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Hey, I'm Sean, host of the Gray Area,

coming to you this week from a balcony

in sunny Denver, Colorado. For the show

this week, I talked to Charon Ranganoth.

He's a neuroscientist and author of the

book Why We Remember. It's one of my

favorite conversations we've had in a

while. It's a terrific book about how

memory works, why we remember what we

remember, and why we forget what we

forget, and how much of our memory is

actually just us making stuff up, and

how all of that shapes our identities as

individuals and also really as

societies. Anyway, it's terrific. I

think you'll love it. I did. And I'll

see you next week.

>> Dr. Shron Ragenoth, welcome to the show.

>> Thanks for having me, Sean. It's a

pleasure. Uh it's been too long since we

had a legit full-blown scientist on the

show. U

>> lots of pressure there.

>> Yeah, you got to carry the banner. Um

let's get into this wonderful book um

you wrote. I learned a lot. And

one of the things you say very early on

is that

the most important message to come out

of the whole science of memory isn't

that we should remember more, which is

what everyone just naturally wants to

do. You say that we actually have the

wrong expectation about what memory is

actually for. So I just wanted to start

there. What is memory for?

>> Well, I can tell you what it's not for.

And this is where the wrong expectation

comes in. It's not for storing and

hoarding every experience from the past.

It's about really giving us a resource

that we can draw upon to understand

what's happening right here and now and

to plan ahead and to anticipate what

could happen in the future.

>> So when

people say I have a bad memory, my

memory sucks, my memory is spotty. What

do you think they're actually

misunderstanding about how memory

functions?

>> Yeah, I mean it's a great question. I

have that voice in my head too that says

I have a terrible memory, right? But uh

I've been saying that for a long time

and I never struggled in school. Um I

could always remember things that I

needed to for work for instance. And it

wasn't so much that I had a bad memory

as much as I couldn't always remember

what I felt was important in the moment

when I needed it. And I think that's

what sometimes people feel. Uh but if

somebody really has a bad memory, like a

bad memory, they couldn't function in

life, they couldn't work, they couldn't

live independently. And I know cuz I've

I've tested people and I've I've

interviewed patients with bad really bad

clinically bad memories and they just

can't function. So I think often when I

see people complain about their memory,

they're often hyperfunctioning people

who just feel like they should be

remembering everything. And so that

that's what I'm talking about is I'm

really addressing those people.

So if a truly bad memory means you can't

function as an adult in the world, fair

enough. But clearly some memories are

better than others, right? Or or is the

mistake my mistake insisting on using

words like better or worse?

>> That's exactly the mistake is using

words like better or worse, right? So

it's often and I say that meaning that

people often conflate more with better.

So here here's a good example of this,

right? So there's people who have what's

called highly superior autobiographical

memory. So these are people who can go

back years into the past and recall from

a particular date like what they did for

what they had for breakfast or you know

who won a baseball game that day and

what the score was, the weather um that

day. Um all of these details that most

uh neurotypical people would not

remember, right? And so you'd think,

okay, these people have a great memory.

Uh but for one, they don't in the sense

that if you ask them to learn a new

language, they will probably learn at

the same speed as anyone who doesn't

have highly superior autobiographical

memory. Um based on the research that's

out there so far, there doesn't seem to

be some kind of a benefit that makes

them just better at everything. Um, the

second thing is we know if you look at

reports from people with highly superior

autobiographical memory, it's not like

they're like Bradley Cooper on

Limitless. They're not like uh

controlling the world. They're not any

more happy or successful than other

people as far as we can tell. And if

anything, they're a little bit plagued

by this memory because they often will

ruminate about things that happened,

even very minor things that happened

that were negative. And so, is that a

better memory? I mean, some people

online I've seen have described it as a

curse that they wouldn't wish on anyone.

>> Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be, you

know, Rainman or or Bradley Cooper here.

Um, but I'm sure I'm not alone.

>> Well, I wouldn't be I wouldn't mind

being Bradley Cooper for a day, but

I'm sure he has his own issues.

Everybody does, right?

>> Fair. Um, it would be fun to be more

handsome for a day. But sorry about

that. Uh my question would be why is it

that I can have near photographic

memories about certain things uh certain

books, certain events, other mostly

random stupid trivial stuff and have so

little capacity so often to remember

things like faces and names even though

I'd very much like to remember faces and

names. And I think there are very good

reasons, moral, uh, social, whatever, to

remember faces and names. And yet I just

consistently

botch it. U, why is that?

>> Well, there's a whole lot of reasons.

But, um, if we, uh, talk about the

problem of faces and names, this is

something that everyone who complains

about memory, this is the first thing

that comes up. So, you're not alone.

