Memory is a process. We do not have fixed objects we could call representations stored in our brains. Someone asks "what did you have for breakfast" and I respo

Memory is a process. We do not have fixed objects we could call representations stored in our brains. Someone asks "what did you have for breakfast" and I respond with a word "pancakes" — a process and action occurs and we call it memory, I don't go looking up some representation of "the facts" and wheel it out before them, nor do I produce an actual pancake. In other words, of course memory is an interpretation, and historical thought is basically a collective form of these kinds of processes. What's fascinating, and what powers the drama of the article is that even if we know this scientifically and philosophically, we often can't help but act as though our memories were objects, were these concrete things that we have at hand. A person can remember, but no person actually possesses memories (unless you want to talk about the dynamic and constantly changing states of a neuronal system).