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The power to forget (memory erasure)
electricitylikesme
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Registered User regular
This is a theme that I think most sci-fi kind of deals with kind of poorly. We always discuss the big important points and for some reason come to the conclusion that it's better to remember. Boston Legal - weirdly - decided it would be better to remember a sexual assault then forget it ever happened.
But let's look outside major crimes - any adolescent who's seriously used the internet has an enormous list of things they'd like to forget ever seeing. Of course, forget is bad - a lingering feeling of unease would be a good substitute while avoiding any specific memories.
On top of that, consider social issues - unkind things have been said to me, I've said some atrociously unkind things in my time. And what bothers me most is, by and large, I'd just like to forget they ever happened since it's impossible to atone for them, by and large.
So here's what I'm wondering: what would be the effect of practical memory erasure technology? I can envisage 3 basic scenarios:
1. near-term long-term memory erasure. A customized binding chemical to activated neurons is introduced to your blood stream, and you focus hard on a memory. Then a targeted antibody is introduced which binds to the chemical and inhibits the targeted neurons in a quasi-selective way. In this manner you can eliminate hobbies, people etc. but with some degree of success and a fair degree of risk. It's probably the type of thing you go to Cuba to get done.
2. Easy short term memory erasure. You drink a cocktail of highly engineered nanoparticles and they nuke anything you've seen in the last 15 minutes to 2 hours, dependent on a few factors.
3. Easy anything memory erasure - you go to a clinic, tell them what you want erased and it's gone - or dulled depending on preference.
So D&D, what do you think would be the impact of the various types of memory erasure technology on society, and it's potential moral implications? Would you use it, and what for, and well, since you wouldn't remember what for, how would you use it?
But let's look outside major crimes - any adolescent who's seriously used the internet has an enormous list of things they'd like to forget ever seeing. Of course, forget is bad - a lingering feeling of unease would be a good substitute while avoiding any specific memories.
On top of that, consider social issues - unkind things have been said to me, I've said some atrociously unkind things in my time. And what bothers me most is, by and large, I'd just like to forget they ever happened since it's impossible to atone for them, by and large.
So here's what I'm wondering: what would be the effect of practical memory erasure technology? I can envisage 3 basic scenarios:
1. near-term long-term memory erasure. A customized binding chemical to activated neurons is introduced to your blood stream, and you focus hard on a memory. Then a targeted antibody is introduced which binds to the chemical and inhibits the targeted neurons in a quasi-selective way. In this manner you can eliminate hobbies, people etc. but with some degree of success and a fair degree of risk. It's probably the type of thing you go to Cuba to get done.
2. Easy short term memory erasure. You drink a cocktail of highly engineered nanoparticles and they nuke anything you've seen in the last 15 minutes to 2 hours, dependent on a few factors.
3. Easy anything memory erasure - you go to a clinic, tell them what you want erased and it's gone - or dulled depending on preference.
So D&D, what do you think would be the impact of the various types of memory erasure technology on society, and it's potential moral implications? Would you use it, and what for, and well, since you wouldn't remember what for, how would you use it?
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Though there are things in my past that are unpleasant and painful to remember, they are still an important part of the equation that is I.
The practice of chemically surpressing memory formation is common during surgery though, especially in concious sedation procedures.
I don't think any of those work retroactively though, which seems to be what ELM is describing. I'm pretty sure there isn't a morning after ruphie yet.
It's just a pretty non-discriminate method.
And more OT:
I honestly wouldn't trust other human beings with my memories so the last option of selectively deleting memories wouldn't be for me as it'd probably involve them being able to view them in some way and thus be able to save them or use them for nefarious purposes.
Now that I think about it there would be a lot of shady shit going on with this kinda stuff.
While a bankrobber probably wouldn't be able to benefit that greatly from this (using it to erase any knowledge of the actual robbery and thus pass a lie detector test/interrogation or whatever as any erased memory would leave a gap or a brain-filled memory that'd quickly lead the authorities to the conclusion that they've tampered with their memories) I could see this being used by someone who just want to sell her body without actually "experiencing it" or doing a similar thing that they might not want to remember in the future.
Or someone could just kidnap you in the middle of the night, torture you and get whatever information they need from you (bank details, national information if you're someone important etc) and then just inject you with this stuff and drop you off at home in your bed for you to wake up the following morning with no recollections of what has happened.
so you could waste even more time playing a game!
In short, nothing good could come from selective memory erasure.
I also can't imagine a way in which you could safely do so without risks that would make the idea of tampering with your brain so you could watch a great movie for the first time again even remotely worth it.
