The Estopa sang and sing that “time and oblivion are like twin brothers” and they ended with a melancholic “and what a shame I am, if I no longer remember.” The Muñoz brothers, like many others, sing of oblivion. This is a metaphorical forgetfulness, whether out of spite or sadness after a breakup. The same one that the Pimpinela appeal to when they demand “forget my name” or Miguel Bosé when he asks “forget me, I can’t.” But what about literal forgetting, the one that erases precious memories – or not – and that, irremediably, steals a little of the essence of the forgetter?
Memory “constitutes, creates and structures the substance of each person’s personal history”, as Aristotle said, who was the first Greek philosopher – following the path opened by Plato – to determine the importance of memories for experience and personality generation. We are the accumulation of things we have done, lived, experienced and made mistakes. But, also, forgotten.
Adding a memory has an impact on our personality, but if that same personality forgets something, does it return to being the same as it was before learning it or is a new version generated? Is there any place in the unconscious where the memory is still latent? What affects us more, losing memories while being aware of the loss or without being aware of it? What happens to us when we recover memories?
All these questions have been asked for centuries by philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, biologists and artists, since memory and forgetting are transversal issues in various disciplines. Although they are now mainly the province of biology because we understand that the generation and destruction of memories occur in the brain, a few centuries ago we still thought that this matter was the province of the soul.
Although Plato attributed memory loss to bad decisions of the soul, today we know that all this is generated in the brain.
Plato spoke at length about this, starting from the basis that the soul was eternal and, therefore, could store memories of past lives. “Having been born many times, and actually seen all things, both here and in Hades, [el alma] “There is nothing I haven’t learned.” In this way, the call ‘Reminiscence Theory’ It explained the social notions, morality and certain behaviors that human beings have ‘as standard’.
But this coin had another side that terrified the Greek world: oblivion. We know the soul because it is linked to the body, to the tangible, but if it is detached from it it is susceptible to being completely forgotten. And since it is eternal, our soul – that is, our essence – will survive in oblivion until the end of days.
But the thing doesn’t end there. By losing our soul, we lose all the knowledge acquired by it during all its past lives. That fear is not as untimely as it might seem. Human beings continue to worry about not transcending, about falling into oblivion once they die. Just as we are also terrified of losing our memory. But, although Plato attributed the loss of knowledge to bad decisions of the soul, today we know that all this is created in the brain.
The Brain Treasure Chamber
Amnesia, Alzheimer’s, dementia, dissociation… Today the loss of memory or memories has a name, diagnosis and – in some cases – treatment. The causes can be physical or emotional. “The mind is very complex and has its protection mechanisms,” says Enric Soler, professor of psychology at the UOC. His knowledge of the subject comes from his studies, but also from his own experience. Soler suffered from dissociative amnesia, a type of selective forgetting, usually linked to traumatic experiences. In his case it was sexual abuse in childhood.
“When you experience an episode of trauma and are not prepared to face it, your personality fractures into various pieces,” says Soler. Some fragments of who we are remain hidden in the subconscious and the one that continues to function is the so-called ‘Apparently Normal Personality’, which is what allows us to cope with instrumental aspects of life.
When you experience an episode of trauma and are not prepared to face it, your personality fractures into various pieces. It’s like having a part of your heart necrotic: you can live like that, but fully
Enric Soler
— Professor of psychology at the UOC
In other words: to outside eyes, everything seems to be going well, but the part of the personality that governs emotional development is blocked. “It’s like having a part of your heart necrotic. You can live like this, but not fully,” explains Soler. Without knowing why, those who have a blocked memory have difficulty relating, trusting, or developing self-esteem. And the brain not only protects us by removing ourselves from trauma, but also by limiting our social functions to prevent us from exposing ourselves to danger again.
The person who has delved deeper into this matter is the Dutch psychologist Onno Van der Hart, who devised the ‘Theory of Structural Dissociation’. What we have experienced and, obviously, what is traumatic marks our personality, but it is also marked by what is forgotten. Memories are stored in what the psychologist called Emotional Personality, which is what governs the management of stimuli and what allows us to relate normally.
But if there is dissociative amnesia, this part of the personality stops functioning since its task now is to protect us from a painful memory that should not come to light until our Emotional Personality has fully developed. Therefore, in the case of childhood sexual abuse, the memory can take decades to come to light. “There is always a trigger. In my case it was seeing my abuser on TV,” confesses the psychologist.