Essentially, when we're trying to pull

information from memory, we have a

challenge which is that memories compete

with each other. So any experience that

we have uh there's all sorts of

competition for it. And just as an

analogy, you know, my desk right now,

I'm trying to gather information for my

taxes cuz I postpone them and I spend a

good amount of time trying to find

things all the time, right? And so

memory can be thought of in a very

similar way that when you have a lot of

similar things cluttered around and not

organized, you're going to have a lot of

competition, a lot of trouble finding

it. But if there was one thing that

truly stood out here, like if I had a

violin amidst all these other things, I

would be able to find that pretty

easily, right? Um, so here's the problem

now getting back to faces and names is

we hear many many similar names.

Sometimes the same name attached to

multiple faces, right? And faces are

exceptionally similar to one another.

There's obviously your face is different

from mine, but we both have two eyes, we

have a nose, we have mouths. And even

amongst, you know, people we know well,

there's often a lot of similarity. Uh so

now we have a real problem is that we

have a bunch of faces that kind of are

similar to each other. There's a number

of names that are similar to one another

that we've seen in the past. And the

association between a name and a face is

just utterly ridiculous, right? I mean,

how do you there's nothing meaningful

linking a name to a face. So if you met

somebody whose name was Baker, you know,

hundreds of years ago, that would be

easier because at least they were

probably baking bread and you know, or

Smith would be the guy who's making your

suit of armor or your swords or

whatever, right? And so now there's just

no link between names and faces. There's

nothing meaningful there. So that's why

it's so hard.

>> How differently does memory function at

different stages of life? I think we all

understand that memory declines

uh as we get older, but there are

certain kinds of memory that seem to

hold up better than others as we age,

right? What is the reason for that?

>> Let's get into the different kinds of

memory first of all. So, um there's many

different kinds of memory. memory

researchers love to slice them and dice

them in different ways, but one that I

think is meaningful, especially when we

talk about development, is the

distinction between what's called

semantic memory and episodic memory. And

so semantic memory might be like, you

know, remembering uh something about,

let's say, like uh um you know, a

history lesson that you took when you

were in high school and remembering the

facts about World War II or being able

to build knowledge about like uh

computers or something like that and

that kind of expertise that you can

build up. Uh, but episodic memory is the

ability to link something to one

particular moment in time, like a movie

that you saw about World War II when you

were on a strange date when you were in

college or something and for some reason

you decided to see an old showing of

Midway or whatever it is, right? Um, and

those particular events that are unique

to a place in a time are called episodic

memories. And so when people say their

memory gets worse as they get older,

they're almost always talking about

episodic memory, which is that uh people

when you get older, you find yourself

more forgetful, misplacing things and

not being able to remember where they

were or not being able to remember faces

and names. Semantic memory actually

remains solid and even kind of improves

a little bit as people get older. um

that knowledge about the world. It's not

like when you're 70, you lose knowledge

about all the things that you've

learned, all that wisdom, so to speak,

right? So, what you do lose though is

the ability to pull up those facts

sometimes. And so, you'll end up being

like, I know the name of that actor, but

I can't get it. It's that guy who's in

that thing. And that happens a lot, too.

And that's not a issue of losing the

memory or not being able to form

semantic memories as much as it is a

problem of not being able to pull up

that information. And that has to do

with something else altogether which we

call executive function. And in fact,

that's actually probably one of the

biggest reasons why memory gets episodic

memory gets worse as you get older is

you lose that ability to regulate your

attention, that ability to pull up

strategies, that ability to kind of like

not just make memories, but make

memories useful. And that's related to

the functions of an area called the

prefrontal cortex. And the prefrontal

cortex's function starts to decline

pretty much from the age of 30. And it's

a gradual decline in most people that

continues throughout the lifespan.

>> I'm on the wrong side of that.

>> Yeah, me too. I always tell people the

biggest memory hack I can give is to

tell people what do you want? Tell ask

yourself what do I want to remember in

the first place? What's the important

thing that I need to take away from

this? If you came in to a cocktail party

and you knew you wanted to be a good

person and meet all, you know, get to

know the names of all the people you

meet and remember them, then start with

that intention. Most people think that

they'll get the memories for free and

that's just wrong. There are studies

showing that the happiness and

satisfaction we get from the outcomes of

our decisions do not come as you might

expect from what we actually experienced

but rather it comes from what we

remember.

That seems like a pretty significant

finding. What is the explanation for

that?

Well, memory really is so transient. And

what I mean by this is is that we don't

forget everything, right? But we forget

many of the details very, very quickly.

Some of the earliest studies of memory

showed that in fact within about one

hour of memorizing things that you would

lose about 60% of what you tried to

memorize.

>> Now, think about that. That's like 60%

of the details of your experiencing self

at this moment gone in an hour right

now. That doesn't mean that you don't

remember anything. But uh Danny Conaman

who won the Nobel Prize in economics, he

was actually said a lot of smart things

about memory. Like he just said smart

things about a lot of things, but one

was memory where he said people

generally remember the beginnings and

the endings and the highs and the lows.

