Tag Archives: memory

Blog

Editing the memory movie

pre-silicon memory aidWell, looks like we can chalk up another predictive success for a Futurismic author! This time it’s the turn of Marissa Lingen, whose “Erasing the Map” seems eerily prescient of recent research at Oxford University into the selective editing of memories:

Wired.com: How selective will memory editing be?

Sandberg: Current research seems to suggest that it can be pretty specific, but there will be side effects. It may not even be that you forget other memories. Small, false memories could be created. And we’re probably not going to be able to predict that before we actually try them.

[…]

Wired.com: It seems that it would be easy to test “tip of the tongue” drug effects on the sorts of small things one recalls on an everyday basis. But what if it’s old, infrequently recalled but still-important memories that are threatened by side effects?

Sandberg: It’s pretty messy to determine what is an important memory to us. They quite often crop up, but without us consciously realizing that we’re thinking of the memory. That’s probably good news, as every time you recall a memory, you also tend to strengthen it.

Wired.com: How likely is the manipulation of these fundamental memories?

Sandberg: Big memories, with lots of connections to other things we’ve done, will probably be messy to deal with. But I don’t think those are the memories that people want to give up.  Most people would want to edit memories that impair them.

Of course, if we want to tweak memories to look better to ourselves, we might get a weird concept of self.

Indeed we might… but I’d say the odds are good that people will try to do exactly that. The street finds its own use for things, right? [image by ebbdog]

But what will happen if you try to edit a memory that is false – the repressed memory of abuse that may not have actually happened, for example? If memories are interlinked, what might you lose along with the bad stuff? And if memories can be expunged, could they also be inserted? We’re deep into Philip K Dick territory right here…

Blog

The memory switch

MRI brain scanOur relentless mapping of our own grey matter continues, and here’s the latest result:

Researchers have found a telltale mental signature that predicts whether an experience will be remembered. Once deciphered, the signals could be used to help people know when their brains are primed to remember, perhaps using an iPhone app.

It doesn’t sound all that impressive, does it, even with the flippant mention of  JesusPhone compatibility further down the line – it’s easy to become blase about these stories when you collect them every day. Technology that monitors and interacts with the brain is becoming commonplace, but the real implications here are surely far bigger than having a PDA tell you when you’re primed for memory tricks.

Biofeedback, for example. Wire someone up to an EEG, and eventually they can consciously control the lines on the screen by watching them; so, with more complex monitoring systems, think of all the other stuff you could train a brain to do better. With memory as an example, perhaps you could train yourself to be in a highly receptive state at all times – that would be a pretty handy skill for spying without carrying any hardware.

But then there’s the flipside – you could train for forgetfulness too, which might make stories like Marissa’s “Erasing the Map” into reality. And the more we learn about the mind as a ‘black box’ system, the closer we come to being able to simulate one on non-biological hardware – which is one of the steps that Kurzweil and others claim are part of the road toward true Artificial Intelligence and brain uploading… [image by jsmjr]

Blog

Quantum cognition: spooky action in word recall

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fractal_networkA fascinating article here at Physorg on how human beings remember and recall words. Researchers at Queensland University of Technology and the University of South Florida compare two ways of thinking about connections between similar words 1) Networks of similar words and 2) something analogous to spooky action at a distance:

…the researchers suggest that the probability of a word being activated in memory lies somewhere between Spreading Activation (in which words are individually recalled based on individually calculated conceptual distance) and Spooky Activation at a Distance (in which the cue word simultaneously activates the entire associative structure).

Most likely, Spreading Activation underestimates the strength of activation, while Spooky Activation at a Distance overestimates the strength of activation.

The researchers are using quantum physics as an preexisting abstract framework for their mathematical models for how human beings remember:

In the new model, associative word recall probability depends on how strongly connected the associated words are to each other.

For instance, “Earth” and “space” are entangled in the context of “planet,” but “Earth” and “gas giant” may not be entangled (though “Jupiter” and “gas giant” may be).

Words that are entangled with many other words have a greater probability of being recalled, while words that are entangled with few or no other words have a smaller recall probability.

At this stage this is theoretical, but the long-term consideration is for the development of AI and similar technologies:

As our information environment becomes more complex, we will need technology that can draw context-sensitive associations like the ones we would draw, but increasingly don’t as we lack the cognitive resources to do so.

Therefore, such the ‘meanings’ processed by such technology should be motivated from a socio-cognitive perspective.” This kind of research is an example of an emerging field called “quantum cognition,” the aim of which is to use quantum theory to develop radically new models of a variety of cognitive phenomena ranging from human memory to decision making.

Plenty of beef for the science-fictional burger bar.

[image from zeroinfluencer on flickr]

Blog

Moore’s Law gets a new lease of life

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digital camera CCD chipGood news for Kurzweilian Singularitarians and flop-junkies – Moore’s Law has been looking increasingly likely to derail as we approach the lowest practical limit for semiconductor miniaturization, but newly announced research means there’s life in the old dog yet:

Two US groups have announced transistors almost 1000 times smaller than those in use today, and a [nano-scale magnet-based] version of flash memory that could store all the books in the US Library of Congress in a square 4 inches (10 cm) across.

[…]

Using 3-nanometre magnets, an array could store 10 terabits (roughly 270 standard DVDs) per square inch, says Russell, who is now working to perfect magnets small enough to cram 100 terabits into a square inch.

“Currently, industry is working at half a terabit [per square inch],” he says. “They wanted to be at 10 terabits in a few years’ time – we have leapfrogged that target.”

If this were Engadget, we could squee about how we’ll have laptops the size of wristwatches by the end of the decade, but that would be to miss an important point. The ever-falling cost and size of memory and processing power will certainly mean more gadgets, but those gadgets will bring social changes along with them – as Charlie Stross pointed out a while ago, if you can read and write data at the atomic scale then physical storage capacity becomes a complete non-issue, allowing you to record everything – literally everything. [image by Fox O’Rian]

When you can record everything, how do you go about managing and using what you’ve recorded?

Fiction

NEW FICTION: ERASING THE MAP by Marissa Lingen

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We’ve published a lot of wild and gonzo stuff at Futurismic in recent months, but we wouldn’t want you to make the mistake that’s all we like. And here’s an example: “Erasing the Map” by Marissa Lingen, which is subtle, quietly assertive, and handled perfectly.

Its thesis: If you could have traumatic memories surgically removed, would you take the risk of losing some of the memories you treasure? Read first, then make your mind up and tell us in the comments!

“Erasing the Map”

by Marissa Lingen

There was this one time, in college. I was arguing politics with this girl. Young Republican type. She had the blonde bob and the baby blue sweater, the whole works. I’d even seen her wear penny loafers. I liked her anyway. We were arguing about gun control, and I said there was absolutely no feeling in the world worse than killing another person.

I think if it had been another circumstance, another time, she would have responded by reaming me out about all the things she could think of that were worse. But it was a party. Maybe she thought I was cute. So instead, she batted those contact-lens-blue eyes at me and said, “And how many people have you killed?”

I said, “Just the one.”

It was the wrong answer, I knew, and the flirting look went off like a switch. But it was the only answer I could give. After she stared at me for a minute, I said, “It was an accident. I was ten years old.” She still didn’t say anything, so I said, “His name was Anthony, and he was my best friend.” Continue reading NEW FICTION: ERASING THE MAP by Marissa Lingen →