[-empyre-] November 2007 on -empyre- : Memory Errors in theTechnosphere: Art, Accident, Archive

[John Hopkins]

hi Andrew, Norie:

>great to have a conversation with someone in our Timezone!

okay, from the other side of the globe now... ;-))

>>>And then there are the memories we can have of a place we've never
>>>been to, but remember through the media...
>>
>>and on the level of the individual (that is of the 'I' doing the
>>remembering) i have to wonder if there is any substantial difference
>>between a memory formed through an intermediate media or through
>>direct contact with the actual 'thing' being remembered. I have strong

...snip...

>>memory i have of a place i went on holiday in 1995 (for example), i
>>keep coming back to the same conclusion, that a memory is a memory and
>>no matter how one is formed the ultimate mediator will be an
>>individuals 'perceptive filtering' and the circumstances and triggers
>>for recall.
>
>If a memory comes from someone else's perceptive filtering but is now
>your own memory, there feels like some sort of weird lag there, between their
>perception and your perception... Do you 
>experience that lag when you encounter
>the place you remembered through their memories? 
>Do your own,new perceptive encounters with
>that place refilter and alter those acquired memories?

I would say that the filtering that happens (in 
the primary instance of someone else's experience 
of place) is based on what that Other allows to 
pass through their sensory system to embed in the 
mind -- of course everyone is quite different in 
this process based on the body-as-filter along 
with the social filtering mechanisms that are 
imbued in the Self during life.    The overlaying 
of these filters can be either constructive 
(think additive amplitudes) or can attenuate the 
signal  (the Other recalls the smells, while you 
recall the colors of the Light).  Someone 
sharing, for example, the same family background 
or cultural background might have a higher chance 
of sharing band-pass energy, thus leading to a 
additive instance...  the lag could come from the 
fact that the memories are 'written' differently 
in the mind -- a smell has a different 
energy-impact on the brain/mind than, say, 
someone's description of the situation where they 
smelled something unusual along with a 
description of the smell...  the lag would 
encompass a process of linkage of these areas of 
recall perhaps...

I dunno... stormy Saturday musings...  here in 
Köln, which is full of personal memories...

Cheers,
JOhn