each breath is an episode in many: sorted and sequenced in giving you an identity
Who you were, are and hope to be is balanced on a number of things but none more so critical perhaps, than your memory. A striking aspect of sentience and physiology as a repressible conductor at the centre of an orchestra. One in which many parts organise to form an account of moments and minutes, in marking time. Yes; what, when, where, why, which and of course, how, zip along queues while being processed. So, how does a life and ‘alive’ meet with the detail of a memory, and how do we arrive at our changing identities?
Questions of storage and recall have occupied philosophers since the time of Aristotle, and so in his circa 330 BC work ‘On Memory and Recollection’, he discusses the nature of memory, in terms of manifestation. What does it actually do, on a daily basis? How, does it help or hinder us? Well, fast forward to modern times and in research spanning fifty years, a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York, suggested that in order for long-term memories to establish, new proteins are formed by neurons allowing for extra ‘lanes’ and an increase, in the flow of neurotransmitters. With this, Eric Kandel could have told Aristotle why if anything he was able to remember certain aspects of his parents, long after they were dead.
He would have fascinated the old sage further with the fact that our neural circuitry is surprisingly flexible and in a Nobel Lecture, in 2000, he said:
‘In all three forms of learning, we found particularly large changes in the synaptic strength of the direct connections between the sensory and motor neurons of the reflex. We therefore focused on this one component of the reflex and found several additional principles that have proven to be quite general. First, we found that the same synaptic connection can be modulated in opposite ways by different forms of learning.’
Well, beyond nimble and flexible synapses another feature of memory is ‘Distributed Cognition Theory’. So, just imagine, for instance, the simplicity of waking up each morning. As you open your eyes, you’ll gauge the light intensity of the room; your position in the bed and the proximity of your bed-mate, should you have one. As you swing your legs into the air, you’ll measure the depth to the floor and your body’s Cartesian position, in relation. Then, in going through a door, you’ll know exactly where to place yourself to avoid a collision with the frame while swerving the glass table, on the other side. A point you’ve connected with before and felt pain.
As you can see, distributed cognition is the idea that our sensory equipment stretches beyond the confines of our minds. It’s an interesting point as it merges with whatever external world we happen to be in, as a constant feedback loop runs.
‘Rather than being a kind of cognition, distributed cognition is a manner of thinking about cognition that permits one to examine the relationships between what is in the mind and the world the mind is in.’
E. Hutchins
Existentially, this might be as descriptive as it gets and where an organism orientates itself through space and time according to information processed, at a fantastic rate. This is an adaptive system within a system within a system, ad infinitum, meaning if ever there was an admiring reason to believe in a clear-sighted watchmaker, this could be it. It’s a sublime feeling of consciousness within consciousness and where Jung’s archetypes roam free.
In the introduction to his 1996 book, ‘Cognition in the Wild’, Edwin Hutchins, a professor of cognitive science at the university of California also said:
‘I have in mind the distinction between the laboratory, where cognition is studied in captivity, and the everyday world, where human cognition adapts to its natural surroundings. I hope to invoke with this metaphor a sense of ecology of thinking in which, human cognition interacts with an environment rich in organizing resources.’
Language learning also seems like a good example of the interface between cognitive functioning and environmental information processing. In fact, all learning is representative while absorbing the rules of language requires a specific set of overlapping functions.
So, imagine you were born into spatial oblivion with the only colour being black or white or whatever you chose. Suppose there were no dimensional reference points or echo-locating sounds or odours pushing or pulling you, this way or that. What if, you had nothing to tangibly feel or tangentially target or no-one to know, to hurt or be hurt by? What kind of brain circuitry would you have if there were no allusions to physical pain? What type of existence could be defined by this or any or all of that? Well, legal battles have raged over this precise, existential question. As loved ones argue a right to be here, experts determine the value of that according to experiences we know to be real. So, it seems the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ of these matters are eternally subjective and heartbreakingly objective.
However, legal consciousness in its simplest form, is the idea of the validity of law and as with many things relating to consciousness, it’s variously defined with the basic idea essentially the same. How, is the law perceived and what bearing does it have on memory and behaviour? For those loved ones, the term applies differently perhaps but overall, it’s a reflection of our distributed cognition which is inherently subjective by a number of measures.
Yet, one of the most notable arguments over not just consciousness but human consciousness erupted when Jane Goodall, the world-famous primatologist, discovered rudimentary tool use in chimpanzees, in 1960. Granted, they weren’t slamming nails into planks of two-by-four but their ingenuity in converting plant stems to probes that termites could attack while being pulled from their holes, sent shock waves around the world. Then, over the years, as other researchers validated her work that included the teaching of memory-driven tool use: an understanding of not only our place on the planet but also our distributed cognition, continues to be shaped.
In fact, it seems painfully clear that as a special and not so special creature writhing in the contradiction of that, we humans are unable to grasp the simple essence of our story. With environments different to anything our ancestors would recognise: our relationships with those surroundings rest on an interactive perspective. An almost ethereal sense of understanding about cause and effect, that’s retained for future use.
Aristotle, once said:
‘Memory, is the scribe of the soul’
Well, if that’s truly the case, our environments are the pages unblank.
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Images:
Memorable Thoughts, by Alana Jordan, Pixabay – Main Image
Old Photographs, by kaboompics, Pixabay
Many Faces, by Cottonbro, pIxabay
References:
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