I know there have been cases where a person can have ‘total recall’ after an injury (assuming head)… but why can’t our brains just dig and remember everything?
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There’s a difference between short term and long term memory. Think of it like a a water filter. The good ones start by filtering out big particles, then eventually they move down to super fine particles. Your memory starts with your senses – everything you see, hear, feel in the moment. Moves to your perception- your senses give so much information that we filter out what’s needed in the moment. That bird flying off in the distance is much less important than say keeping your car in the lane, or other cars. That bird is long gone.
Even through regular perception, we just ignore half of what our senses tell us. We take the useful bits and throw the rest away. This stuff was never recorded. Your short term memory works in the same way. We’re more focused on what’s going on in the here and now, so only keep a record of the important things. Now think of making a record of things overnight. Long term memory again filters all this input and keeps a record of the really important things.
Your long term memory is going to keep a record of the really important things. Everything else? Gone. Granted, some things might even hang on for a bit, but they can disappear after a longer while if they had no reason to recall for so long.
There’s a difference between short term and long term memory. Think of it like a a water filter. The good ones start by filtering out big particles, then eventually they move down to super fine particles. Your memory starts with your senses – everything you see, hear, feel in the moment. Moves to your perception- your senses give so much information that we filter out what’s needed in the moment. That bird flying off in the distance is much less important than say keeping your car in the lane, or other cars. That bird is long gone.
Even through regular perception, we just ignore half of what our senses tell us. We take the useful bits and throw the rest away. This stuff was never recorded. Your short term memory works in the same way. We’re more focused on what’s going on in the here and now, so only keep a record of the important things. Now think of making a record of things overnight. Long term memory again filters all this input and keeps a record of the really important things.
Your long term memory is going to keep a record of the really important things. Everything else? Gone. Granted, some things might even hang on for a bit, but they can disappear after a longer while if they had no reason to recall for so long.
There’s a difference between short term and long term memory. Think of it like a a water filter. The good ones start by filtering out big particles, then eventually they move down to super fine particles. Your memory starts with your senses – everything you see, hear, feel in the moment. Moves to your perception- your senses give so much information that we filter out what’s needed in the moment. That bird flying off in the distance is much less important than say keeping your car in the lane, or other cars. That bird is long gone.
Even through regular perception, we just ignore half of what our senses tell us. We take the useful bits and throw the rest away. This stuff was never recorded. Your short term memory works in the same way. We’re more focused on what’s going on in the here and now, so only keep a record of the important things. Now think of making a record of things overnight. Long term memory again filters all this input and keeps a record of the really important things.
Your long term memory is going to keep a record of the really important things. Everything else? Gone. Granted, some things might even hang on for a bit, but they can disappear after a longer while if they had no reason to recall for so long.
Just like computers, our brains have a limited capacity to store and process information, so they have to prioritize what information to keep and what to forget. Memories can also become distorted or forgotten over time due to various factors like age, stress, or injury.
Just like computers, our brains have a limited capacity to store and process information, so they have to prioritize what information to keep and what to forget. Memories can also become distorted or forgotten over time due to various factors like age, stress, or injury.
Just like computers, our brains have a limited capacity to store and process information, so they have to prioritize what information to keep and what to forget. Memories can also become distorted or forgotten over time due to various factors like age, stress, or injury.
[Probably to prevent insanity.](https://gizmodo.com/our-brains-deliberately-make-us-forget-things-to-preve-1543846375)
Memory is “stored” in the pattern of connections between neurons. Think of your brain like a map of a city, and a memory isn’t an *address* so much as the route you take to *get* to the address. As you walk along that path, you build the memory. Each “place” along the way is some aspect of the memory – like you have a friend named Bob and when you think of a memory of Bob, you walk down “Bob” street, and you went to a movie with Bob so you also go down the “movie” street and it was a Marvel movie so you also go down several Marvel character streets.
Multiple memories may go down parts of the same path, but the unique series of connections between neurons is what makes that memory unique. As you build the memory the first time, you don’t grow new neurons, but your neurons build new connections between them. The more often you revisit a memory, the stronger those connections get. If you don’t revisit a memory often, the connection gets weaker until it goes away, and you lose the memory.
And your brain doesn’t really know where it’s going when you begin the journey. The chemical signals propagate out among all the connections, but their strength dies off with weak connections so the chemical signal ends up following the strongest connections along that path. In the city of your mind, the chemical signal wanders along wherever it can and doesn’t wander where it can’t, and as it wanders the memory is remembered.
You might imagine that if you have a *lot* of memories – too many memories – the paths become too convoluted and it’s a lot easier for the chemical signal end up following the wrong path. It gets harder and harder to control the signal and limit it to only the one unique path that is the one memory you want. And that can lead to insanity. Your brain gets too confused trying to keep everything organized, trying to remember what’s important vs what isn’t important, trying to remember only one thing at a time, trying to separate pieces of memory so they don’t blend and blur together.