And that in some ways is the important

stuff that you need for making a

decision, not necessarily every bit of

experience.

>> One takeaway for me here is is that the

stories we tell ourselves u the the

narratives that make up our memory

really matter in terms of our

well-being. And that would seem to mean

that we could gain more happiness in

life by deliberately focusing on the

right things by trying to remember the

right things. Um

>> I think that was a beautiful way of

putting it. Um I like to say that memory

is more like a painting than a

photograph. You know, there's a famous

painting by Van Go of this uh French

church, and I like to show this

sometimes when I'm talking to people uh

and people will immediately recognize

the painting as one of the church,

right? But it by no means is exactly

like the church that's there. I mean,

there's a lot of stuff that's could be

thought of as missing or distorted

relative to what's in the church itself,

what what it looks like, but there's a

lot that's just his perspective that's

in there. And that's what makes a

painting beautiful in some ways is stuff

that's neither accurate nor inaccurate,

but it's just how the person sees the

world. He painted it at night. You could

have just as easily painted it in the

morning. You could paint it from a

different point of view. You could paint

it small. You could paint it big. You

could look at one door, you know? And

every time we remember an event, we're

creating a new painting, right? So often

people will tell me about good and bad

memories, good and bad experiences, but

that can change. And I think even though

that seems a little bit

counterintuitive, I think many of us

have had times in our life which were

objectively

bad, sometimes terrible, and we can look

back on that from a completely different

point of view. So in my book I talk

about an experience which just like

almost everything that could go wrong

did go wrong when I was going on this

paddle boarding expedition

almost died you know in that thing and

now it's a pretty funny story I really

like to share it. Yeah. Well that that

story actually in the book made me think

about

trauma and memory and even worse kinds

of traumatic experiences than

>> than that. Right. Right. I mean, so for

someone who's been through uh real

trauma, uh just terrible, terrible

trauma, forgetting

can feel impossible. I mean, how do

traumatic memories differ from ordinary

memories in the brain? Do they differ at

all?

>> Oh, they do for sure. Um for one thing,

the brain is wired in a way to

preferentially keep memories for things

that are emotionally significant. And

the reason is our emotions are tied to

they're not equivalent to but they're

tied to these motivational circuits in

our brain that are trying to keep us

alive, right? And so um often when

people have a traumatic event, they feel

an exist existential threat and they're

often arousing or stressful. And there's

chemicals in our brain that are released

during these experiences.

Noradrenaline's one. Um cortisol is a

stress hormone. There's gobs of hormones

that are released during stress. Uh, but

there's also exciting kind of more

positive experiences like that kind of

moment when you're going to get your

first kiss or something like that and

that's associated with dopamine release

in the brain. There's all sorts of

chemicals like this. They promote

plasticity. They allow new memories to

be locked in much more effectively,

right? So, that's why these traumatic

memories tend to stick with us often.

Um, but what's interesting about it is

we've studied some stressful memories

and some emotionally significant

memories, not in ways that are remotely

like something that a trauma

survivor really experiences. But what we

find even with those is there's a

difference between the brain systems

that actually um are involved in giving

you the details of what happened and the

brain systems that actually just rev you

up and give you the visceral feeling of

the experience, right? So let's say you

got into a car accident. Later on you

remember the car accident. Well, there's

the details of what happened, right?

like this person ran a stop sign and

they crashed right into me and they're

driving like a red car. Um, and then

there's the feeling the feeling of

imminent danger, the feeling of pain

when you got hit and you you jerked

forward or something, right? And it

turns out that those are different, but

the thing that makes people feel like

it's a photographic memory or they can

experience it like in the moment is not

the details. It's really the emotion

that's associated with it. And so that's

a key thing that makes traumatic

memories different. And this brings me

to another point that I I like to bring

up to people who tell me, you know, can

I can you help me forget this

experience? You want to be able to

remember them without that emotional

punch in the face. Lots of people who do

survive traumas can do that. Um the

brain has natural ways. Matt Walker says

that it happens during sleep. And I

think that is a part of it that the

brain changes these memories to become

more useful to us and less toxic to us

later on, less radioactive.

But when it doesn't happen, that's when

people get PTSD. I

really enjoyed the bits in the book

about music and the unique power it has.

And and I thought I thought it was

fascinating when you were talking about

the study you worked on, I think when

you were uh just a you know a baby grad

student. Um and and you you expected

that having subjects listen to sad music

would make it easier for them to

remember sad events in their lives and

and that remembering sad events would

make them sad. But why does listening to

sad music make us remember sad events

and does the dynamic also work in the

opposite direction? I think this is a

very important point is that our

episodic memories are rooted to a place

in time and part of what makes a unique

time in our lives, a unique moment in

time significant is uh the feelings that

we have in the time. You might be

remembering something like, you know,

your high school graduation and there's

the content of that memory, but then

there's also the feelings that you had

at that moment. And that those feelings

are part of what we call the context.

