One Way Door

I'm utterly without a security badge for the first time in seven years...

-and there it is....

I clear this door, and I'm forever on the outside of CorpWorld.











Feels kinda good.

Flash of recognition

These days, I don't listen to the radio much. For music, that is. I listen to plenty of news and radio shows - but the idea of rolling the dice on some music station in the hopes that some software algorithm and I will hit it off just seems like a waste of time.

Which means precious little new music makes it into my head these days. My sister in law forwards the occasional new band or song - but she's about my only regular vector for new culture.

Three years ago, I was listening to NPR and their house music critic was discussing some bands they felt were ones to watch. I remember pulling into my driveway - in my usual distracted state - and they critic was cycling through crap, crap, and - well, more crap.

I remember it was just me in the car and about the time I normally reach for the keys to switch things off - I heard this song.

And it rocked. Soaring lyrics. Rich, symphonic backgrounds.

One of those moments you just sit there and wait until the music is done with you.

They only played a verse or two - and the best I could remember was the the band had some slavic name. Totally struck out on the web search, couldn't spell the name right I'm sure. Rrrgh!

It had a name with something like 'votch' in the name. I tried a few variants, no luck. Frustrating as all hell. The internet, and iTunes - and I can't identify or acquire the music I wanted.

Couldn't let it go, though. My memory is pretty good, so when it fails, it gets really obstinate. Ironclad recollection of details that won't help me in a search engine. Maddening.

It's been rattling around my head for years - I ended up using 'votch' as part of the name of a clan of bad guys in my gaming campaign - couldn't do anything else useful with it.  Like a sliver in the mind. Rrrrgh!

Until last night. I'm watching TV at stupid o' clock in the morning and there's a commercial for (of all things) a video game.

And they're playing the song.

Hold your grandmother’s bible to your breast
Gonna put it to the test
You wanted it to be blessed
And in your heart
You know it to be true
You know what you gotta do
They all depend on you

And you already know
Yes you already know
How this will end

Sung by a man channeling Morrissey who's fronting some classically-trained gypsies.

At last.

Imperfect reflections

The Radio Lab Podcast on Memory and Forgetting has done some damage to my view of what is going on my head.

The main points of this article I’ll just summarize:

1) There is no “master memory” that you draw on when you recall something.
2) Memories are re-imprinted in your brain every time you recall them.
3) Memories become less accurate the more you access them.
4) Memories can be implanted, dulled, or even erased with certain techniques and medications.

Item 4 (which has been proven via experimentation) is pretty creepy – since it pretty much tells you that brainwashing is feasible. Maybe to a lesser extent than the you’d see in The Manchurian Candidate or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but to a disturbing degree nonetheless.

Here’s how they know this. Scientists would play a tone to a rat and then give them an electrical shock. They’d do this repeatedly until the rat would cringe just from hearing the tone. Conditioned response. Pavlov. This surprises no one.

What was surprising was what happened when they used a particular drug on a different rat while they got the same treatment. A medicated rat that heard the tone and was subsequently zapped never associated the two events. The rat would hear the tone, but would not cringe. The drug prevented the association.

They then took this further and took a rat that had made the connection between the tone and the shock and gave them the drug before playing the tone and zapping them. Over time, the rats would lose the connection between the tone and the shock. The drug would erase the prior memory of tone = shock, and the rat would no longer react to the tone.

Yeah.

They’ve tried this drug on people with traumatic memories to help diminish their intensity – it worked.

So, your memories are up for grabs. But that’s not the only weird bit for me.

The premise of item 1 just bugs me. There is no accurate memory that you draw on to experience past events. Every time you relive a memory you are re-creating it. This allows you to modify it every time you access it – introducing errors each time.

They make the point that a memory you never access is the most reliable one you will ever have.
But it makes no sense to say we recreate the memory each time because there must be some information in our brains that maintains the connection between the actual event and our recollection of it.

For example:

Yesterday I meet a man with an orange shirt.

Today I remember the experience as meeting a man with an orange suit.

Years from now, I remember meeting a man with an orange hat.

All of this can follow from a process where I create a new memory and muddle the details over time.

But how can these recollections be in any way similar if there isn't some stored data that supplies the source material for the new memory I'm creating?

I mean, how else can I correctly maintain the memory of meeting a man and not a woman?

If I am truly creating a new memory each time - what's to stop me from remembering meeting a woman who hits me in the face with a rubber chicken?

Surely some kind of master record must be supplying the framework of what I am remembering - even if I can't access it directly. Even if I distort this data over time, mustn't I retain some kind of starting point?

It may just be a garbling of what they were presenting. It occurred to me while writing this that the memory you experience is drawn from the prior iteration of it, but overwrites it as it does so. Like putting another coat of paint on a painting. It may be similar, but it will always be different – and you can’t ever go back.

Which would explain how the good old days get better and better, but still just messes with your head.

If you have the time, check out the podcast. It'll bend your head.