Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

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Animavore
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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Animavore » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:50 pm

Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:
Xamonas Chegwé wrote:
Animavore wrote:I have everyone's phone numbers memorised. You never know when an EMP burst is going to take out all our electronics and then how would we be able to contact each other to make sure everyone is safe if we can't remember each other's number?
I used to remember phone numbers. And addresses. And appointments. I heard something once and it stuck. Until I was about 24 - then I couldn't do it anymore. I guess my brain was full and things started dropping out. Up until then I never had a diary, phone or address book - I just remembered everything. I was fucked for years when it stopped.

But that was long before the Interwebz.
The idea of talking about a brain as something that can be 'full', as if ideas and concepts have calories, is weird to me. :(
It's more a question of the number of available synaptic connections being finite. I had an eidetic memory for certain classes of facts - mainly abstract and numeric - between my early teens and mid-twenties. These days I am lucky if I know what day it is today, let alone what day I need to sign on!
You and I wanked to different things.
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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Animavore » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:52 pm

JimC wrote:Gin is a well-known cure for memory problems. Fact!
Sure. You can always rub the lamp and wish those problems away.
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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Hermit » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:59 pm

Animavore wrote:I have everyone's phone numbers memorised. You never know when an EMP burst is going to take out all our electronics and then how would we be able to contact each other to make sure everyone is safe if we can't remember each other's number?
You'll find that an EMP burst will take out the entire phone system.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Animavore » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:44 am

Hermit wrote:
Animavore wrote:I have everyone's phone numbers memorised. You never know when an EMP burst is going to take out all our electronics and then how would we be able to contact each other to make sure everyone is safe if we can't remember each other's number?
You'll find that an EMP burst will take out the entire phone system.
Did you think I didn't know this or are you in on the joke. I can't tell.
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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Hermit » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:46 am

Animavore wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Animavore wrote:I have everyone's phone numbers memorised. You never know when an EMP burst is going to take out all our electronics and then how would we be able to contact each other to make sure everyone is safe if we can't remember each other's number?
You'll find that an EMP burst will take out the entire phone system.
Did you think I didn't know this or are you in on the joke. I can't tell.
Oh! A German joke. You tricky trickster, you.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by cronus » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:02 am

Thinks, probably the porn doing it. Bad now - imagine what all this robot sex will do?
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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by NineBerry » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:17 am

The point about telephone numbers is that you even don't have to dial them anymore, because they are stored on the telephone!

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Re: Digital dependence 'eroding human memory'

Post by Animavore » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:20 am

NineBerry wrote:The point about telephone numbers is that you even don't have to dial them anymore, because they are stored on the telephone!
I remember numbers by the pattern they make when dialled rather than remember the number.
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.

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