And so if you imagine episodic memories,

if they were books in a library, you

would be sorting those books not

according to the content, but really to

the context.

And that as I said the emotions are part

of that context. And so if in the moment

you are in a particular emotional state

it makes it's almost like as if you're

looking at the section of the library

that has information relevant to that

context. And so uh that's why music can

be such a powerful vehicle. And it's not

only the emotional part. It also can be

because you listen to particular kinds

of music during particular times in your

life.

>> Yeah, that's it's such a unique trigger

in that way. I think you I mean you talk

in the book about, you know, if you hear

a couple of chords of born in the USA,

it reminds you of some of the racist

you would hear when you were in

like junior high or high school. And you

know, it it made me think if I hear the

the Rolling Stone song Wild Horses, it

takes me right back to when my mom died

in 2020. I listen to that song over and

over again uh when she passed away

because it reminded me of her. It was

her favorite song. And for the rest of

my life, if that song comes on, I am

right back there when that happened. I

mean, it's just I just there's nothing

else that quite does that in that way. I

think part of it is the emotional pull

and part of it is the uniqueness of

particular kinds of music or pieces of

music to particular kinds of

relationships we have or times in our

life. Who we are is constantly changing,

right? And music is often tied to our

sense of who we are that it's like we

choose particular times of music based

on who we are at a particular time in

our life. And so music is this beautiful

vehicle to access those memories of who

we were. And that's part of I think why

there's this nostalgia that's associated

with music is because it really takes us

back not only to the memories of what

happened, but the feeling of what we

were like when we were at that point in

our lives.

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I wanted to ask you um about the role of

memory in shaping our identities, our

our sense of self. And you talk about

how our life narrative is really this

thing stitched together through memory

and our social interactions and the

stories we tell about who we are and

what we are. My question is why do we

need these stories in the first place? I

mean is the self or whatever we call the

self just a memory system holding a

story together?

>> I in some ways yes I think so. In fact

there are people who talk in my field

about the self-memory system. Uh, I in

the book, if there's one thing I'm

guilty of is avoiding some of the hard

questions, questions about consciousness

and the self.

>> Smart man.

>> Yeah, that was just a little bit of a

copout. I totally admit that. Um, but I

think you're on to something and I think

that it's like uh we have so I talk in

the book about schemas as a very

powerful way in which we can learn. So

schemas for instance could be something

as simple as I know what happens during

a basketball game. I know what happens

during a wedding. So these particular

kinds of events we have blueprints in

our head about things that are almost

certain to happen, things that could

happen and things that won't happen,

right? And that helps us orient

ourselves towards the unique aspects of

what um you're trying to remember at any

given time. uh but we also have those

ideas about oursel called a self schema.

And I think this is important because a

big part of imagination and planning is

understanding a little bit about who we

are and why we do things. We don't just

remember the past in terms of like

regurgitating a bunch of details. When

we're really remembering events, we

stitch it into causes and effects. And

that's really important because if

something is not a cause or an effect,

it's kind of window dressing, right? And

so we don't remember that somebody was

like, you know, left the room, but we

remember they left a room because they

were angry at us or because they were in

they just got interrupted by an

emergency phone call. And I think our

sense of who we are gives us a way of

organizing our past and organizing

things into causes and effects, too.

>> This is more of a philosophical question

than a scientific one, but this is the

show, so I'm going to ask anyway. Um,

if someone loses their memories,

if they cannot remember their life,

can they still be themselves? Can they

be the same self they were?

>> There's a uh there's a person named Stan

Klene at at UC Santa Barbara who asked

this very question and he makes a strong

case. I tend to think of philosophy as

above my pay grade.

There's a, you know, I tend to invert

the usual like kind of tech bro view of

the world and I kind of think of math

and physics as easy fields because

there's an answer and psychology is a

much more of a hard science because

there's not really clear answers and

philosophy is like where you get into

the stratosphere.

>> We just have to sound like we know what

we're talking about. You you people, the

scientists actually have to know what

>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think it's like

the real experts will say, "I don't

know." Um, and I don't know, but uh, uh,

Stan has studied people with very, very

dense amnesia and has made a good case

that these people still have a sense of

who they are.

>> But here's the thing. So there there's

not cases literally of people losing

every memory of what they've

experienced. But there are people, for

instance, like a patient named Casey

that Endel Tolving studied. He's he's a

really f he came up with the concept of

episodic memory. And the claim was he

could look all the way back in the past

and he still didn't have that ability to

mentally time travel, right? And there's

a little bit of an emptiness to them, a

little bit of a flatness. They're in the

moment, but there's not a sense of what

they could do or what they could be

because they don't have these episodic

memories to draw upon to give them like

kind of more of a flavor of who they

are. Um, and I think that's really

important because and like I said, our

sense of self normally is constantly

changing as we keep acquiring episodic

memories.

