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  • Memory Purge

    Imagine purging life’s disturbing events. If you could alter or mute your worst memories, would you still remain yourself?


    This article is too long and digressively personal, but it poses an interesting question from a recent study:

    Imagine you’re the manager of a café. It stays open late and the neighbourhood has gone quiet by the time you lock the doors. You put the evening’s earnings into a bank bag, tuck that into your backpack, and head home. It’s a short walk through a poorly lit park. And there, next to the pond, you realise you’ve been hearing footsteps behind you. Before you can turn around, a man sprints up and stabs you in the stomach. When you fall to the ground, he kicks you, grabs your backpack, and runs off. Fortunately a bystander calls an ambulance which takes you, bleeding and shaken, to the nearest hospital.

    The emergency room physician stitches you up and tells you that, aside from the pain and a bit of blood loss, you’re in good shape. Then she sits down and looks you in the eye. She tells you that people who live through a traumatic event like yours often develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The condition can be debilitating, resulting in flashbacks that prompt you to relive the trauma over and over. It can cause irritation, anxiety, angry outbursts and a magnified fear response. But she has a pill you can take right now that will decrease your recall of the night’s events – and thus the fear and other emotions associated with it – and guard against the potential effects of PTSD without completely erasing the memory itself.

    Would you like to try it?


    The essay also touches on the general malleability of memory but fails to make what I think is a significant connection to the above scenario. That is, we fear a loss of personal identity in the idea of erasing our memories, but a lot of neuroscience has shown that our memories are not literal reconstructions of our past. We build and rebuild them over time, and that shapes who we are and think of ourselves, but any present memory you have may not be an accurate recollection of anything in your past (especially the traumatic ones). In that case, if you erase it, are you really erasing a part of yourself, or are you just clearing out this weird gunk your brain produces which you've enshrined as significant?
    Click here if you're having trouble sleeping.
    "We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - François de La Rochefoucauld

  • #2
    I think that forgetting is an important part of consciousness/sentience and being a health human being.

    JM
    Jon Miller-
    I AM.CANADIAN
    GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

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    • #3
      No pill for me. I want to be able to testify against that assh0le.
      Apolyton's Grim Reaper 2008, 2010 & 2011
      RIP lest we forget... SG (2) and LaFayette -- Civ2 Succession Games Brothers-in-Arms

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Lorizael View Post
        The essay also touches on the general malleability of memory but fails to make what I think is a significant connection to the above scenario. That is, we fear a loss of personal identity in the idea of erasing our memories, but a lot of neuroscience has shown that our memories are not literal reconstructions of our past. We build and rebuild them over time, and that shapes who we are and think of ourselves, but any present memory you have may not be an accurate recollection of anything in your past (especially the traumatic ones). In that case, if you erase it, are you really erasing a part of yourself, or are you just clearing out this weird gunk your brain produces which you've enshrined as significant?
        Yeppers, memories being often inaccurate is a problem also with eyewitnesses in courts and in historiography ("the eyewitness is the worst enemy of the historian").

        As for the question, I remember (or so I think now ) my first blackout due to being drunk - it took me until next day evening to find out how I went home, which was quite worrying.

        I do think erasing memories could mean a loss of identity, though - without being a neuroguy - losing the memories of one night only I'd not imagine as having a serious impact in this regard.

        But even when memories are changing over time, and are incorrect often - my totally amateur opinion would be that they still form who I am.

        Edit: would I take the pill? If it was only short time loss -that one night, and an absolutely horrible experience - maybe
        Blah

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        • #5
          I agree with JM and BeBro.

          Regarding our Personality:
          Yes, our memories surely make an important of "what we are", consciously and subconsciously ...
          on the other hand that is a double-sided coin ... after all, our memories of the past can also be the cause for traumata and phobias of today (like, for example, getting raped, being in a war, or also seeing someone die in a fire and only narrowly escaping the same death)
          Tamsin (Lost Girl): "I am the Harbinger of Death. I arrive on winds of blessed air. Air that you no longer deserve."
          Tamsin (Lost Girl): "He has fallen in battle and I must take him to the Einherjar in Valhalla"

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          • #6
            I would say no - but then I know people for whom just forgetting one day would be a blessing.
            Scouse Git (2) La Fayette Adam Smith Solomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
            "Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
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            • #7
              No. I'd want the PTSD to remind me to not through dimly lit parks, which, in this scenario, I've forgotten once already.
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              • #8
                Already dealing with a debilitating disease as bad as PTSD (schizoaffective disorder) I would NOT take the pill. Hell, sometimes when I don't take my current meds I get very insightful ideas. In fact my current philosophy on life (which I believe is a gift from God) came after a one week purge of all meds when I was on vacation. After that week and I took my meds again I felt better than ever, armed with a new perspective on life.

                Burying your past with pills is not the answer, and suppressed emotions can come back to hit you bad. Look at what happened to Tuvac in the episode "Flashback."

                There is no magic pill. Everything comes around full-circle. Weed wears off and then you are back to reality. Alcohol wears off. You must confront your demons and if you cannot defeat them, CONTAIN them. Recognize them; let them exist and admire them. But don't let them win.
                The Wizard of AAHZ

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                • #9
                  I would be very skeptical that there is such a pill, suspect the physician was in the pocket of big pharm ... trying to get me addicted to pricy meds

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by ColdWizard View Post
                    No. I'd want the PTSD to remind me to not through dimly lit parks, which, in this scenario, I've forgotten once already.
                    Well the thing about trauma and memory is that you can form an aversion that is out of proportion to the actual risk. It's a consequence of our availability heuristic, which makes thoughts that arise readily and easily seem more significant than those which take effort to bring to mind. So, for example, it might actually be the case that, statistically speaking, driving is more of a risk than taking a midnight stroll. But if you've been stabbed and mugged while strolling but have never been in an accident, you're going to fear said strolling more even if it's not technically rational to.
                    Last edited by Lorizael; August 13, 2016, 00:17.
                    Click here if you're having trouble sleeping.
                    "We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - François de La Rochefoucauld

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                    • #11
                      When I was a child, I got hit by a car while riding my bike in the street; I wasn't hurt, but scared witless, and it was at least a year before I could even cross a street without feeling extreme fear.
                      No, I did not steal that from somebody on Something Awful.

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                      • #12
                        I have PTSD -diagnosed by a qualified professional and everything- and I would be intrigued by this drug, though I couldn't say if I'd take it until I'd gotten the stabbing and knew how I felt about it. A body needs to be able to sleep nights, and I had an evening not quite three weeks ago that I'd have been on that pill like AAHZ on a nerd or Aeson on cheap third world labor...
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