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Do you think the brain ever truly forgets anything?


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Memories can be overwritten and changed as well. There was that experiment they did with a bunch of families that went to Disney World, where they brought out photoshopped pictures of them with Bugs Bunny. Most of them remembered meeting Bugs Bunny fondly, despite the fact that Bugs Bunny isn't a Disney character and was never at the park to begin with.

 

That happened to me before, being told about something that never happened till you start wondering whether or not that thing really happened. Any idea why this happens?

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That happened to me before, being told about something that never happened till you start wondering whether or not that thing really happened. Any idea why this happens?

 

Honestly, I believe it's because the brain likes being lazy.  It takes a lot less energy to accept something than to dig into the memories to disprove it.  Because the brain uses so much energy, it naturally prefers a state of entropy and doesn't like to do work if it doesn't have to.  It's way easier for it to invent new memories than it is to try and hunt for the pieces to put together the truth.

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Sorry, Miri. I was gone for a moment. You ask lots of great questions. If I failed to answer all of them, it isn't because I am avoiding it. Yes, some of my answers stray into metaphysical, well, because some of the stuff that is recorded suggests there is more going on than what we think, but it doesn't necessarily mean 'metaphysical' but that we just don't know enough. There is evidence for genetic memories, for example. This could explain 'past lifes.' There are studies that show people who experienced trauma, like people who survived interment camps from the holocaust passing down trauma to their children; the children manifested 'ptsd' like symptoms. (also makes it interesting couple to the Biblical thing that our sins are passed on for seven generations...) This could just be that children are empaths and picked up on parents' anxiety, but other studies have also given sufficient positive evidence for genetic memory being a possibility, that it is on the table, and can't really be removed from the table until its absolutely rules out, and it's very difficult to just rule something out. The greatest study for genetic memory comes from studying flatworms. A flat worm has a head and tail, and rudimentary brain structure. if you cut this worm in half, the tail half grows a new head. The head half grows a new tail. These little worms like to live in the dark, but you can train them to go into the light by putting the worm's favorite food in the light. (probably pizza.) you can actually teach them some little tricks. these tricks, and just the ability to go into the light, something it is adverse to doing naturally, is a learned response. What's interesting is when you cut it in half, the tail half that grows a new head, and, by definition a new brain, you would think new brain would lack the memories the other brain acquired. It remembers everything the other brain had, even though it has a brand new brain. it's a curiosity that defies what we know about the brain and memory.

 

check it out.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-decapitated-worms-regrow-old-memories-along-with-new-heads-9497048/

 

 

"Isn't that the man who did research about consciousness after death or something? I thought you were talking about memories from past lives or something, but that thing about memories from when you were inside the womb is pretty interesting. Any link to those experiments?"

 

So, Wilder Penfield is the person who did the brain studies, poking the exposed brains with electrical probes. I stated Penrose was that guy in the previous post, i was wrong; I get them mixed up sometimes... Penrose is a physicist that is doing consciousness studies, and he explains consciousness as a result of microtubules of the brain accessing the quantum realm... So, in response to other questions, about how brains reconstruct things by accessing various parts of the brain, yeah, that is a part of it, but also, it depends on how we each personally record and access information. Memory experts will have you connect things to other things, usually a visual image, so you can remember large lists of names, or people. You can make an anecdote for memory that things reside in boxes based on your importance you place on them. Some boxes of information get more frequent access, or have higher personal relevance. I got through anatomy and physiology relating everything to star trek episodes. Some people use songs. google the method of loci, and you will find a memory technique for remembering based on making a map. The romans believed our brains were simply maps, and if we put things in rooms or territories, we would more likely remember them because most of operate within a mapped out reality. so, memories seemed to be recorded on the whole brain, everywhere, but the links between neurons play a part, so well traveled paths tend to light up easier, and the more overall connections, the greater the over all recall. Most memoirist use some sort of trick or anchor. Very few people just recall everything easily or naturally. You can loose stuff in your brain and not get it out no matter how hard to you try, and then suddenly, when you least expect it, there it is, back in your face... remembering names isn't that hard, if it's important to you. most people just say, "I don't remember names," and consequently they don't remember until someone has reminded them multiple times. People used to remember phone numbers. hardly anyone remembers numbers anymore. and why would you want to when the phone does it for you?  Anyway, the person who did the first study/book on past life was Doctor Raymond Moody. The person who as accumulated the most number of studies for comprehensive review is Atwater.