>> But people who have amnesia, even if

it's like something more like the

typical kind of amnesia is you have a

stroke or something and you're

unconscious for a while. when you come

to you lose memories for something. You

lose your ability to form new memories

and you might lose memories going back

10 years but you still remember your

childhood. And what happens is these

patients who have severe amnesia

will get stuck in time. You know,

they'll look in the mirror and they'll

say, "Oh my gosh, who is this person?"

But to them, it's like they're still

they still feel like they were the

person they were, you know, 20 years

ago, 30 years ago. And in some cases, I

think that's why people with severe

Alzheimer's, you sense that they're

regressing as they kind of like lose

that ability to go back to that

wellspring of episodic memories. So I

think yeah, we have a capability of

being having a self, but that self

becomes much emptier and thinner as you

lose memories.

>> Can we say that political movements in

some sense are doing the same thing just

at a

at another level. Are they stitching

collective memory into a collective

identity? 100% 100%. Uh this idea of

collective memory uh is uh still one

that we're is it's still a developing

concept in our field. A lot of the work

that's been done in collective memory is

actually done in the fields of history

and sociology. But it's a very relevant

concept. I mean just as an example

>> how would you define that if you don't

mind me asking just

>> absolutely I mean you can define it very

broadly which is a shared memory that a

memory that's shared amongst multiple

people if you have close family members

you probably have a collective memory of

the family and that gives you a sense of

your familial identity uh because you

all have this shared story right and

your experience might be different than

the experience of your parents or

siblings but once you share those

experiences with each other. It's no

longer your memory. Uh just the act of

expressing that memory in a way that

someone else can understand it changes

the memory for you. And then now the

other person has a memory for something

they've never experienced before because

you've told them about it. And so as

these memories go get passed back and

forth, they're constantly modified,

right? And I think this is key to what

makes humans so successful in the world

is that we can build memories and

benefit from other people's experiences

and and you know wisdom. But it creates

huge problems because memory can be

selective and memory can be you know so

it can be highly incomplete and it can

also be inaccurate many times. Right.

And so

>> sometimes intentionally. So

>> sometimes intentionally. Exactly. So if

you want to form an authoritarian

regime, the first thing you do is you

seize collective memory. You take down

statues. You start to regulate, you

know, the teaching of history in

schools. You remove references in

historical archives, right? Almost any

authoritarian regime. This is part of

the playbook. And uh and I think it's a

powerful one because once you start to

shape that narrative, just like people

have narratives of I'm terrible at math

or I'm like a failure in life and those

are often rooted in a particular

interpretation of your past. If you can

enforce most people to have a particular

view of their nation's past, that's

going to shape their sense of what it

means to be a member of that nation or

that society.

The uh relationship between individual

memory and collective memory or between

individual identity and collective

identity is so fascinating to me. I how

much of our sense of self is determined

or or shaped by our social

or tribal affiliations. I imagine the

relationship here is pretty damn

complicated, but there has to be a

relationship there.

>> There's absolutely a relationship and

it's a two-way relationship.

>> So, a lot of the research shows that on

the one hand, you develop your sense of

of uh tribal affiliations

or familial relationships through these

kind of collective memories that you

have. but also you're able to connect

with other people if you have shared

collective memories and you view those

memories in a similar light. And so what

I mean by that is, you know, if you're

in England and you support say the

Tottenham Spurs or something like that,

you can meet someone anywhere and once

you start talking about the same game,

they will become friends, right? Uh here

in the US it would be like an American

football team or a baseball team, same

thing, right? or let's say you're both

you both have similar political views

and you both like uh saw the same debate

or something like that. Just sharing

those collective memories can make you

feel more connected with that person.

>> Oh, I I grew up in the in the South.

That's where I am now. And you know,

like college football is sort of our

thing. It's a religion.

>> But it is people who who

>> didn't grow up in that don't quite

understand it at this level. what kind

of cultural shared cultural language it

is. I mean, it is it is that shared

memory really is you meet someone, they

got on an LSU Tigers shirt and before

you know it, you're having a

conversation about, oh no, I went there

when I was five. the Auburn game. Could

you believe, you know, I mean, it was

>> it it it has this way of of stitching

together a history and a community in a

way that that very few things can, but

it is that

>> it is that that shared cultural language

and history that's like the container

for the community really.

