TED Talk About Memory

How Shared Knowledge is Formed

This is a diagram of an enzyme. Enzymes are shaped to fit with substrates, sort of like how a puzzle piece in a puzzle set can only be put into a certain slot in order to create the desired image.

I believe that this diagram can be used to represent how shared knowledge is formed on a large scale. The different bits of personal knowledge that exists within a community all are distinct and have different traits, much like how the diagram shows distinctive patterns for the two different shapes. However, these all fit together very well, since these are the areas of knowledge where people agree upon. So, when all of these bits and pieces of personal knowledge that are agreed upon are put together, shared knowledge is the result.

How Personal Knowledge Fits Into Shared Knowledge

I like to think of this as an accurate diagram for the individual's knowledge. The inner circle is his/her own personal knowledge, and the outer circle is the shared knowledge that that person share's with others. Bits of the personal knowledge are all shared with many different people, which is why it is entirely inside of the large circle. If the shared knowledge was only between two individuals, it would most likely be a venn diagram instead, since no two people can know exactly the same things.

Personal Knowledge and Shared Knowledge

Personal knowledge is different for everyone, since no one can live the exact same way as another person. So, my personal knowledge after having lived for 15 years which consists of heavy metal, report cards, parties, and many other things, will never be identical to another person's personal knowledge. However, the overlaps that can form, although they are never complete, are the small spaces where shared knowledge exists. I don't think that shared knowledge has to be shared by many people; even two people knowing the same thing would count for my personal definition of shared knowledge. So, if I meet someone who came from Toronto, then we would be able to have some shared knowledge about Toronto.

Since shared knowledge is the collection of the opinions and observations of two or more people that agree on that subject, it is sometimes assumed for fact. This is completely wrong. What if I agreed with someone else that heavy metal is a great music genre that relieves my stress, but a million other people disagreed and thought that it wasn't even music and was just a sweaty dude head banging and screaming into a microphone? That is an obvious clash of opinions, and neither one is correct; it is simply that many different forms of knowledge can exist, which is where bias and personal opinions come from.

Changing Memories

I think that sometimes, our minds can trick us and tweak our memories. It is done little by little so that we don't know at first, but the ending product of our memories becomes much more different than what it really was. A lot of people say that they want to go back to the past and live in a different time, with the thought that there were no problems in those days, or that they were insignificant enough to not matter at all. I disagree with this, even though I am one of these people myself. I'm only 15, and yet I still want to go back to when I was 7 to re-experience the few golden years that I spent in Canada. Since I was in elementary school, I think that whatever issues I had back then would be tiny in comparison to what I have now, and that may be true. But what I, and most people who have similar thoughts, forget, is that those problems still took up the same amount of my life as the problems that I have today are. If having to sleep at 10 PM and multiplication were the problems that I faced as a seven year-old, then not being able to sleep at 10 PM and logarithmic functions are the problems that I face today. Yes, the seven year-old's problems may seem easier, but, in essence, they are the same.

What I'm trying to say is that if our lives have always had problems, and running away from the current ones into a past self won't solve them, since there were problems in those times, as well. It's just that our perception of these events have changed so that our memories of the past now seem like it was a time of  only bliss and heaven, when really, it wasn't.

Why Should We Care How Memory Functions?

I believe that we should care how memory functions, because it is the only way that we can truly hold on to our past. You can take pictures and look at them in the future, but memory is what really allows you to look back on your life. This is important since your past actions and words dictate how you have lived your life until a certain point and also how you have reached that point. If you do not hold onto your memory, then life would just be a continuous infinity of repetitious events, since you would not remember what you have done and just repeat that same thing again.

So, I believe that memory is a crucial part of our lives that must function in order to keep a constant grasp on our pasts.

Connection with IBH Literature

In IBH Literature, I am currently reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and I found that I could make many connections with the story and our class discussions. The main character, Chief, is schizophrenic, so his memory and perception of the events that happen around him is greatly altered by his illness. When Chief's schizophrenia acts up, he refers to it as the "fog machine": everything and everyone is covered in the fog. Although it is a metaphorical fog, for Chief, it could be seen as a way where his perception is affected. He is partially blinded by this fog and because of this, he sees his surroundings in a different way from what they really are. For example, in his psychopathic ward, he once saw the entire building covered in machines, knives, and murder. Although the ward was a terrible place to be in, it was obviously not a place where murder occurred. However, in the eyes of Chief, he perceived it as so, since the "fog" had affected him at the time.

Memory is also a big part of the story, as flashbacks to Chief's past are mentioned many times. He was the son of a Native American chief, which is why he is called Chief as well. However, unlike with the fog, his memories seem to be unaffected by his illness. He can clearly remember certain events of his past, such as a government visit to his father, where Native American property was sought after. This perhaps shows how he may treasure his past more than his present, since he holds a tight grasp over this compared to his present.