Posted by Larry Hoover on October 25, 2004, at 9:42:19
In reply to Re: Forging false memories » vwoolf, posted by fires on October 24, 2004, at 16:56:09
> > I have trouble with memories. I know that certain core events are true, but wonder about details. These sorts of articles are not helpful, in that they make out that the whole memory could be fabricated. Some things really happened.
>
> A "whole memory" can be fabricated. Also, which things really happened? How can one be sure?Why does one need to be sure?
Yes, we know that whole memories can be fabricated. That's what brain-washing is all about. However, generalizing from extreme and exceptional instances to the more typical ones is a logical fallacy.
The links you have provided suggest, rather, that details of memory are rather flexible, but that those details are arranged around a core memory which is rather stable. Whether broken glass was or was not found at an accident scene may be an important detail in a trial, but it does not disprove that there was a collision at all. People were in an MRI machine focussing their cognition on images; whether an image was physical or conjured may be unclear to the participants after the fact, but they were in an MRI "doing" images.
It is also important to consider what one does with memories. Dealing with repressed memories for therapeutic processes is quite a different sequence of events than attempting to use those memories for criminal or civil prosecutions. I'm not clear just what issue it is that you're trying to address, but there are many shades of grey between the limits of what (I believe) you are portraying in terms of black and white.
> As college profs say: "Half of what you learn this quarter will be found to be incorrect within a few years, unfortunately we don't know which half."
That argument has not a whit to do with memory, but is instead in respect of what we call knowledge.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:406646
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041016/msgs/406972.html