>> Yeah. It's beautiful in many ways and

it's toxic in many ways, right? It's

like

>> that's where I was going next.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's both because

you see someone else with an LSU Tigers

thing shirt and now you feel like you've

got a bond with them and that's a really

good thing. But then you're both

watching an LSU Tigers game and you talk

to each other and you'll remember the

game based on your love for the LSU

Tigers and you'll go, "Yeah, the ref

totally blew that call." And you might

forget a really good play that was made

by the other team. and the other person

reinforces that story and you build a

collective memory that's more selective

and more distorted than it would be had

you never talked to each other. And

that's the downside of collective memory

is if we're not careful, if we don't

surround ourselves by a lot of checks

and balances, what happens is we can

develop very impoverished and inaccurate

collective memories and we're very

susceptible to misinformation because we

like misinformation if it comes in a

flavor that we already like and we're

much more likely to take it in and

digest it.

>> Yeah. Now, this is something

This is the challenge or one of the

challenge uh that comes from the fact

that memory it itself is so constructed

and slippery in this way. I mean you

even in the book you you talk a bit

about how as we grow more segregated

politically, culturally,

we end up with just totally different

memories

>> of the same events

>> and therefore different realities.

>> And if if memory is reconstructive in in

in the ways you're talking about and we

are moving more and more into a world

that's segregatedformationally.

Does that seem like a massive massive

political problem to you? I mean, I've

argued that it's just straight up

unsustainable, but it's also possible

that I'm being dramatic. Uh, so I put it

to you. I think this is one of the

biggest threats we have in the present

day and one of the biggest dangers that

I foresee as you know technologies like

AI become more and more powerful is you

know and maybe I'm I'm looking at this

from too much of a personal lens and too

much of a you know often we kind of look

at things like now is somehow special

right but I do feel like I've never

lived in a time where it's so easy for

people to just believe what makes them

happy, right? We used to all have shared

news sources and shared sources of

information and expertise that, you

know, they could tell us things that we

didn't like, like smoking is unhealthy.

And even if we didn't like that, we sort

of had to believe it because we were

all, you know, because we had news

sources that fact checked and we had

like uh uh experts who we trusted and

experts aren't always right, you know,

and news sources are definitely not

always right. And you know, news can be

a selective win uh lens on on collective

memory. But now we have so many uh

sources of information and the uh thing

that I of you know I've done a lot of

podcasts now and it's been a fascinating

experience for me because I hear you

know I remember going on one podcast and

and the person was talking about the

legacy media is dead and and they're

trying to go after podcasters because

podcasters are telling it like it is and

giving people these long form things.

And the idea is somehow if we hear

somebody talking for an hour and we just

let them say whatever they want that

eventually people will figure out the

truth, right? But that's not really how

it works. What happens is people pick

and choose what they will remember from

all of the podcasts they've listened to

>> based on what they believe. That's how

they're going to form that memory for

all those things that they've been

exposed to. And the more we allow

misinformation to thrive,

the more it likely it is that people can

just pick and choose what they get in a

way that makes them feel good. I brought

up this idea of causes as being really

important, causes and effects. And so we

often will decide about facts and we'll

make decisions about things in the world

based on our understanding of causes and

effects. But the way our brains do it is

kind of like making the best of bad

information. So for instance, it's like

if I were to hear about somebody who

gets a shot and they, you know, gets a

vaccination and they developed a severe

allergic reaction to it and they go into

aniflaxis, I will be more likely to

think that that per that vaccine causes

problems and is dangerous.

But I'm not hearing the stories about a

bunch of people who took the vaccine and

didn't get sick. I'm not hearing them

and because that's not an event. That's

not something that you can form a memory

for. It's something that didn't happen.

You know, hearing a statistic that you

know nine out of 10 people who took the

shot didn't get CO or whatever. That's

not really going to produce a vivid

memory that's going to influence you

nearly as much as this vivid memory of

somebody you even if it wasn't you just

somebody telling a story about this.

>> Do we understand how malleable

collective memory is? Is this something

that can evolve pretty quickly? If I can

tell myself a new story about myself

that transforms how I

>> experience the world or think about the

world and if you can do that as an

individual,

can a country do that? Can a community

do that?

Everything we know about collective

memory, which is not a lot, but

everything we know has really pointed to

the idea that collective memory just

magnifies the strengths and the

weaknesses of individual memory. And so

what I mean by that is we know that I

can give people misinformation after an

event has occurred. So you you know

Elizabeth Loftess did some really

beautiful work on this um where she

would show you know a slideshow of this

car accident and then the car accident

like somebody might have run through

like a stop sign and she'll say how fast

was it going when it passed the yield

sign and later on people might be more

likely to remember that there was a

yield sign there instead of a stop sign.