 

 

I have tons of psychology books and books on memory, because I am interested in that stuff, and so finding every specific reference is challenging because my memory doesn't work that way and I am too lazy to be a real scientist, someone who can tell you author and page number. One sight for baby memories is below, but seriously, this information is available and out there. It's just not discussed too much because, well, we don't really trust memories, and as much as we say we like kids, we don't really like kids. We are nicer to pets than we are human children. For example, most kids remember all sorts of stuff. And they get dismissed. I remember when I was young I could correct family on little things like, "I can't find my keys' and I would tell them, and they would argue, 'I wouldn't leave them there,' and I would tell them in detail how they left them there, and then they would threaten, "if I find them there, it's because you moved them" and then when they found them there, I would get my ass beat. It didn't take me too long to figure out, I don't need to remember shit, and if I was ever directly asked, I would say "I don't know." I am struggling even now believing my son, so like he will tell me things dead on, and they turn out to be solid right/truth, but in my head I am questioning the validity of it. "where did he learn that? he's like 4!" "Really? You had ice cream today? Where? When? What flavor? Who gave it to you?" And my son is really pretty sharp. He speaks English and Thai, and he is a living tape recorder. He spits out words no one thinks he knows or hasn't heard, He will spit out phrases to his mom that she is used like "You never listen to me," which is funny as hell cause she is getting what she giving,  but clearly, he has heard it and puts it in the correct context. His mother is always asking him where he heard a Thai word. He sure isn't getting Thai from me. I barely speak English half the time. :) So, the lesson, kids know more than their parents and society believe, and we socialize them into being less than they are out of expectation. There is a study that demonstrated this. A principle wanted to see if he could change academic performance by changing the teacher's expectation. He told one teacher she had a special class of the brightest children in the school, when in truth they were under performers. He told the teacher who was getting a class of honor roles that they were just average students. By the end of the school year, the underperformers were out performing the entire school, and the previous honor roles were below average. Kids play to the expectations of the care givers.

 

there are studies that show you can know the right answer, but if a group of people tell you you're wrong, you will change your answer. We are more than our memory, and social factors change things. That's pretty interesting, too. Here's the baby thing:

 

baby memories: https://www.famifi.com/27758/here-s-what-your-baby-actually-remembers-from-the-womb

 

 

Hypnosis accesses not just memories but creative centers of the mind. when you are in a highly suggestable state, you want to produce the answers that satisfy the request. So, let's say you are just accessing regular memory. You ask yourself, how many things do I know that are red... even if you supplied all the red things you know, your brain is still searching for more red things... A really good hypnotist takes advantage of this to increase suggestibility... this ties into the fact we are socially constricted in memory and what we allow to surface. if you volunteer to go on stage with a hypnotist, you have 'agreed' socially to perform within expectation and you will respond accordingly. Not everyone. But then, stage hypnotists know how to avoid those folks. Your brain is like google. it's wants an answer. it will accept legitimate answers, and it will except similar answer and divergent answers and it will give you everything, and so if you don't have a memory, your brain will create one in the absence of information. That's why there are monsters under the bed in the closet... we know its empty, but the brain is filling it with all kinds of stuff. A tree branch scratches the window. You think, tree branch, if you're in a good place, but if you were thinking about monsters in the closet, you might scream what was that, and then, like, oh, damn, it's just a tree... I hope its just a tree...

 

 

"Does their life truly flash through their eyes, or just the general idea, like a summary? I know you said they don't report a summary but I'm having a hard time believing their perception of time dilated long enough to let them experience a lifetime in a matter of minutes."

 

Well, this is probably dependent on who is telling it. It is possible to find it was summary. Most of the things I have read, life reviews are full, complete things. Is it truly their life flashing before their eyes? I will let you know when it happens to me. The most common feature of a Near Death Experience, or a Fear Death Experience (Similar to near death but no clinical evidence for being dead, but mostly people just thought they were dying or were about to die, like in a car crash...) is a life review. Maybe it's not 'everything.' I never heard people reliving sitting on the toilet, or reading books, or napping... It seems like most reports discuss interaction patterns, and how they felt and, interestingly, how others felt because of what they did or said...

 

 

 

"Why does that happen? if the brain knows there weren't any alien abduction, why would it make up a fictional story? why does it need to say what you want to hear?"

 

brains like answers. in the absence of good data, it will make stuff up. That's what brains do.

 

"How can they know those memories are real? unless they suddenly gained access to knowledge they never had before, how can you say they're real? they could have been made up by the brain. This is getting near methaphysical territory but it's really interesting and unsettling, back when I was really interested in consciousness existing outside the body, I would read lot of articles about experiments, research and crazy theories about it, and Carl Jung was a name that would be thrown in there very often, got any interesting credible article to read?

