Memory in the New Terrain

Memory as a Visual Language terrain

To follow is an explanation of how my memory terrain is being redefined:

Old Terrain of Memory - memories are accessed through a mental structuring process which uses the whole brain to organize, filter and combine multi-sensory information.  The structuring results in what we traditionally think of as the recollection of a memory.   Memories are used as a tool to help us find a role for ourselves in the world.

New Terrain of Memory - memories are organized and accessed strictly by the visual and language centers of the brain in response to multi-sensory information.   As a result of this, a new visual language evolves as a construct for defining a role for ourselves within the world

Old Terrain - recalling a memory is a voluntary process which results in the creation of a tool we can use for navigating our roles within the world

New Terrain- memory recall is spontaneous and involuntary because it has evolved as a self-preservation / survival mechanism.  We are not conscious, on a moment to moment basis, of the way it is shaping our understanding of the world

Old Terrain- Memories are understood to be linear in relation to time frames, i.e. this happened yesterday, last year, five years ago, ten years ago, when I was little.  The lineal order of memories (in the healthy brain) cannot be affected by anything in its external environment

New Terrain- because memories are now a language, there's no evolutionary benefit for their existence within a lineal time frame.  Memories as a visual language need to be fluid, dynamic and malleable; therefore we have factual memories occurring in random order depending upon what is being communicated.

An example of this in the old terrain:   when I was little, I opened the door, walked out, went to school and opened a book, looked at letters and sentences, and this is how I learned to read.  

In the new terrain:  A book is setting on the table when I wake up this morning.  I don't see the book as a physical book I see it as a visual image of myself in school as a child reading and learning.  This means that I should walk out the door and go to the library so that I can read pictures in the newspaper today.  

Old Terrain:  You can't change what happened to cause a memory to form.

New Terrain:  It is entirely possible to change what happened to form memory because memories now form the words of a new visual language. 

 

In communicating, memories are essential to language, therefore survival favors being able to change what happened in the past so that you can speak a full and coherent language today.  Memories need to be accessible for you in the same way that words in the old terrain are accessible to a poet.  They’re available to him so that he can express, poetically, something that his audience can understand and enjoy,a poem.

Old Terrain:  An individual’s memories are strictly their own.  They can be shared after they come about, but they are stored and formed only by the individual

New Terrain:  Because we need memory to communicate with others, we exchange visuals with each other and accept other's visuals as factually our own.  This allows us to form relationships with each other and to share in the experience of navigating the world together

Old Terrain:  Memories fade as time goes by

New Terrain:  All memories remain equally vivid because as a visual language, we may need to draw upon any memory, at any time, in order to communicate with someone else, our survival depends on it