Can memories be found?
Forgetfulness can come for emotional reasons, but also for physical reasons. Consciousness develops in the brain and, if damaged, can take memories with it. The cerebral cortex is the most external part and is where learning, memories or rationality are stored. It is the most exposed area and can be affected – temporarily or permanently – after an accident, potentially causing memory loss.
In that case, all is not lost. As Van der Hart pointed out, memories and emotions are closely linked. And precisely emotion is what our brain cares about most. It is managed from the amygdala, “the most enigmatic and protected part,” according to Soler. Everything that is not controlled by reason but by the subconscious is created there. What we think in outbursts, what we say when we are passionate and the feelings that come to us for no apparent reason.
So, even though people with dementia or Alzheimer’s may forget the face or name of their children, “when they are with them they feel the same as before losing their memory. The feeling remains, the problem is that you need the cerebral cortex to be able to express it,” says psychologist Soler. A smell, a dish or an image can be enough to stimulate the amygdala and remind our brain that it has – or had – a memory, even if it does not remember it.
As much as people with dementia or Alzheimer’s may forget the face or name of their children, when they are with them they feel the same as before losing their memory. The feeling remains
Enric Soler
— Professor of psychology at the UOC
Nowadays, by always carrying a camera with you in format smartphonewe should not trust our brain to save memories, but we can leave them to the cloud – apparently more reliable. But photography has not always been a resource available to everyone and there are many memories of past generations that only exist in the brains of those who lived them.
Aware of this and, at the same time, of the power of the image, the Domestic Data Streamers collective from Barcelona has carried out the ‘Memories Sintétiques’ project that, through Artificial Intelligence, can recreate memories and turn them into photographs. This not only allows us to treasure the collective memory before time – and death – erase them, but it also serves as an exercise to prevent and alleviate the effects of the disease and, in some cases, recover things that were thought to be lost.
For this reason, this group made up of young developers from Barcelona has taken its project to nursing homes and therapeutic spaces for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia. “It’s called reminiscence therapy. Old photos, food, smells or music help you get in touch with memories you still have,” explains Pau Garcia, founder of Domestic Data Streamers.
Although these are diseases that still have no cure, these types of treatments reduce depression and anxiety in patients. This is what they have discovered thanks to a research network that they share with the universities of Toronto and British Columbia. Now they are studying the ethical and medical parameters to see at what time and progression of the disease it is best to apply this therapy.
What is not remembered, did it really exist?
‘Memories Sintètiques’ is not only used on patients, but was also available to all citizens. In a free session at the Hub del Disseny museum in Barcelona, Domestic Data Streamers did a one-hour interview with anyone who wanted to have a photograph of a specific memory. One of them was Maria Rosa, 88 years old, convinced by her grandson Ignasi.
His childhood and adolescence only survive in his memory. Just like the first meeting with her husband, whom she met at a town festival. Only she knows the music that was playing, the clothes they were wearing and the brand of cigarettes he smoked while he saw her dance for the first time, minutes before falling in love.
“What is your first childhood memory?” This is how the interview begins, in which two girls ask him about a story, while they enter terms into the image generator. “Post war”, “kids cycling” or “narrow street”. The questions are precise to ensure that the image is as exact as possible and, in this way, they force the memory to work and extract information that has been hidden for a long time.
After a few minutes, the image is ready. It is true that there are details that are not exactly as they were, but the photograph is a fairly reliable portrait of Maria Rosa’s memories. “It’s nice to see something again that, although it’s not exact, I thought I wouldn’t see again,” says the woman.
The photograph she holds in her hands is a precious gift for her, but also for future generations. Because another of the objectives of ‘Memories Sintètiques’ is to nourish the social cerebral cortex of the society of the future, which is none other than the databases from which, for example, Artificial Intelligence is fed.
“We have problems recreating memories from certain times or continents like Africa or Asia. These databases, being fed almost exclusively by young Western people, are very biased. And if we do not educate Artificial Intelligence, it will be as if certain cultures do not exist,” says Garcia. Or as if they had never existed.
This is important, because as psychologist Enric Soler assures, collective memory works exactly the same as individual memory. And society can also forget. Whether it is something traumatic or something that is not given enough importance, such as the history of certain areas or communities. When society ignores these realities, the same thing happens as when the soul was separated from the body in Platonic philosophy: it was condemned to oblivion. To nothing. Or what is the same: to have never existed.
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