Right? Those are effects that you can

find in the lab for fairly mundane kind

of pieces of information. But now you're

in a group of people and you're

remembering that and one person

remembers something wrong, especially if

that person has kind of a position of

status. They're a little bit higher

status and they talk more. Um, which we

can all think of what kinds of groups

tend to do this, right? You know,

mansplating things and so forth. um

those people will have an undue

influence on how people remember the

event later on and that misinformation

can really thrive like a I mean they

talk about it as a social contagion

because it spreads like a virus. Um so

that selectivity and that malleability

of memory that we have as individuals

even fairly mundane experiences tends to

just magnify in groups. Uh but of course

you also have the power of belief and

the beliefs are this kind of filter that

affects what kind of memories we can

pull up and what kind of memories we

have in

>> what's the causal direction here right I

mean do we do we have memories and then

we form beliefs on the basis of those

memories or do we choose

beliefs and then selectively arrange our

memories so as to uh validate those

beliefs

uh my sense is yes

that is that it's like we build our

beliefs based on partly uh we build our

beliefs based on memories for things

that we've learned

>> but I think also based on things that

we've done um there's a literature on

what's called cognitive dissonance

that's very old and in in the cognitive

dissonance studies they used to have

people write essays on things that they

didn't actually believe that went

against their beliefs

And then later on they would their

beliefs would change to accommodate what

they did. It's kind of like the tail

wagging the dog, right?

>> Um and so that memory for what we've

done and what we've heard of off or you

know what loved ones, people we like and

care about have done will often have a

pull on what we believe later on. But of

course what we believe will affect the

kinds of memories we can access and the

way we remember them. Right? So uh just

as the simplest level people tend to

remember positive events more from their

lives than negative events. But more

importantly when they reconstruct them

they tend to remember them more

positively and they tend to remember

themselves more positively. Um, and that

can be good in some ways, but it can

also mean that you tend to think that

you're better than you really are,

right? And so now you magnify that to

your social group and you pull up

collective memories about, you know, the

past based on your beliefs. And then you

and then you construct a narrative out

of it. And maybe that narrative is that

our people are great. Maybe that

narrative is we used to be great and now

we're terrible. We need to be great

again.

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Do we sometimes have to forget, let go

of memories in order to forgive and move

on, or is there another way to do that?

I'm really asking about this at both the

individual

>> and the social level, you know, we're

talking about politics and and tribal

identities and shared memories. Do you

think even at the level of society that

sometimes

we need to forget in order to move

forward or is the price of that kind of

amnesia too high? And I'm thinking of

something like,

>> you know, truth and reconciliation. Yes.

>> Commissions, right? Or even the battles

we have in this country uh over our

history. I mean, I've always believed

that we have to confront the truth of

our past uh before we can move beyond

it. But I guess I I can also understand

how someone might say, well, you know,

if we're constantly litigating the past

and re-remembering the past, we'll be

stuck there forever.

>> Yeah. And I I think the answer is

somewhere in between based on what we

know right now. And again, these are

there's serious limits to what we know.

But um I had a whole section in my book

that I wrote at one point on truth and

reconciliation uh uh um and restorative

justice and memory. And uh I had to

delete it because like my editor said,

this is just too controversial and uh

really not necessarily substantive

enough. And I think they were right that

the substance was a little bit low in

terms of the science. Um but um it's a

very controversial topic. Um you can

look at South Africa as a great example

of this. Um where these and this comes

back to what we talked about before with

trauma and this idea that you don't want

to forget but you want to remember it in

a way that's not radioactive. And uh so

a friend of mine named uh um uh Filipe

Dragard at Duke is doing this beautiful

beautiful project called the memory and

forgiveness project. And he's both a

philosopher and a cognitive

neuroscientist. And so he grew up in

Colombia and uh uh the time he grew up

in was just really tumultuous. There

were all these paramilitary groups and

government and uh um government uh um

crackdowns and uh uh insurgencies and so

forth and just many many many people

were killed. man traum the whole country

is still traumatized from this you know

um he has experiences of you know

harrowing you know things you know he

had a pretty privileged life compared to

a lot of people but just all sorts of

harrowing memories from so what he did

was he decided to bring in people into

communities and actually teach them

about memory and forgiveness and not

tell them you have to forgive people but

just give them the information and see

what they do with it and so the jury's

out. We don't know. Um, but what I love

from this is he has this quote from

somebody named Celia Cruz and the quote

is forgiving is not forgetting.

Forgiving is remembering without pain. M

>> and I think this is crucial because

often you have experiences like the

truth commission in South Africa and I

think where they went where it might

have been really making things worse for

people or at least that's what some

people have reported is they often felt

like it was just regurgitating the past

but not processing it. And people can

find this in psychotherapy too where you

you can have therapists who just dig and

dig and dig for trauma, but they don't

do much to kind of actually the the

assumption is always the truth will set

you free and if you remember something

that's traumatic somehow you'll just be

free of the psychopathology and that's

not at all true. I mean we like we've

talked about remembering something

horrible makes you feel horrible, right?

