5 ms·

I absolutely have memories before 3, and I've always been frustrated when told I've recreated them from stories and/or pictures.

by jprd 2y ago

catmanjan 2y ago
You do realise you've just recrated those memories from stories or pictures?
- MikeTheGreat 2y ago
  This being HN it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to shift the conversation to Rust. Well played, sir, well played! :)
  - akagusu 2y ago
    I think it's time to rewrite the brain in Rust, making use of its memory safety features to prevent memory leaks
    - steveklabnik 2y ago
      Rust does not prevent memory leaks.
      - akagusu 2y ago
        No? Really? So what is the point? Why are people so crazy about Rust?
        steveklabnik 2y ago
        Yes. > So what is the point? What Rust helps with is memory safety, which is stuff like dangling pointers and use-after-free. Memory leaks are not a safety issue, they're an efficiency issue. > Why are people so crazy about Rust? The whole memory safety thing isn't actually the reason so many people love Rust. In the Rust 2024 community survey, 82% of users agreed that "Rust allows us to build relatively correct and bug free software." Memory safety is part of that, but there's a lot more to it. So, for example, while Rust does not guarantee the lack of memory leaks, it does make them relatively hard to produce by accident in the first place. This is due to the intersection of a few different parts of Rust's overall design.
    - didgetmaster 2y ago
      I have heard that rust can cause tetanus, which is not good for the brain.
      - taejo 2y ago
        Rust itself cannot cause tetanus but it can include unsafe blocks which can activate tetanus spores by FFI.
boesboes 2y ago
I'm with you. My earliest memory is from my second birthday. Not many, if any, other memories from that early though
- tzs 2y ago
  How do you know that is where you got the memory? Early birthdays can be tricky because it is common for families to record them on video and if you saw such a video a few years later that could create a memory that you would think was from the birthday itself. Personally I don't trust most memories I have from before around 4 because my parents had around 20 reels of home movies from that time and I know that I saw several of those movies a few years later.
  - aeonik 2y ago
    I fell off a countertop and got a concussion when I was 2.5, it's a very vivid and painful memory. I also moved to a different state when I was 5. I have a very clear delineation of before and after the age of 5, and I have hundreds of memories from before the move. Most are rather intense events, but I even remember the layout of my house, construction sites, my daycare, neighbors, friends houses, holidays, first bike ride, first lizard I caught, my pets, even some dreams I had, etc... I didn't have a good idea of time yet, but I can retroactively tell when things occurred based on facts I later learned, like when certain neighbors moved, even my sister was born, etc...
  - boesboes 2y ago
    We didnt have anything to film with & there are no pictures from that day. I remember only a specific moment: we went to pick up my grandpa and i recall the shirt he was wearing very precisely. I can’t guarantee that the memory is genuine, but it is very specific and I had to reconstruct my age from discussing the memory with my mom.
sndinsmd 2y ago
Because — and this is true — you absolutely don’t. You can be continue to be frustrated being incorrect, or you can accept that you’re lying to yourself and move on. It’s that easy. Human memory just doesn’t work like that.
- plasma_beam 2y ago
  I am mid-40s and have several distinct memories from 2.
- popalchemist 2y ago
  Ontologically, you can not say that definitively, you can only say that op's claim is highly unlikely. Only OP knows what OP knows and no amount of theory can disprove it, nor can any theory lay greater claim to ontological accuracy than he can.
  - goatlover 2y ago
    OP only knows it if OP can verify having memories from that age. People can be wrong about their memories. Memory fabrication does happen.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      I'd go as far as saying, memory fabrication happens all the time - we recompute our memories when we reference them, and that result is affected by all the other experiences and memories we accumulated between subsequent recalls. Or, in other words, humans always confabulate (in the exact same sense as LLMs "always hallucinate", and I'm invoking this comparison on purpose) - the difference between "correct" and "false" memory is a matter of degree.
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    This.
  - irjustin 2y ago
    > Only OP knows what OP knows and no amount of theory can disprove it, This isn't true either. Memories themselves are non-falsifiable. So no matter what we either side says we'll literally never know the truth.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
Around 2 tends to be the earliest limits that have been confirmed. Memory scientists don't claim that no memory persists from infancy, its just that it hasn't been confirmed, and there's lots of evidence of infants failing to remember events from months back in infant memory experimental paradigms, and highly plausible scenarios of memory reconstructions, from pictures, or from stories.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Absolutely no way to study this.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Let a 6 month old play with a green or red ball. 5 year later show the same two balls and say you will give the kid an ice cream if it picks the same color. Obviously give the ice cream no matter the pick ... Look for correlation.
anonymousiam 2y ago
Heh. I've got memories from ages two and three that are pretty solid, and there were not photos or other records to prompt them. Some people really can do this. Some of my early memories were "filled in" by later experiences when I learned something that "explained" the earlier memory, and it was then reinforced, but the early memories are independent from the later ones. My earliest memory was President Kennedy's assassination, but of course I had no idea of what a president was, life, death, etc. I was 16 months old. What I do remember was a bunch of strange people in and out of the house with the TV on and everyone very concerned, but what I remember most of that day was that it was the day I learned how to shake my crib and move it around the room while I was inside. I remember my parents not liking the fact that I was able to do that. I've never discussed that memory with them, and they're both gone now, so I never will. I've got memories from when I barely knew how to talk, and didn't understand what the people around me were saying. My memory isn't good enough to decode what was said after I learned the language. I can clearly remember sitting in my high chair eating Alphabet cereal, and trying to make words with the letters I had not yet learned. I get sad when I think about how my parents would brush me off, probably thinking that I was too young to learn much. (My parents were both school teachers!)
gsich 2y ago
You wouldn't know the difference.
ryanjshaw 2y ago
When was the last time you updated your brain OS? My rememberory format changes every couple of years.
tomw1808 2y ago
I also sometimes have memories before 3, but mostly I am sleeping. However, on rare occasion, people send me pictures where I am awake at 3, but I have no memories. Sorry folks, I see myself out, that was inappropriate, I hope nobody will remember.
strictnein 2y ago
Same. I'm always kind of shocked when people don't. My wife hardly remembers anything before she was 8. We moved a couple months before I turned three and I have a bunch of memories that predate that. I remember being potty trained and lying to my parents about it so I could get a treat. I remember my dad coming home from the family farm and having injured his hand on some machinery. I remember stealing a pack of orange gum from the grocery store and chewing it all up underneath the piano in our basement. I could keep going and going. My earliest memory was before I was two. Somewhere around 19-20 months. I know this because I had an ear infection and that's when it occurred. I'm sitting in my crib, crying due to the pain in my ear, and screaming "mom" at the door in the room. The room is mostly dark, but the door has been left open a crack to let in a little bit of light. From my vantage, looking through the slats in the crib, the door is open on the left. My mom comes in once, finally, and then leaves. I also feel like I have an earlier one, being carried in a room which may have been my nursery, looking down on a changing table. I'm pretty sure I'm being held by my father, but I can't say for certain that this is real.

