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> and we have many cases of that to support the hypothesis that "that's not how two year old brains work". What are those cases preventing a 2-year-old remembe

> and we have many cases of that to support the hypothesis that "that's not how two year old brains work". What are those cases preventing a 2-year-old remembering something from a week ago, thus strengthening the memory, rinse and repeat? > The first reason is that two year olds don't understand the concept of age in years In my case, the memory is linked to potty training and I know when that happened. > I cannot determine if they were real or a dream (because they are memories of an event of such non-significance[1] that no one else remembered). I'm kind of confused that on one hand you say that you don't know if it was a dream or reality, and on the other hand completely discount the possibility of having such an early memory. > because the odds are very much against it You keep mentioning the odds. How do you calculate them?

lelanthran 3y ago
> What are those cases preventing a 2-year-old remembering something from a week ago, thus strengthening the memory, rinse and repeat? I don't see how that is relevant to "we have all these examples of two-year-olds not remembering recent signficant events". I mean, we have observation that $X doesn't happen, but you know want to know what the mechanism is? Why is the mechanism at all important to the observation? With or without a plausible mechanism, the observation still stands. > I'm kind of confused that on one hand you say that you don't know if it was a dream or reality, and on the other hand completely discount the possibility of having such an early memory. Well, it's the same reason I am an atheist - as there's literally no evidence for any religions' specific story of a god, I discount the possibility of there being a god at all. People's subjective experience isn't "evidence". > You keep mentioning the odds. How do you calculate them? Because there's too many much more likely explanations, many of which I mentioned already, than a non-falsifiable belief in the memory of a two-year old. Unless you want to dismiss the suggestibility of children, that's basically the most likely explanation.
- sethammons 3y ago
  > we have observation that $X doesn't happen You can't prove a negative. Did you know that the blue whale was declared extinct in the 80s only to have a pod show up some years later? We observed there were no blue whales and then there were. You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > > we have observation that $X doesn't happen > You can't prove a negative. Sure, but it becomes exceedingly unlikely as lack of evidence of existence continues. > You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do. Actually, no I don't. I know many many people with self-reported experiences, which is not the same as anyone with early memories. I mean, if we're talking purely numbers, I'm guessing that the number of people who report god, divinity or occult experiences far outnumber those who self-report early memories, so it should be completely unsurprising that I am unconvinced of an assertion that has even fewer self-reported positive data than religion and god. Looking at your other response, I don't understand why you feel my skepticism warrants (what I consider, maybe wrongly) your rather forceful assertions that your worldview is correct. Would you respond the same way to someone who asserted "Well, I'm skeptical that the Gods of Abrahamic Mythology ever existed"? Would you really tell someone "You didn't know anyone who experienced the biblical god before, and now you do"? How is your assertion of "You didn't know about anyone with early memories and now you do" at all different from "You didn't know about anyone who was visited by aliens and now you do"?
    - sethammons 3y ago
      _Why_ do you think someone can't have that early of a memory? It seems inane. Ok, here is a study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1918174 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1... the earliest reported memory in this study is 14mo. We are not talking about aliens who's travel to our system defies our current understandings of physics. We are talking about memory. Similar, you have to rely on people to describe pain. Does that mean pain doesn't exist? Or doesn't exist for babies? We've studied memory a lot. Just because _you_ don't have an early memory doesn't mean someone else also doesn't. I don't understand your position. To assuage your faulty memory worries, the study's methodology and analysis included longitudinal interviews with children to go over memories over time and the researchers were convinced that they memories were valid enough for the study.

lelanthran 3y ago

> What are those cases preventing a 2-year-old remembering something from a week ago, thus strengthening the memory, rinse and repeat? I don't see how that is relevant to "we have all these examples of two-year-olds not remembering recent signficant events". I mean, we have observation that $X doesn't happen, but you know want to know what the mechanism is? Why is the mechanism at all important to the observation? With or without a plausible mechanism, the observation still stands. > I'm kind of confused that on one hand you say that you don't know if it was a dream or reality, and on the other hand completely discount the possibility of having such an early memory. Well, it's the same reason I am an atheist - as there's literally no evidence for any religions' specific story of a god, I discount the possibility of there being a god at all. People's subjective experience isn't "evidence". > You keep mentioning the odds. How do you calculate them? Because there's too many much more likely explanations, many of which I mentioned already, than a non-falsifiable belief in the memory of a two-year old. Unless you want to dismiss the suggestibility of children, that's basically the most likely explanation.

sethammons 3y ago
> we have observation that $X doesn't happen You can't prove a negative. Did you know that the blue whale was declared extinct in the 80s only to have a pod show up some years later? We observed there were no blue whales and then there were. You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > > we have observation that $X doesn't happen > You can't prove a negative. Sure, but it becomes exceedingly unlikely as lack of evidence of existence continues. > You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do. Actually, no I don't. I know many many people with self-reported experiences, which is not the same as anyone with early memories. I mean, if we're talking purely numbers, I'm guessing that the number of people who report god, divinity or occult experiences far outnumber those who self-report early memories, so it should be completely unsurprising that I am unconvinced of an assertion that has even fewer self-reported positive data than religion and god. Looking at your other response, I don't understand why you feel my skepticism warrants (what I consider, maybe wrongly) your rather forceful assertions that your worldview is correct. Would you respond the same way to someone who asserted "Well, I'm skeptical that the Gods of Abrahamic Mythology ever existed"? Would you really tell someone "You didn't know anyone who experienced the biblical god before, and now you do"? How is your assertion of "You didn't know about anyone with early memories and now you do" at all different from "You didn't know about anyone who was visited by aliens and now you do"?
  - sethammons 3y ago
    _Why_ do you think someone can't have that early of a memory? It seems inane. Ok, here is a study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1918174 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1... the earliest reported memory in this study is 14mo. We are not talking about aliens who's travel to our system defies our current understandings of physics. We are talking about memory. Similar, you have to rely on people to describe pain. Does that mean pain doesn't exist? Or doesn't exist for babies? We've studied memory a lot. Just because _you_ don't have an early memory doesn't mean someone else also doesn't. I don't understand your position. To assuage your faulty memory worries, the study's methodology and analysis included longitudinal interviews with children to go over memories over time and the researchers were convinced that they memories were valid enough for the study.