Philosophy Wire: The video game… [Can you remember? This was the last day of your life…]

Even though people tend to remember fewer details about past events as time goes by, the details they do remember are retained with remarkable fidelity, according to a new study. This finding holds true regardless of the age of the person or the amount of time that elapsed since the event took place. [1] Can you remember? When you were a child. Sitting with your grandparents in their warm home. Looking at the Christmas tree, having a high-score at the video game you have now lost. You slept well then. Wake up. This is the last day of your life. Can you remember? You are not here. You are not there. Instead the cosmos is inside everywhere…

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Philosophy Wire: Smell the jasmine…

Based on highly sensitive recordings of neuron activity in the noses of mice, researchers have found that olfactory sensory neurons can exhibit suppression or enhancement of response when odors are mixed, overturning a long-standing view that the response is a simple sum with more complex processing only happening at later stages. [1] Smell the jasmine. No, it is not just a jasmine. It is your old parent's house. It is your hopes as a child. Your dreams and things that never came to be. It is that galaxy you saw during that night and you still cannot recall whether it was a dream or not. Smell the jasmine. Open your eyes. See? It is just a jasmine. (Why do you cry in an empty cosmos?)

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Philosophy Wire: Stay calm…

If and how babies recall what they have learned depends on their mood: what they've learned when feeling calm is inaccessible when they're active and vice versa. This was shown in a study with 96 children aged nine months. [1] Search inside. And you will remember. That once you were not calm nor active. That once you just… were! Difficult to accept standing still, when you are running around in agony. Difficult to understand living, when you are trying so hard to avoid dying.

Oh, poor humans. Don’t you see?
The rope you are trying to balance on, is you!
Try to remember.

You never started walking…

There is no rope…
Stay calm now…
Or you will fall!

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Memories… Broken cosmos… Blurry image…

Scientists trying to find out how memories form and fade away. [1]

But why should we care?
Why does a fading memory matter anyway?
How can a memory which starts to exist make any sense?
We never used to care about such things.
We used to remember anything.
At a time when there was nothing to remember.
At a time when there was nothing to forget…

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Philosophy Wire: Memories out of… experience.

When it comes to memory, it's more than just 'location, location, location'. New research suggests that the brain doesn't store all memories in 'place cells,' the main type of neuron in the hippocampus, a structure crucial for navigation and memory. Instead, memories seem to be powered by a subset of hippocampal cells that have little to do with location and more with context or episodes. [1] Experiencing things. Inside space and time. Universes created. Out of nowhere. A cosmos propagating to its death. Moving into its own self out of time. Yes, we can understand this cosmos. But not because we are not part of this cosmos. But because this cosmos is part of us…

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Philosophy Wire: Baby memories… Unconscious memories…

What was your first memory? It's never a memory of being a baby - most people's earliest memory is from when they were around three or four years old. But why can we not remember our infant memories? And are they really lost, or just forgotten?

A team of neuroscientists from the University of Toronto set out to investigate, using mice to identify when and how brains forget these memories. The research results suggested that our earliest experiences are not completely forgotten or erased from the brain. Instead, we can bring them back through a kind of direct stimulation. [1]

Try to think of what you cannot remember. It is there.
In your walking. In your talking. In your every reaction.
It does not matter whether you remember it or not.
You are your memories. Especially those you do not remember...

Keep walking under the rain…
You are smiling…
And you can’t remember why…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Self-reference: The key to everything? [You are alone]

Researchers have pinpointed a brain region monkeys use to evaluate their ability to recall memories. To date, this metamemory process, which requires a higher level of self-reflection about our own cognition, was thought by some to be unique to humans, though this research suggests otherwise. [1]

Remembering based on what we… remember. Being ourselves because we are… ourselves. Consciousness defined based on… itself. Existence existing because it… exists. Self- reference is everything. It is as if everything is just… One. And everything we see and feel are just pointing all to the same direction, to the same clearing within the dark forest…

Nothing exists. It is just you. Alone…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Hitler’s house. Memories lost in the dust…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-09-29]: Austria has demolished the house of Hitler. [1] Millions of dead crying. Now as dust, travelling to deep space. A star will soon be born. A sun will soon light again a cosmos. Darkness will come again. That house will forever be there.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Good memories. Bad memories. Stupid people.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-10-09]: Scientists managed to transform good memories into bad. [1] Who know what is bad? Who defines what is good? Who understands how the brain works? Who knows what "mind" is? Who knows what life is? Who understands death? Who is so stupid so as to play with things he does not know?

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Photos, memories, Facebook.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-01-13]: It is official: the more photographs you take the more difficult it is for you to remember something from the past. [1] My fondest memories are in my mind only. And after I die, nowhere. Or everywhere? I don't know... I do know one thing though: They will not be in fucking Facebook! Stay your self. You may lose one-or-two "likes" or one-or-two fake (digital) "friends". But you will win your life...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Imagination, probably NOT due to memories...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-09-23]:

Old memories are used to shape thoughts on new imaginary experiences. (1) So let me understand... where have we seen anything "infinite", so that we can refer to it with such ease? Where have we seen "god"?

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...