5 ms·
Incredible, amazing, wonderful -- and a bit scary. Imagine this being used to erase more complex memories, like that person you dated for two weeks that broke
by DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Incredible, amazing, wonderful -- and a bit scary.
Imagine this being used to erase more complex memories, like that person you dated for two weeks that broke your heart.
- high_derivative 8y agoThe way I understood the article is that the knowledge is not removed. Just the learned anxiety related to the knowledge.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoNo knowledge is lost, just the emotional reaction.
- ada1981 8y agoHow would it work if instead of thinking of spiders, you thought of your wife? Would you lose your feelings of love? This seems like an incredible drug, I’d like to do some self experimentation. Also, if people have been taking this for anxiety, why haven’t they been cured?
- oskarpearson 8y agoI really wish people would RTFA before commenting.
- DanielBMarkham 8y agoI did. You gain retention by assimilating facts at the same time you have some emotional experience, this is one of the reasons why professors who are entertaining can sometimes also be much better teachers. Laughing while assimilating works better than simply trying to memorize stuff. Even looking at rote memorization, most experts in memorization tell you to associate places and emotions with whatever you're currently trying to memorize. So by removing the emotional payload from the memory, you're effectively also removing the memory itself, even if superficially the facts remain. What will happen over time is that since there's less emotion associated with the facts, the facts will be forgotten -- like all the other facts in your life day-to-day are forgotten. I knew all of that and thought others did too. Next time I'll try assuming that is not the case.
- gchamonlive 8y agoEven though the discussion is not valid in the context of the article that clearly limitates the use of memory reconstruction to basic forms of emotional memory, we could very well picture entities abusing higher forms of memory manipulation to political ends.