Friday, 1 July 2011

The memory-keeper’s story

In answering this Foer recounts interviews with medical curios such as EP, then an 84-year-old amnesiac, now deceased—so grievously afflicted that he could not remember anything said or done beyond a few seconds. Another interviewee and EP’s antithesis is Kim Peek, a savant and autistic (and inspiration for the Dustin Hoffman-starrer Rainman) who’s memorized close to 9,000 books line-for-line, but barely understands a fraction of them.

What we pick and choose from the infinite sensations that bombard us is what defines us. Sure, our brain has a tremendous capacity to absorb a kaleidoscopic breadth of trivia and sensations. But it is in filtering out most of these and mixing and matching what we retain, that intelligence comes into play.
Then again, if what we remember is who we are, shouldn’t our blogs, our lovingly accumulated book collections and our iPhones—which “remember” the dates, contact details, messages of our personal networks—count as valid extensions of our brain and consciousness? In choosing what we remember, how much—and at what peril—are we editing out information that matters? We may be collectively more knowledgeable than our ancestors, but are we individually smarter? With the increasing externalization of knowledge, what shifts are under way in the way our brain processes information?
Several of these intriguing questions are only partially addressed. Ultimately, this is a work of narrative fiction, not a scholarly treatise on evolutionary or cognitive psychology and—to underline—the closing chapters detail the Memory Championship, the formidable competition, Foer’s eccentric training crew and his eventual triumph. All this, compared with the philosophical meat in the middle of the book, is at best amusing. That said, as a pleasant introduction to the mysteries of the brain and how neuroscience tries to answer what makes us who we are, few books offer as much thoughtful entertainment as this one.

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