 

"I don't know how those memories can be real. I have my suspicions. Lots of folks write about these stuff. General MacArthur, world war II, reported he did well on that battlefield in Europe because he fought there before. Was he crazy? Maybe, but he isn't the only famous person of history to report oddities like that. There are groups of people now, doing consciousness studies, that say no memories are real. Carl Jung gets thrown around a lot, and I am big Jung fan; I think he was a genius greater than Einstein. So was Tesla, who is on record stating that when science finally turns to a serious study of metaphysics, humanity will learn more in a decade than they have learned their entire history. (Not verbatim.)

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality/transcript?language=en

 

If you want an interesting read that documents everything I have touched on with book and article reviews I recommend

"Opening The Doors of Perception: The Key to Cosmic Awareness" by Anthony Peake. It is my understanding he is considering writing something on Tulpas. Tulpamancy is a serious exploration of consciousness. There are reports that tulpas help with memory. Why? I mean, sure, we share a brain, why not memory, but why would a tulpa remember something the host couldn't? It makes sense to me that it would, because personalities have filters, social expectations, and personally imposed limitations. Even if we never touch on metaphysical aspects, memory is really weird. We're kind of weird. But, that's what makes us so fun.

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Mother of God, everything you said just blows my mind, like, I can't wrap my head around about how amazing and mind-blowing (no pun intended I swear) the mind is. I used to be really interested in all of this but lost my interest because I thought it wasn't worth it, I'm not a scientist and I'll never be so it would be very hard for me to study these things, that is, from an objetive point of view, but again, you have the subjetive POV too.

 

I'll make sure to read those links you sent me, specially the one about worms, I never ever heard about that. Thank you for all your answers, you really got me interested in this again.

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No worries! I love this stuff. And if my memory were better, or I was better at math, or science, I would be like crazy scary smart guy... LOL. but at last, this is just passing interest guy that reads a lot and lots of things stick, but they cross universe's and get mixed up with other things, which really helps catching all the jokes on MST3k, especially the nerdy jokes, but not really helpful for practical things like, I don't know, being financially successful? I am seriously good therapist, though, and can hold my own in pretty much any generalized conversation...

 

subjective POV is great. Don't put it down. You don't have to be a scientist to enjoy learning and knowing stuff and exploring. academia pretty much killed learning by making it not fun. we're all scientist all the time. Neil DeGrasse Tyson made the following observation, but not verbatim... none of us think, or perceive, as well as we like to think. Seriously, if you just go with senses alone, we get it wrong most of the time. The human core five senses gets things wrong. That's why we need tools. Tools like magnifying glasses, telescopes, measuring sticks, reading, writing... Longitudinal studies on memories show that most remembered things change over time, even important events, like births and weddings... There is one exception to this, which baffles the memory experts. People who had a NDE, the memory of their experience does not change. Their report of the event is exactly the same even up to twenty years later. That doesn't mean anything metaphysical, but it is very interesting to me... What would make that event more special than memory of a real-life physical event?

 

I wish I knew more. I love that I have tulpa-info, and you, and these great discussions. If I think of another source I will certainly drop it. that ted talk, though, is really brilliant. Pretty sure that is the one that talks about the species of beetles in Australia that nearly went extinct because they were attracted to beer bottles. it not only makes you ask questions about memory, but about perception... and I don't think there can be a conversation about memory that doesn't include perception. I mean, you need to have a memory to see something, to compare something... It was said that the native americans couldn't see the ships carrying Columbus and crew. The shamans knew something was coming, they sat and stared at the horizon, and suddenly they saw, and they were able to teach others to see it... of course, they tied that story with omens of change. their world change. There were cultures that had never seen photographs, and when introduced they could not see anything in the photographs... (Got that from anthropology book...) once they were taught, they could not return to their previous vision. their new memory changed the way they saw. their brain didn't change, their eyes didn't change... People don't see with their eyes, they see with their minds... I would be surprised if it isn't equally true, we don't think with our brains, any more than we see with our eyes.

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subjective POV is great. Don't put it down. You don't have to be a scientist to enjoy learning and knowing stuff and exploring. academia pretty much killed learning by making it not fun. we're all scientist all the time. Neil DeGrasse Tyson made the following observation, but not verbatim... none of us think, or perceive, as well as we like to think. Seriously, if you just go with senses alone, we get it wrong most of the time. The human core five senses gets things wrong. That's why we need tools. Tools like magnifying glasses, telescopes, measuring sticks, reading, writing... Longitudinal studies on memories show that most remembered things change over time, even important events, like births and weddings... There is one exception to this, which baffles the memory experts. People who had a NDE, the memory of their experience does not change. Their report of the event is exactly the same even up to twenty years later. That doesn't mean anything metaphysical, but it is very interesting to me... What would make that event more special than memory of a real-life physical event?

