Erasing memory and lessons learnt
Hi,
I’m new to all this and slowly reading all the information I can. I was wondering if someone could shed some light on a thought I had.
Evolution favours those who can adapt to their environment which basically means that considering transhumanism we would have to become integrated with computers in order to adapt with our future environment.
Fast forwards a few decades and we have nanotechnology available. I read that these nanbots will be able to retrieve memories stored in our brains.
So if we have the power to do that then we must have the power to erase certain memories, maybe personal traumas like accidents in the past etc.
But what about the lessons learnt from these events? If we are able to delete those traumas from our memory would the lessons learnt also be deleted from our memory due to the association with the trauma?
Just thinking out loud 
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Total Comments: (5)
Date Started: August 23, 2011 - 11:06 am
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Comments
What you resist persists.
I believe you ask an excellent question. I, too, have wondered about erasing memories.
Just to share my personal guess, I wonder if we won’t put memories we don’t like in storage somehow. That is, we won’t lose them entirely. Just put them into backup media where they don’t trouble us.
Then, if we really needed them sometime, we could retrieve them.
As for me, well, there are lots of events from my teenage years…mostly involving asking for not getting dates…that I’d be happy to consign to Siberia
victor s.
victor-storiguard.blogspot.com
It is not uncommon to know something and forgot how did you learn it.
Do you remember learning to walk? Do you remember when did you learn what continents are there and what is a galaxy? Most information that you process is gradually forgotten, leaving only the most important (for you) elements. It proves that it is possible to know something and do not know how and when you have learned it. So advanced nanotechnology might provide that.
“Lessons learnt”
By this I suppose you mean the sophistication as well as data related to the event (ie. don’t get in the ‘Free-Candy Van’).
As for the sophistication, PTSD is an augmentation of the endocrine system and HPA. Even if the memories are wiped, the hormonal response remains. Flashbacks might not occur, but the crippling stress would (which is how a lot of people experience it anyway).
As for the data, the story of what happened, one can know of the incident and simply not remember the experience. A person can know that they went in a Free-Candy Van and that there was no candy, but have no memory of the event.
By the way, this is already a reality using drugs and there are ethical debates on this. The most viable drug is one that is taken shortly after a traumatic event.
As for evolution, I pose that transhumanism transcends the classic environment driven evolution. Sexual Selection and Kin Selection are examples of form brought about by the mind of the species, not the environment. Environment is not what caused women to develop expressed mammary glands outside lactation, put the spots on peacocks, or gave the Irish Elk its antlers. Self-directed evolution incorporating technology is going beyond the passive role. We also see our species replicating environments, so an environment’s survival can depend on its ability to adapt to us.
oh, and welcome to the rabbit hole. hope you brought an umbrella.
First off you have to consider that evolution is a theory. SOme aspects of evolution are fact, such as the adaptation idea. We know that certain species outpace others and compete for survival. But that doesn’t prove that genes are accidental. It proves that apart of gene selection is, but not entirely. Personally I think that genes are somewhat intelligent, and are not totally random.
As for adaptation, your enviroment always changes, technology is one way of adaptation, and so of course we will integrate. But it won’t be the answer to all our problems. In fact it could be a problem in itself, because what if you program erroneous belief into the system, and it is incapable of recognizing it? We have to be careful.
On another note, did you read the article that explaine how rats memory sequencces were recorded and then zapped into another rats head? In this way some rats were able to solve puzzles correctly which they had never encountered. Sharing memories I think is possible and likely, we already do it in speech and literature do we not? We’ll be able to do it with greater purity and sensation.
As for your last question, who knows? If the memory has already changed you, and has ceased doing so directly, then it may not matter. But if the memory is always changing you, it will. I don’t think you can completely erase the impact of anything you’ve encountered though.