
Practical and ethical implications of memory enhancement - benbreen
https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.08083
======
kbaker
If you have Netflix, I highly suggest watching Black Mirror S1E3 'The Entire
History of You', as it is a pretty great dramatization of a total memory
record and replay future...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You)

~~~
teekert
I was coming here to suggest just this. The whole series is brilliant by the
way. "Fifteen Million Merits" [0] just keeps haunting me and when I mute
Spotify (free) and this pauses an ad, I keep thinking about it.

[0]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/?ref_=ttep_ep2](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/?ref_=ttep_ep2)

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aisofteng
Vaguely related by topic and somewhat obsoleted if we take the linked
article's conclusions as fact -

I've had in mind for a long time the idea for a short story (or perhaps novel)
set in a future where one is able to purchase an "intelligence upgrade", given
enough money, which bestows upon the customer a stronger reasoning ability and
an overall more capable intelligence.

If we accept that particularly capable people (disregarding why they are
particularly capable, when adults) then imagine a world where already
successful people are able to purchase neural upgrades that enhance the
cognitive aspects that let them become as successful as they already were able
to become.

On the one hand, this might create an exponentially larger social inequality,
if it is true that most successfully people are selfish and take advantage of
others. On the other hand (and if you believe that at least 51% of the human
race is "good"), it might not. Which one would it be, and would it depend on
how and why society got to the point of developing those sorts of neural
upgrades? I don't know.

I think that the premise could make for an interesting thought experiment
expressed in literary form, even if it would depend on its author's personal
beliefs. Alas, I am not a creative writer by any stretch of the imagination.

~~~
saiya-jin
in this case, forget about those 51% - the term you would need to achieve this
is altruism, and there are very few people who are truly like that. Don't
expect many parents to ignore the clearest way to give their kids massive
advantage in life (or later just catch up with rest of the crowd). This is
one-way direction.

Most of us are +- OK good morally, but always put their own/family/friends
priorities above overall good of society. In described scenario, inequality
would get much, much deeper (why stop with memory when you can enhance all
senses ie night vision infra zooming see-through sight, cardiovascular system,
skeleton and so on).

Classic cyberpunk, not a question if, only when it comes

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beautifulfreak
I was reminded of this recent news.

 _Normal mice put inside a watery maze took more than a minute to locate the
submerged platform that would let them escape. But these mice — which had been
injected with a curious new molecule — found it in an average of just 16
seconds._

[https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/memory-isrib-peter-
walte...](https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/memory-isrib-peter-walter/)

------
pmoriarty
There's a lot of good information on how to improve one's memory on the Mentat
Wiki:

[http://www.ludism.org/mentat](http://www.ludism.org/mentat)

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amelius
> The multiplicity of memory enhancement: Practical and ethical implications
> of the diverse neural substrates underlying human memory systems

I have problems parsing and understanding this title.

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Cozumel
The paper is concentrating on a technological approach.

Memory is a 'muscle', it can be trained, it's possible to train yourself to
have 100% recall and I think people should concentrate on that as much as
physically working out.

I actually think that's the approach schools should take, instead of cramming
children full of facts they'll never remember, take a couple of years, train
everyone to have a photographic memory, _then_ teach them, no more cramming,
no more panicking, no more not understanding, you just absorb everything!

Google 'memory palace' for learning resources on memory etc.

~~~
lj3
Do you have 100% recall? And if you so, how did you get there, specifically?
I'd like to learn more, but there's so much hokum surrounding so called
'memory' techniques it's hard to know where to start. It's kind of like weight
lifting that way. :)

~~~
emilga
> I'd like to learn more, but there's so much hokum surrounding so called
> 'memory' techniques it's hard to know where to start.

Check out the book "Your Memory: How it Works and How to Improve It" by
Kenneth Higbee. It's written by a professor in psychology and he uses it in
his classes. The book has the perfect blend between theory of how memory works
and practical skills.

~~~
p1esk
Have you improved your memory using that book? If yes, can you tell us about
it?

~~~
emilga
The most significant way the book improved my memory is by changing how I
conceptualize my memory.

That is to say: the way to improve my memory is not to improve This-Thing-
Called-Memory, but to improve This-Skill-Called-Creating-Memories.

This means that I have -- and have to take -- an active and intentional part
in really creating the memories I want to later recall.

How do I create those memories? By adhering to some general principles, such
as:

Meaningfulness - Does this information make sense to you? If something doesn't
make sense, you're very unlikely to remember it. Find a way to impose
meaningfulness on inherently non-meaningful information and you will improve
your "memory" because you improve your "memory creation skills".

For example, memorizing the digits of Euler's number 2.718281828459045... is
difficult because there is no meaning in the numbers. However, if you impose
the following meaning on the digits memorization becomes much easier: 1828 is
the birth year of Henrik Ibsen, my home country's most famous poet. And
45-90-45 are the values of a particular isosceles triangle where the two legs
have length 1.

So the way I remember Euler's number to myself is "two-point-seven-Ibsen-
Ibsen-IsocelesTriangle". This is much easier to recall than the seemingly
random digits themselves.

There are other principles too, such as: Organization, Association,
Visualization, Attention, Repetition, Feedback, Relaxation, Context, Interest,
and Chunking. Each of which can help you in forming good memories.

For example, the Association principles has to do with asking yourself "What
does this remind me of?" when you want to remember new information. The more
answers you can produce to that question, the better you will remember the new
information.

In addition to the basic and general principles above, there are more specific
memorization techniques, such as: Chain Mnemonic, First Letter Mnemonic,
Method of Loci, Peg Mnemonics, etc.

The most basic of these techniques, the one I use a lot, is the Chain
Mnemonic. It works by taking whatever you want to remember, divide it into
pieces, then represent each piece by a concrete object, then associate each
concrete object in the "chain" with the next object.

How to picture objects and how to chain them together is elaborated upon in
some detail in the book. It has mostly to do with: make it visually striking,
bizarre, shocking, funny, etc. Engage as many of your senses as possible. What
does the object sound like, smell like, feel like (dry? wet? sticky? smooth?),
etc. I personally find that creating images like this is a skill you improve
it the more you practice. Then you chain the images or objects together by
having them interact in some way. One object falling on top of and crushing
the other object. Or an object turning into another object in a striking way,
etc.

It's important to understand that the book only "works" if you turn the
principles into habits. My memory is only "improved" when I apply the
principles. When I don't apply the principles, there is no improvement.

~~~
p1esk
Thanks for the detailed answer. I'm actually familiar with these principles,
but I never bothered to turn them into habits. I find that if I'm interested
in a topic, I don't have trouble remembering the details, and if I'm not
interested, but need it, I should focus on making it interesting (e.g. making
it relevant to my life goals, etc).

