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I had a Book Club record with the genial and amusing Dr Charan Ranganath today about his fascinating book
"Why We Remember?"I had only read half the book as of first thing this morning (it's been quite a busy couple of weeks for me) and the chat was at 3.15pm, so I had a lot of reading to do. So that's mainly what I did. So it was like being back at college and having an essay crisis, except this time I couldn't just copy someone else's essay because I'd spent all week writing comedy sketches and getting drunk. Luckily the book is brilliantly written and interesting and the only danger was that I would get distracted by the scary and big thoughts that a subject like this conjures up.
Firstly it's really weird that the human brain is so advanced that it has got to the point where people with human brains (most of us) are capable of working out how a human brain works. So the brain is exploring itself and working out how it works. Which you'd think a brain would just automatically know, but it doesn't.
Secondly when you consider memory, you realise that nearly all of human experience is memory. In fact only the exact bit that is happening to you right now is not memory. Everything else, once it's experienced is just memory of something happening and even anticipation of something that might happen next is only based on memories of stuff that's happened before. We are in essence a collection of memories, many of which will be embellished by imagination or self-interest and we're not even really consciously in control of the present moment, where supposedly decisions are made by the unconscious part of our brain and only after they have happened does our conscience brain come up with an explanation (usually false) of why we did them.
God damn my stupid brain.
Dr Ranganath was able to explain deja vu to me - feels like he did it twice - and I also quizzed him on whether it's enjoyable coming up with the tricksy experiments that test people's brains. I bet they do a few just for the fun of it.
Anyway, buy the book to find out more. The podcast will be out in a few weeks.
My life is just a memory:
Half-truths, lies - exaggeration
Blurred, fucked up ... ephemory
Am I a figment of my own imagination?