Also, maintaining the connections between neurons takes energy and resources. For the vast majority of life on Earth, resources were hard to get. It just wasn’t worth the calories to maintain memories and the connections for memories that weren’t important. If it didn’t help you survive by avoiding danger, getting food, finding a mate, etc. it wasn’t worth keeping.
[Probably to prevent insanity.](https://gizmodo.com/our-brains-deliberately-make-us-forget-things-to-preve-1543846375)
Memory is “stored” in the pattern of connections between neurons. Think of your brain like a map of a city, and a memory isn’t an *address* so much as the route you take to *get* to the address. As you walk along that path, you build the memory. Each “place” along the way is some aspect of the memory – like you have a friend named Bob and when you think of a memory of Bob, you walk down “Bob” street, and you went to a movie with Bob so you also go down the “movie” street and it was a Marvel movie so you also go down several Marvel character streets.
Multiple memories may go down parts of the same path, but the unique series of connections between neurons is what makes that memory unique. As you build the memory the first time, you don’t grow new neurons, but your neurons build new connections between them. The more often you revisit a memory, the stronger those connections get. If you don’t revisit a memory often, the connection gets weaker until it goes away, and you lose the memory.
And your brain doesn’t really know where it’s going when you begin the journey. The chemical signals propagate out among all the connections, but their strength dies off with weak connections so the chemical signal ends up following the strongest connections along that path. In the city of your mind, the chemical signal wanders along wherever it can and doesn’t wander where it can’t, and as it wanders the memory is remembered.
You might imagine that if you have a *lot* of memories – too many memories – the paths become too convoluted and it’s a lot easier for the chemical signal end up following the wrong path. It gets harder and harder to control the signal and limit it to only the one unique path that is the one memory you want. And that can lead to insanity. Your brain gets too confused trying to keep everything organized, trying to remember what’s important vs what isn’t important, trying to remember only one thing at a time, trying to separate pieces of memory so they don’t blend and blur together.
Also, maintaining the connections between neurons takes energy and resources. For the vast majority of life on Earth, resources were hard to get. It just wasn’t worth the calories to maintain memories and the connections for memories that weren’t important. If it didn’t help you survive by avoiding danger, getting food, finding a mate, etc. it wasn’t worth keeping.
[Probably to prevent insanity.](https://gizmodo.com/our-brains-deliberately-make-us-forget-things-to-preve-1543846375)
Memory is “stored” in the pattern of connections between neurons. Think of your brain like a map of a city, and a memory isn’t an *address* so much as the route you take to *get* to the address. As you walk along that path, you build the memory. Each “place” along the way is some aspect of the memory – like you have a friend named Bob and when you think of a memory of Bob, you walk down “Bob” street, and you went to a movie with Bob so you also go down the “movie” street and it was a Marvel movie so you also go down several Marvel character streets.
Multiple memories may go down parts of the same path, but the unique series of connections between neurons is what makes that memory unique. As you build the memory the first time, you don’t grow new neurons, but your neurons build new connections between them. The more often you revisit a memory, the stronger those connections get. If you don’t revisit a memory often, the connection gets weaker until it goes away, and you lose the memory.
And your brain doesn’t really know where it’s going when you begin the journey. The chemical signals propagate out among all the connections, but their strength dies off with weak connections so the chemical signal ends up following the strongest connections along that path. In the city of your mind, the chemical signal wanders along wherever it can and doesn’t wander where it can’t, and as it wanders the memory is remembered.
You might imagine that if you have a *lot* of memories – too many memories – the paths become too convoluted and it’s a lot easier for the chemical signal end up following the wrong path. It gets harder and harder to control the signal and limit it to only the one unique path that is the one memory you want. And that can lead to insanity. Your brain gets too confused trying to keep everything organized, trying to remember what’s important vs what isn’t important, trying to remember only one thing at a time, trying to separate pieces of memory so they don’t blend and blur together.
Also, maintaining the connections between neurons takes energy and resources. For the vast majority of life on Earth, resources were hard to get. It just wasn’t worth the calories to maintain memories and the connections for memories that weren’t important. If it didn’t help you survive by avoiding danger, getting food, finding a mate, etc. it wasn’t worth keeping.
Our brains are very powerful, but they are not perfect. They can store a lot of information, but not everything. Imagine your brain is like a bookshelf. It can hold a lot of books, but eventually, there’s just not enough space for all of them.
When you experience something new, your brain decides whether or not to keep that information based on its importance and relevance to you. Some memories are considered more important than others and are stored more easily. Other memories may not seem as important and may be forgotten over time.
Additionally, our brains can sometimes mix up or distort memories, especially over long periods of time. This means that even memories we think we remember very clearly may not be completely accurate.
While there are some rare cases of people with “total recall,” most of us simply can’t remember everything, no matter how hard we try. It’s just the way our brains are designed.
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