I absolutely have memories before 3, and I've always been frustrated when told I've recreated them from stories and/or pictures.

by jprd 2y ago

I absolutely have memories before 3, and I've always been frustrated when told I've recreated them from stories and/or pictures.

catmanjan 2y ago

You do realise you've just recrated those memories from stories or pictures?

MikeTheGreat 2y ago
This being HN it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to shift the conversation to Rust. Well played, sir, well played! :)
- akagusu 2y ago
  I think it's time to rewrite the brain in Rust, making use of its memory safety features to prevent memory leaks
  - steveklabnik 2y ago
    Rust does not prevent memory leaks.
    - akagusu 2y ago
      No? Really? So what is the point? Why are people so crazy about Rust?
      - steveklabnik 2y ago
        Yes. > So what is the point? What Rust helps with is memory safety, which is stuff like dangling pointers and use-after-free. Memory leaks are not a safety issue, they're an efficiency issue. > Why are people so crazy about Rust? The whole memory safety thing isn't actually the reason so many people love Rust. In the Rust 2024 community survey, 82% of users agreed that "Rust allows us to build relatively correct and bug free software." Memory safety is part of that, but there's a lot more to it. So, for example, while Rust does not guarantee the lack of memory leaks, it does make them relatively hard to produce by accident in the first place. This is due to the intersection of a few different parts of Rust's overall design.
  - didgetmaster 2y ago
    I have heard that rust can cause tetanus, which is not good for the brain.
    - taejo 2y ago
      Rust itself cannot cause tetanus but it can include unsafe blocks which can activate tetanus spores by FFI.

boesboes 2y ago

I'm with you. My earliest memory is from my second birthday. Not many, if any, other memories from that early though

tzs 2y ago
How do you know that is where you got the memory? Early birthdays can be tricky because it is common for families to record them on video and if you saw such a video a few years later that could create a memory that you would think was from the birthday itself. Personally I don't trust most memories I have from before around 4 because my parents had around 20 reels of home movies from that time and I know that I saw several of those movies a few years later.
- aeonik 2y ago
  I fell off a countertop and got a concussion when I was 2.5, it's a very vivid and painful memory. I also moved to a different state when I was 5. I have a very clear delineation of before and after the age of 5, and I have hundreds of memories from before the move. Most are rather intense events, but I even remember the layout of my house, construction sites, my daycare, neighbors, friends houses, holidays, first bike ride, first lizard I caught, my pets, even some dreams I had, etc... I didn't have a good idea of time yet, but I can retroactively tell when things occurred based on facts I later learned, like when certain neighbors moved, even my sister was born, etc...
- boesboes 2y ago
  We didnt have anything to film with & there are no pictures from that day. I remember only a specific moment: we went to pick up my grandpa and i recall the shirt he was wearing very precisely. I can’t guarantee that the memory is genuine, but it is very specific and I had to reconstruct my age from discussing the memory with my mom.