 

I find NDEs to be really interesting, scientists say they're just hallucinations caused by the brain but again, why do people remember them way better than apparently more important events that really happened in real life, like your wedding, your son's birth, etc...They sure seem really important for simple hallucinations. I read about people who were blind from birth and then suddenly they could see for the first time during a NDE, now, those are just claims with no solid evidence from what I read, but if they were to be true, well, that says something. Of course, I can't know whether NDEs are hallucinations or something more, I've never had one so I can't tell if they're real or just a brain's trick, though I would like to believe they're more than just simple tricks.

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We can't know until we have one, I guess. I have had an FDE. I can only tell my experience, and it was surreal, but like you said, it's just a subjective experience and not necessarily what I think it means. I personally can't see it for anything other than what it seems. I, too, have read about people blind from birth having visual experiences during NDEs, and, yeah, that is interesting. Check out Atwater's book "The big book of NDEs." The argument against it being a hallucination, though, is how can a disabled brain, or brain that has been turned off, hallucinate? In one of Moody's book, and it's also in several Atwaters, probably because it is the best known case is this one lady who had a brain tumor that needed to be removed. It was a difficult case because the only way to do the operation was to invent a new procedure. They invented new tools to the surgery. They literally killed her, stopped her heart, drained all of her blood from her body, flash chilled her, performed the operation, and then reintroduced her blood and slowly brought her back up to temperature. Her eyelids were taped shut. Not only was she able to describe the operation, but she described the tools they used that no one but the doctors and the engineers had ever seen because they were brand new tools! too me, that seems like an open and shut case, we are not confined to body. I can only think of one argument for an alternative solution.

 

Daniel Kish, a person blind from birth, learned to see through echolocation. He make clicking sounds with his mouth and he navigate the world and he can find any object and navigate new rooms. Not only has it been verified, people can learn to do this. It's a skill set. Other blind people have learned it, and seeing people have learned to do this. Now, here is my argument. Hearing is the last sense to turn off. There is evidence today that the brain could continued to function up to an hour after the heart has stopped. If the brain could hear, a desperate dying brain would grasp onto everything it could get, and hearing being the only one left would become primary. If a brain can map out the world through echolocation, then it seems plausible that any sound in the room would allow the brain to manifest a three dimensional auditory map of the room. Because it's not vision, the person could theoretically place themselves anywhere in that map, maybe even move around. (vision is fixed to a perspective, auditory map probably less restrictive.) Since we probably hear more things than we filter, hearing range might be extended to larger range than we normally expect, which would account for hearing conversation at the nurses station outside the Operating Room. The problem with my theory is that there are people born deaf that have NDE's, which means what, people are never as deaf as they think they are? We can hear via bone conduction. I had a radio that you wore and heard the sound through the bones... It was weird, but I assume you have to have had hearing capabilities so that the brain could develop the auditory centers. Deaf from people usually have no developed auditory brain structures, and hyper visual structures because they're accommodating a missed sense.

 

We take perception for granted. We have access to more.

 

oh, talking about perception, the ted talk with the beetles and beer bottles is this:

 

 

that video goes hand in hand with the other ted talk, do we hallucinate reality ted talk.

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Yeah, I was wondering that too, supposedly their brain is inactive during NDEs, how the hell can it hallucinate then? did the time dilated the few seconds the brain was still active before being shut off? I never thought about echolocation being the answer to that, I mean, it kinda makes sense but, what if they can't use that skill? I don't think people even bother to learn it if they're not blind, or is it a natural thing? I don't know anything, all of this is so weird, I wish we could understand what's really going on. Guess we'll have to wait till we die.

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or, just continue to accumulate evidence and anecdotes and draw the best conclusions that you can. watch that last video, and you may come to conclusion that's all we're doing anyway... We're just drawing the best conclusions that we can. We are at a tulpamancy site. We are not drawing the same conclusions about life that non plural systems are making. Doesn't mean they're right or wrong, we're just having different experiences, and different conclusions.

 

and yeah, you are right, most people would never learn to develop echolocation skill. My projection is a dying brain might turn that skill on even if person never learned it. Maybe that's why so many people with NDE suddenly experiencing increase in light. It's misinterpretation of suddenly seeing with sound. Maybe that's why some people don't report NDE's. Maybe their brain didn't panic and turn on the sound/light. ??? Don't know. I like thinking about it.

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