Visualizing  the  Memory:  History  and  Storytelling  as  Self-­Preservation

Lena  ZlockMarch  4th,  2014Watch  the  video  here-­  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0OReLx_VJc

Figure  1:  Overview  of  the  Memory  Diagram

This is experimental philosophy at best: an imperfect, fearless science at worst. This is                          

a diagram of the memory in two parts: Current Memory and Historical Memory (or                          

Historical imagination). Current Memory refers to what you are experiencing right now on                        

the conscious level-­ reading this text, tapping your foot, absorbing the scent of cold coffee,                            

peering at your table lamp. Current Memory is everything you have ever known, including                          

things you cannot recall to the fore of consciousness at this very moment. It stretches all the                                

way to the back of your conscious existence, to your earliest childhood memories, or as far                              

ago as you can remember. If you made a timeline of everything you could remember, the                              

first  data  on  that  timeline  would  be  the  “back”  of  your  memory.

Historical Memory is what you learned has happened. The difference between                    

Current and Historical Memory is that Current Memory is something you can naturally                        

recall happening to you. Historical memory is something you were told happened-­ you do not                            

remember experiencing it, or did not experience it all together. Instead, you are given this                            

recollection and your mind processes it into the historical memory deposit. In examining the                          

elements  of  the  memory  diagram,  I  will  argue:

● Man  is  inherently  an  individual  creature

● “History”-­ external to Current Memory and storytelling (including Current                

Memory)  are  mechanisms  of  self-­preservation

There are three parts to the Memory Diagram. A disclaimer-­ this diagram was                        

constructed without reference to neuroscientific, psychological, or other forms of                  

research.  It  is  based  off  observation.

Part  1:  The  Current  Memory

As explained above, the current memory is everything to the back of your                        

existence, as recorded by your mind. Imagine your mind and memory are like a                          

continuous Tetris game (hence the unbroken red arrow). The senses you are                      

bombarded with at a millisecond rate are the Tetrominos (Tetris pieces). For every                        

millisecond, the receiving mechanisms in your body are processing that data and                      

trying to make sense of it. What environment are you in? Are you safe? Are there                              

predators? Is anybody beside you? Do you know them? What do you smell? Is it toxic                              

fumes, or a really nice piece of steak? These sense Tetrominos are falling on top of one                                

another, often falling into place, often landing awkwardly. From the construction of the                        

Tetrominos you form a perception of yourself vis-­á-­vis your environmental state                    

(physical and mental). Literature of the self captures how the self changes in                        

correspondence with the environment. To quote Lost by Coldplay, “you might be a big                          

fish in little pond.” To the universe, you are a microscopic speck. Because our positions                            

are constantly changing, so is our “self.” In other words, the self is shaped initially by                              

the current memory-­ there is no fixed person. You can also see it like weaving a                              

tapestry ad infinitum. In a tapestry, you might want to establish a pattern. Humans                          

are creatures of pattern, because fundamentally we are trying to make sense of                        

things. These patterns can form preconceptions and biases. In turn, the                    

preconceptions and biases form opinion building blocks, that we use to confront the                        

world within and without us. Your Tetris game is unique because only you can occupy                            

that  square  of  space  in  that  second  of  time.

Why do we want to make sense of things? From a common-­sense evolutionary                        

standpoint, we want to survive. We need to know, and we need to know what is right                                

for us as individuals Naturally, what is right for one person is fatal for another.                            

Rousseau put it best-­ “Man’s first concern is his self-­preservation.” This concern is                        

foundational to his psychology. So what does it mean that we shape our world                          

outside-­inside-­out (or inside-­out, if you are introspective)? It means the Renaissance                    

catchphrase, “Man is the measure of all things.” Everything we see, everything we do:                          

everything we name, shape, create is a function of our imagination. There is no                          

objective reality that exists outside of your head. Take the planets. You see a round                            

thing in the sky, you call it a planet (or what your linguistic impulses tell you to). You                                  

ascribe to it a certain color, you form ideas about what its essence. You will probably                              

ask if it is harmful. “What happens if I eat it?” (Hint: you die). Good on you if you can                                      

convince somebody else this is indeed the truth about the round thing in the sky                            

(especially if Person #2 argues it is an oval, that blasphemer!). The bumper sticker is                            

wise  in  telling  us  that  perspective  is  what  matters.

Stopping short of the metaphysical quagmire, what else can we extract from                      

the Current Memory hypothesis? We fear the unknown: this takes perfect form in the                          

idea of death. Like huge numbers, the idea of ceasing to exist-­ the hum of you drops                                

flat-­ is beyond mind’s grasp. At least from an empirical standpoint, we have no idea                            

about what happens on a deeply psychological level when you die. Where does your                          

memory go? Do ghosts exist? Certain religions and spiritualities give us a consolation                        

about  post-­death,  but  that  is  a  separate  conversation.

The idea of death is anathema to the purpose of memory, which is finding what                            

is right and what we can know (momentarily brushing aside Hume’s causation                      

problem  and  all  of  epistemology).  Current  Memory  is  a  function  of  self-­preservation.

   Part  1(a):  The  Back  of  the  Memory

Always fuzzy, always changing. But imagine this-­ you do not know if you are                          

losing your memory. Thinking of something and forgetting what it is (“I am trying to                            

remember what planets have diamond showers” ) is not losing your memory, but                      1

rather acknowledging one aspect of the Tetromino piece. The back wall separates                      

1  Answer:  Saturn  and  Jupiter.

Current  Memory  from  Historical  Memory  and  Imagination.

Part  2:  Historical  Memory  and  Imagination

The blue arrow, unlike the red arrow, is broken. Historical Memory is not a                          

Tetris Game, but a jigsaw puzzle plus 100 bonus pieces. We learn it in fits and starts,                                

bits and chunks. Innately, we do not feel “history” is a part of us, like Current                              

Memory is: it happened in the past, it is behind us. This is at once the struggle of a                                    

history teacher, and the core failure of modern social studies education. If we are                          

zooming along on the current memory continuum, theoretically why should we care                      

about what happened behind us and is now stuck in the past? The historian will object                              

and say that is history is relevant 24/7, but you cannot blame the middle schooler                            

disenchanted with “old dead guys” and “dusty things.” The natural approach to events                        

external  to  Current  Memory  is  cemented  in  the  education  system.

Nevertheless, Historical Memory and Imagination are also tools of                

self-­preservation. But because of their external nature to the self, they are more liable                          

for plying, skewing, arts, and crafts. On the individualism premise above, “history” is                        

entirely subjective. When brought through storytelling, we try to fit it alongside the                        

Tetris game-­ what we know, what we need to know, what we want to know.                            

Storytelling is an art, and all art is political. While on the surface we might claim to tell                                  

a story for the sake of its survival, we are telling it to affirm our beliefs.                              

Fundamentally, why we tell stories is to reflect and make sense of things. What                          

connects the Tetris game to the Jigsaw puzzle is putting together the pieces, just at                            

different speeds. If we knew everything the moment we were born, there would be no                            

mind,  brain,  or  imagination,  just  a  simple  shuffle  from  birth  to  death  without  a  clue.