ya, ap - WHAT THE HELL! you totally intrigue me. even though their is somethings i may disagree with, or not understand yet, you always seem to come up with coolest answers. on one of the next threads can you answer something stupid just so i can feel a little more relaxed when i scan the sight. thanx

[imthefoolonthehill]

This reminds me of the mentats of the dune universe... who literally never forget anything... (that is to say that they can bring every memory to conciousness at will)...

most people say these things are absorbed, not forgotten.... untill they are dragged up...

I agree with this... the information we recieve mold the choices we make, which mold us as human beings.

[psycojones]

if we have forgotten something to the point of oblivion, how would we even know we had forgotten something in the first place. do i believe in the absorbtion aspect of this question? yes. when we have something at the top of our head, or the tip of our tongue, what ever it may be, we have absorbed it and can not quite remember it, so we are looking for some type of trigger to help us remember it. but when we have forgotten something to the point of oblivion, their is nothing there to remind us of what we forgot because it has been obliviated. i am not sure if i am making any sense. i have been up for 24h. i am going to bed, talk to you tomorrow.

[atiguhya padma]

I'm surprised their are only two polarised choices. What about unconscious replication? Would this be considered absorption?

[fayefaye]

Originally posted by atiguhya padma
[B]If it is absorption, when we forget, then what is absorbing? Is it the brain that is absorbing a thought? How can that be? A brain is merely matter. I don't see any reason to believe that a brain is more likely to absorb thought than a blade of grass is.

are you just trying to confuse people? They [and I] mean that experiences, things that happen, things we learn, become integrated within us, become part of who we are and what we know. We absorb information and experiences, and these become part of our psyche.

Meditators believe that they can experience nothingness, when they empty the mind of thought. However, if you are aware of an experience, that is not nothingness. If you are aware of something, anything at all, then you have content.

yeah-exactly. it's all bull.

I don't think memory is a process of calling up something stored somewhere. It's not like retrieving a piece of information from a computer, or taking out a well-worn tome from a library.

I"m pretty sure I've come across some book or documentary on psychology that would disagree completely with this. Can't be bothered finding it, but.....

Anyway, I think when we remember something, it's because that something has influenced our mind, our soul. Impacted on us and been absorbed by our psyche. When you forget something, it's like losing something-a part of yourself, perhaps. Maybe you find it, maybe you don't.

[atiguhya padma]

Fayefaye said:

<They [and I] mean that experiences, things that happen, things we learn, become integrated within us, become part of who we are and what we know. We absorb information and experiences, and these become part of our psyche.>

And you call me confusing? Of course, I knew that is what people here meant. That doesn't make it understandable. What is the process by which these things become integrated? Do we keep growing as more experiences are integrated? How does a mind grow?

I am very sceptical of the use of the term information. It has developed some kind of metaphysical status to it. What do you mean when you use 'information' in the way you have? What for instance is the difference in your sentence between 'experience' and 'information'? Isn't the former reducible to the latter? I think these terms 'experience' and 'information', are being used by you to cover up the fundamental problems between mind and matter ie how they interact, whether one is the source of the other, whether there is a unity of mind etc.

When the 'mind' absorbs information, or experience, what do you think is going on then Fayefaye? Is something from the external world enterring our internal world? Is it that we are copying, or representing?

You are right, there is literature on the mind as computer, for example The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders. There is also a great deal of lit. on what is wrong with this view, by amongst others, John Searle, David Chalmers, Derek Parfit.

If the mind was some kind of software to the hardware of the brain, then why is it that we can seldom recall with accuracy what we are supposed to have absorbed? Take a home video of the next couple of days, store it somewhere for a year or two, recall the two days a year later and do you seriously think your memory will recall the information as well as the home video? If it doesn't why doesn't it? Is the software faulty? Or is the analogy, like that of the mind/brain as soft/hardware insufficient?