how can our brains remember that we forgot something, but it can’t remember what we forgot?

Question

how can our brains remember that we forgot something, but it can’t remember what we forgot?

In: Other

Answer 1

This question asks “how is it possible?” and not “how does it work?”, so I won’t talk about actual brains here. But even very simple information storage and retrieval systems can be constructed so that it’s obvious when information has been lost.

For example, let’s say you have a book with 100 numbered pages in it.

Page 46 might be blanked out. You know that’s an error, since there is no page numbered 46 after page 45, and page 47 doesn’t pick up where 45 left off. Something is missing.

You don’t know what was on page 46, but you can be pretty sure it’s gone.