EPISODIC MEMORY: AN EVOLUTIONARY MARVEL OR A DESIGN FAULT?

 Last week we went to a wedding reception. The parents of the bride are friends of ours. There was a pre-dinner short boat trip on the Thames. On the deck I saw a couple of other people who were mutual friends. We gravitated towards each other and ended up standing together on the deck.

I got busy talking to them but in the back of my mind something kept niggling. While getting on the boat I saw a familiar face but could not put a name or context to it. Who was that man? If I could remember where I met him before, I might be able to put a context and then maybe I could even recall his name. 

To say that you know a person you have to know the context  in addition to name and image.  When we meet a person and have interaction with, the brain acquires all these bits of information and automatically stores them. Unfortunately each bit is retained in a separate place, on top of that, as the time passes they are moved around perpetually depending on the priority our brain assigns them.

How does the brain prioritize, does not enter into our consciousness. Sometime very mundane and banal facts are kept in the fore of the mind and at other times even crucial or apoplectic events are forgotten.  Our brain does not share a lot of things with us! Is it an evolutionary asset or a design fault?    

Forgetting events and people associated with unpleasant or unimportant events certainly keeps us in positive frame of mind but forgetting important episodes puts us at a great disadvantage. The problem is that it is our brain that decides what is important, not our conscious mind. People who had been in rather close contact in past feel hurt when they find out that you cannot recall their names, faces or contexts. They impart blame as if you have “consciously” forgotten them.

Luckily, one of the friends who I was talking with said “have you met Rehman? He is here on the boat.” Suddenly the veil disappeared I remembered him. He worked with us in the same department and lived only a few blocks away. That was  20 yrs ago! All these bits of information were in my brain safely stored, just needed a trigger to bring them to my conscious mind. A few minutes later when he came near us, I met him with all the warmth that my memory has just delivered!

If you think memory is for keeping an accurate record of past, then it is flawed and defective. But as a tool for imagining future scenarios and thus preparing us to face the uncertainties of future better, it is a design marvel. This really is the purpose of memory. 

“Indeed, our ability to revisit the past may be only a design feature of our ability to conceive of the future” Suddendorf & Busby 2003

SMART PHONES AS AN AUGMENTATION OF OUR SENSORY RECEPTORS: HELP OR HINDRANCE?

 

The quantity of information available to people has been rapidly increasing over the last two centuries. The lowering cost of dissemination of data through Books, newspapers, radio, television and internet have allowed information to reach to masses as never before. Until a few years ago there was a time lag between one’s desire to have the information and actually getting it. You had to go to the library, bookshop or to the newspaper vendor etc.  You had to wait for the news on radio and television. Now information is becoming instantaneous with advent of mobile phone/computer technology. These nifty machines are becoming almost an appendage of one’s body providing extra receptors for multiple sensorial stimuli; auditory, visual, even tactile. Now humans can see much more, hear much more.

 We are now always in touch with a greatly expanded virtual reality. We are not just hearing the sounds in our near vicinity but also what a protester is saying in Cairo or Bahrain hundreds of miles away. You are not just seeing your own neighbouring environment but also what is happening in other parts of the world.  You are not limited to listening or talking to people around you but can do with people all over the world.  It was available before but with a time lag not in real time now.

 When you see something interesting in a shop you can check immediately on your mobile if a better model or a lower price is being offered somewhere else. It is really an extension of your own vision and auditory capabilities. You may see so many different offers that you cannot decide which one to buy. 

Our human visual system can only “see” a very narrow range of the available electromagnetic radiation (EMR) wavelengths from about 390 to 750 nm.  Our natural visual acuity is also very limited.  At 12 inches, the normal visual acuity of the human eye is 0.00349 inch. What this means is that if you had alternating black and white lines that were all 0.00349 inch wide, it would appear to most people as a mass of solid gray. If the object is far away it has to be much bigger to be seen with naked eyes. If our resolution becomes much higher we can see the tiny parasites, bacteria and pollens etc at a close range and details of Saturn’s ring and Moon’s craters at a long range. If we can perceive more of the EMR range we can see the ultraviolet and infrared emissions.

This instant ability to see more, hear more is a help or a hindrance to us?

The primary purpose of the senses is to help us to explore our environment effectively to ensure our survival. Humans are at the highest ladder of evolution only because we can explore our environment more effectively than other species. For exploring more effectively does not mean having more acute senses. Eagles do have much higher visual acuity and dogs can here ultrasonic waves, bees can see the ultraviolet light.  If we can see more, hear more, smell more it will not necessarily make our life better rather I think, bombarded with that much data we will be completely bogged down.

 Imagine seeing all the mites in your bed you are about to lie in and the bacteria on the lips you are about to kiss.  To be able to hear even the faintest sound will make deafness sound like bliss. Decision making is certainly improved with more data but not just any data. It has to be relevant and accurate data. Too much data input will make it difficult to effectively filter the bad data and thus make the decision unreliable at best and downright lethal at worst.

That is why over the millions of years of evolution we have settled for consciously perceiving only a limited range of sensory input discarding higher and lower ranges.

I am not saying that technology and information should not be made available but maybe we should not use it as a substitute of our innate sensory inputs.