sndinsmd 2y ago

Because — and this is true — you absolutely don’t. You can be continue to be frustrated being incorrect, or you can accept that you’re lying to yourself and move on. It’s that easy. Human memory just doesn’t work like that.

plasma_beam 2y ago
I am mid-40s and have several distinct memories from 2.
popalchemist 2y ago
Ontologically, you can not say that definitively, you can only say that op's claim is highly unlikely. Only OP knows what OP knows and no amount of theory can disprove it, nor can any theory lay greater claim to ontological accuracy than he can.
- goatlover 2y ago
  OP only knows it if OP can verify having memories from that age. People can be wrong about their memories. Memory fabrication does happen.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    I'd go as far as saying, memory fabrication happens all the time - we recompute our memories when we reference them, and that result is affected by all the other experiences and memories we accumulated between subsequent recalls. Or, in other words, humans always confabulate (in the exact same sense as LLMs "always hallucinate", and I'm invoking this comparison on purpose) - the difference between "correct" and "false" memory is a matter of degree.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  This.
- irjustin 2y ago
  > Only OP knows what OP knows and no amount of theory can disprove it, This isn't true either. Memories themselves are non-falsifiable. So no matter what we either side says we'll literally never know the truth.

SubiculumCode 2y ago

Around 2 tends to be the earliest limits that have been confirmed. Memory scientists don't claim that no memory persists from infancy, its just that it hasn't been confirmed, and there's lots of evidence of infants failing to remember events from months back in infant memory experimental paradigms, and highly plausible scenarios of memory reconstructions, from pictures, or from stories.

datavirtue 2y ago
Absolutely no way to study this.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Let a 6 month old play with a green or red ball. 5 year later show the same two balls and say you will give the kid an ice cream if it picks the same color. Obviously give the ice cream no matter the pick ... Look for correlation.

anonymousiam 2y ago

Heh. I've got memories from ages two and three that are pretty solid, and there were not photos or other records to prompt them. Some people really can do this. Some of my early memories were "filled in" by later experiences when I learned something that "explained" the earlier memory, and it was then reinforced, but the early memories are independent from the later ones. My earliest memory was President Kennedy's assassination, but of course I had no idea of what a president was, life, death, etc. I was 16 months old. What I do remember was a bunch of strange people in and out of the house with the TV on and everyone very concerned, but what I remember most of that day was that it was the day I learned how to shake my crib and move it around the room while I was inside. I remember my parents not liking the fact that I was able to do that. I've never discussed that memory with them, and they're both gone now, so I never will. I've got memories from when I barely knew how to talk, and didn't understand what the people around me were saying. My memory isn't good enough to decode what was said after I learned the language. I can clearly remember sitting in my high chair eating Alphabet cereal, and trying to make words with the letters I had not yet learned. I get sad when I think about how my parents would brush me off, probably thinking that I was too young to learn much. (My parents were both school teachers!)

gsich 2y ago

You wouldn't know the difference.

ryanjshaw 2y ago

When was the last time you updated your brain OS? My rememberory format changes every couple of years.

tomw1808 2y ago

I also sometimes have memories before 3, but mostly I am sleeping. However, on rare occasion, people send me pictures where I am awake at 3, but I have no memories. Sorry folks, I see myself out, that was inappropriate, I hope nobody will remember.

strictnein 2y ago

Same. I'm always kind of shocked when people don't. My wife hardly remembers anything before she was 8. We moved a couple months before I turned three and I have a bunch of memories that predate that. I remember being potty trained and lying to my parents about it so I could get a treat. I remember my dad coming home from the family farm and having injured his hand on some machinery. I remember stealing a pack of orange gum from the grocery store and chewing it all up underneath the piano in our basement. I could keep going and going. My earliest memory was before I was two. Somewhere around 19-20 months. I know this because I had an ear infection and that's when it occurred. I'm sitting in my crib, crying due to the pain in my ear, and screaming "mom" at the door in the room. The room is mostly dark, but the door has been left open a crack to let in a little bit of light. From my vantage, looking through the slats in the crib, the door is open on the left. My mom comes in once, finally, and then leaves. I also feel like I have an earlier one, being carried in a room which may have been my nursery, looking down on a changing table. I'm pretty sure I'm being held by my father, but I can't say for certain that this is real.