maybe this is the wrong forum but i was wonderin what ya'll thought about human memory. do you think it has aided us or is it the downfall of an organism?
its possible, other animals dont have the memory capacity of a human thats how we can remember how to get somewhere without pissing everywhere our memory causes us to remember how to make cars, and pollute the world and in a few years kill ourselves
Absolutely it has aided us. You cannot have progress without memory of what has lead up to that progress. Also, its a defense mechanism. If I put my hand in the fire you bet your ass I'm not gonna do it again if I remember doing it the first time.
Oh really, so you never tried to stick the scissors in the light socket or anything like that when you were an infant? I'm sure people who are afraid of dogs because they got bit by a dog when they were kids just inherited their crippling fear of all dogs. While there is such a thing as instincts, there is also such a thing as learned fears. Those are a product of memory.
ok so a dog knows is afraid of a lighter, or any flame for that matter, its never been burned before. i think that is called instinct
But you would be wrong to say that instinct is the only source of our rational fears that help us to stay alive. Okay, a baby goes in to see a doctor. The first time, the doctor whips out a syringe, the kid doesn't react. The next time, the doctor whips out that same syringe and the kid remembers that it hurt like hell the last time. When the kid freaks out, is that instinct too, or did he learn that fear. Perhaps fire was a poor example because it has been around forever and instincts have been developed by numerous species about its tendency to burn on contact, but you are kidding yourself if you think that people's rational fears can be entirely attributed to instincts.
It's one of our greatest blessings, but it can also be a big problem. It allows us to learn and progress, but then it hinders us in that so many people dwell in the past and/or closed-mindedly hang on to their beliefs without any willingness to try on new ones. Memory can really cause some people to get mentally "stuck" (entire cultures for that matter).