So unless you work to change the way you

think about the past, it's going to be

just kind of like retraumatizing people

over and over again. And I think that's

where forgiveness comes in is

forgiveness is changing the way you look

at the past. Not changing the memories

of what happened per se, but changing

your relationship with them.

What about self forgiveness

for someone who um

is stuck in the past or or cannot help

but ruminate over what they did wrong,

what they could have done, mistakes that

were made, etc., and and and

can't forgive themselves and sort of

move on. What do you think about that?

Do you have advice for people who are

stuck in that way? Well, I mean, I look

at I I I'm one of those people, so it's

really hard for me to give advice in the

sense of like telling people confidently

this is what you do. But

ultimately,

if we think of memory as this resource

as opposed to this repository of

absolute facts, right?

>> Then you can take the same information

from the past and make it useful or make

it, you know, counterproductive, right?

I mean, the past is literally over. It

does not exist anymore. At least, you

know, I mean, aside from physicists

telling you something about quantum

mechanics, you know, the past doesn't

exist anymore. Therefore, it's almost

like as if it's not real. All we're

living in is the present moment. So, to

the extent that we have this ability to

call on the past, the question is what

do we do with that? Right? If we see

that past as being something that's an

absolute marker of who we are and what

we're capable of, that's not going to be

productive. But you can look at the past

in a different way, right? I mean, I

talk about in the book just at a very

minor level that giving you yourself the

opportunity to make mistakes is the most

powerful way to learn, right? And self

forgiveness in some ways is really about

seeing the things that you've done that

were theoretically wrong and learning

from them. And so like yeah, you can

always look at mistakes you've made and

see them as learning experiences as part

of what it takes to, you know, learn and

grow. Or you can see them as, you know,

markers of how bad you are and how

incompetent you are. And obviously one's

more productive than the other.

>> I'm still beating myself up for stupid

I did in junior high. So

>> yeah, junior high lost cause.

>> Yeah, middle school for me was like

being in a state prison. So I definitely

get that idea.

>> Um, is there anything else

you want to say or any advice you want

to offer to anyone listening before we

ride off into the sunset? The point that

I really want people to get and I have

to hammer this home over and over again

is memor is not free. Memor is not easy

and memor is not absolute. And so the

first thing you have to do is set an

intention to what really is important

for you to remember. Whether it's going

on a family trip and you know deciding

do I want to take movies all the time or

do I want to be there and experience it

or being at a party and trying to

memorize people's names. It's all, you

know, the same kind of thing, which is

that your intention

will change what you remember and how

you remember it for the better.

>> Once again, the book is called Why We

Remember. It's fantastic, as was this

conversation. Thank you.

>> Thanks a lot for having me. It's been a

lot of fun.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
memory /ˈmɛməri/ A2	noun - the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences
remember /rɪˈmɛmbər/ A1	verb - to bring back (a fact, event, or situation) to the mind; recall to mind
experience /ɪkˈspɪəriəns/ B1	noun - the knowledge or skill from doing or seeing things noun - a particular incident or event that you have been involved in verb - to have knowledge or skill from doing or seeing things
identity /aɪˈdɛntɪti/ B2	noun - the distinguishing character or personality of an individual
function /ˈfʌŋkʃən/ B1	noun - a special activity or purpose verb - to work or operate
recall /rɪˈkɔːl/ B2	verb - remember something from the past noun - the ability to remember facts and events
traumatic /traʊˈmætɪk/ C1	adjective - relating to or caused by a trauma
emotion /ɪˈmoʊʃən/ B1	noun - a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others
narrative /ˈnærətɪv/ C1	noun - a spoken or written account of connected events adjective - in the form of a story
forget /fərˈɡɛt/ A1	verb - fail to remember
individual /ˌɪndɪˈvɪdʒuəl/ B1	noun - a single human being adjective - single; separate
society /səˈsaɪəti/ B1	noun - the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community
plasticity /plæˈstɪsɪti/ C1	noun - the capacity to be molded, altered, or changed
superior /suːˈpɪriər/ B2	adjective - higher in rank, status, or quality
episodic /ɪˌpɪˈsɒdɪk/ C1	adjective - occurring in episodes; intermittent
amnesia /æmˈniːziə/ C1	noun - loss of memory, usually resulting from shock, brain injury, etc.
forgive /fərˈɡɪv/ A2	verb - cease to feel resentment against
stress /strɛs/ B1	noun - pressure or tension exerted on a material object noun - a state of mental or emotional strain verb - to subject to pressure or strain
intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃən/ B2	noun - a thing intended; an aim or plan
useful /ˈjuːsfəl/ A2	adjective - able to be used for a practical purpose
selective /sɪˈlɛktɪv/ B2	adjective - of or characterized by selection; discriminating or exclusive