Topic to be confirmed

¶ … Memory

Cognitive

What is the nature of memory and how does it relate to experience? Which metaphor for memory is the most appropriate or applicable? In the endeavor to answer these questions and more, the paper presents a metaphor that combines a few of the suggested metaphors into one. The paper provides an interpretation on the nature of memory from a practical perspective, relating contemporary and historical media representations of memory as support. The paper supports the dynamism and flexibility of memory as well as its power of humans in the past, present, and future.

Interpretations of Memory

Memory functions as all of the metaphors listed in the guidelines. There is no one way memory works. That is one of the great and convenient traits of memory is that humans can approach access to their memories from so many angles. At some point every person has had an experience of trying to recall a fact or detail in specific manner and failed. When approaching the memory a different way such as through smell, or retracing steps, or whatever, the memory comes to the forefront of consciousness, becoming accessible. From the list of choices provided regarding metaphors of memory, the ones found most striking are memory as switchboard/network; as reconstruction of a skeleton with fossils; and as active process such as a workbench or computer program. In attempting to narrow the choice down to one, an original idea of a metaphor for memory came to mind: memory is like palimpsest. The paper argues for the metaphor of memory as palimpsest for several reasons including that newer memories mediate the experience of remembering an older memory making the older memory different each time it is recalled into the present.

Memories change based on newer experiences and newer memories; when something new happens, people look back on the same experience they have a memory of, but remember something new or different, or alter a detail, not necessarily because of hyperbole, but because with the new experience overlaying the memory, the memory is different. The newer experience is a filter through which humans recall an older memory and perceive it differently. It is similar to the experience of watching a movie that has not been seen in some time. The film is the same, but the viewer is different because the viewer has had experiences since last the film was seen, and those experiences mediate the experience with the memory of the film.

The interpretation that is the subject of the paper on is not on the list, though it is an appropriate metaphor for memory and related to other examples on the list such as those related to jumbled storage, record of experience, and interconnectedness. I came to this because as I examined the list, an idea came to me. I read over the list of metaphors for memory and thought of a toy I had as a child. It was a pad where I could write notes on the surface with a stylus and when lift the top sheet when I wished to erase what I wrote, making it a reusable tablet for drawing and writing. I could not recall the name of the toy, but I knew it was related to slates for writing. I thought of sayings that involved slate such as "wipe the slate clean" or someone looking past a mistake to "give you a clean slate." In my search for slates, I came across "palimpsest," a word I learned from an experimental film course I took. Even though I am sure the name of the toy was not "palimpsest," or a related term, I knew that this is what the toy was based on and I knew this was the metaphor for memory with which I agreed the most.

The first forms of palimpsests were scrolls in Ancient Roman and Greek cultures. Simply, one could write upon on, then wipe it clean and write again. Over time, the writings could not be wiped away so easily, so that the surface became an accumulation of all the writings past. These accumulated writings on one surface occupying the same space simultaneously is like a novel in one page. On that one page is every word of the story. Even though the novel was written over time, the way it is presented as palimpsest makes all of it in the past or all in the present. There is no now and then. It is all one.

Memory functions in the same manner as palimpsest for several reasons. Yes, we know that we are older than we were in previous years; we have experienced time, yet when a vivid memory comes to mind, the memory becomes the present and the real present disappears. The past (the recollection of the memory) occupies the same space as the present when we remember. It is like the book Remembrance of Things Past by Proust (1913 -- 1927). Proust relaxes and east cookies in the present, and when he takes a bite of the cookie it triggers an intense flashback, so vivid that it feels as if it is happening presently though the memory is from years ago.

Memory is also like palimpsest in that it is an accumulation and that people cannot be rid of it all as much as they try to wipe it away. Memories do not exist in an isolated manner. Our brains are networks and so are our memories. Accessing one memory brings to mind a series of memories related in literal, metaphoric, symbolic, emotional, associative, or many others ways. A memory about a stuffed elephant at age five may conjure memories as a teen of attending the zoo or conjure memories of stuffing and turkey on Thanksgiving, and a number of other possible associations. When one looks at or reads a palimpsest, one reads what is on the surface through everything that is beneath the surface. It is the same with people. When meeting people, it is not just the surface of the person one meets. As one person meets another, that person is meeting the accumulation of memories and experiences of that person. When meeting a person, one is simultaneously interacting with the version of the person one is meeting now and all the iterations of that person that have ever existed. One is interacting with that person's present self and all of their past selves. When we think of a memory, we, again, recall that memory and it is mediated through all the subsequent memories we have made since making the memory in question.