Bad memories are a large portion of how we grow and develop as people, you cheat on a partner that means a lot too you or you treat a friend badly and they stop talking to you, you learn to be a bit less of a dick. OR since those people aren't in contact with you anymore at all you just go down to neighbourhood memory wiping station and forget them along with the pain and any lesson you may have learned.
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I imagine immortals must do this in order to avoid too bloated minds or growing in complexity until they're not longer themselves.
Unfortunately, these things define me. I cannot logically arrive at the person I am currently if these things didn't happen.
I put this sort of thing on the same level as time travel. It just doesn't feel like the sort of thing the human condition is meant to interact with.
Trying to eliminate all memories of your last girlfriend could have far-reaching implications. Did she break up with you at a restaurant? Well, now you don't remember what your favorite meal your mom used to cook for you on your birthday as a kid is, because it happened to have the same entree as what you had the night she dumped you.
Now, what could be an effectively tool is something akin to artificial synapse pruning. By destroying the synaptic connections that keep the memory of her screwing your best friend so strong in your mind, you could effectively bury the memory without it, or any related memories, going away. Things would remind you of it less often, and you'd probably end up having to try to remember things like her name, or the restaurant she dumped you at, even when you're sitting in that restaurant.
Outright destroying memories, though, I'm not sure would be a good idea.
I believe the technology used was "blah blah cryogenics something something rehabilitate words words knitting"
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Part of the danger of memory-inhibiting drugs like Rohypnol or Versed is that they block the brain's ability to commit short-term memory to long-term memory, so there is a short retrograde effect. they can make it hard to remember anything roughly ~30 minutes prior to the action of the drug. Given that the usual time being ingesting a drug orally and it getting to your brain is around 20 minutes, this means that you might not remember the immediate circumstances in which the drug was ingested (such as who gave it to you).
I don't mean this to be scary, date rape with Rohypnol is actually extremely rare (if it still happens at all) because memory-blocking drugs are rarely prescribed on an outpatient basis for exactly that reason.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
"What can change the nature of a man?"
Even if it's from a video game, I always felt that that passage was really solid and it's something that I've held as true. I know what you mean because I'll be sitting alone just thinking and sometimes my memory just goes back to moments that make me cringe or that I'd rather forget.
But as much as I'd like to forgot them, as others here have said, its those moments that have really shaped me moving on. They make you a better person in that you learn maybe a right from a wrong or what NOT to do in a future situation.
Tampering with memory just opens a lot of doors with very few of them having positive affects.
But what about those events that seriously screws people over for the rest of their lives? E.g. Abused as a child/Violent rape - Forgetting something like this might be a net positive for that individual since it's a random event outside their control.
I see this as more used as a therapeutic tool.
Edit: And since I'm reading the Dr Who thread as well, that memory alien from Torchwood with the ability to remove/re-write memories. If that's the progression past just removing memories, at what point is that considered murder? I mean after you remove a certain % of someones memory or replace it, that individual no longer exists? Murder/Not murder/Something new?
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Is it wrong to completely change the psychological makeup and memories of a criminal if that's the only way to stop them from committing a crime?
They are not killed as they are still alive and won't have to be imprisoned or punished in any way as they'll be a new person.
Before or after they've committed their first crime?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Equally if it could be argued that we are the sum of our experiences it could also be used as a (somewhat) more humane method of dealing with murders and mentally ill people who can't be reintegrated into society.
Wouldn't really work for drug addictions since that is a physical ailment due to a chemical imbalance produced within one's brain due to the drugs.
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Seems roughly equivalent to taking a psychotic and doping him up to the point where he's in a drugged stupor for the rest of his life. You're basically ending the original person and introducing a new one, with the added bonus that the new one can actually participate in society.
So if drugging someone into semi-consciousness forever is kosher, seems this would be, too. Though this seems pretty sci-fi even by the OP's standards.
As to the general idea of selective memory loss, this seems like a technology that would be abused far more often than it was used for good, depending on how easy it was. At the far end, this seems the sort of thing the mob would get into. Instead of offing a witness, just erase his memory of the event. No fuss, no muss, no body.
As a practical matter, I wonder, though, what the connection is between memories and personality. Is the latter a product of the former, or is it the former? Say, for example, that my mom is killed in a fire and I thus have a driving need to be a fireman. If you erased the memory of my mom, would I still have the same need? Or is the need and the memory effectively the same thing?
If they're not the same, then you could remove formative memories without removing, in any meaningful sense, who you are. But I suspect they are basically the same. That you are not formed by your memories, you are your memories, in the same way that a colony of ants is the ants themselves. Remove the ants, and the colony is gone.
You would still get sick, but it would work because you wouldn't know that crack would make you feel good again, and thus wouldn't try to get it.
Except for the severe alcoholic who gets the DTs and dies. Or the heroine addict that starts to freak out, goes to the ER and they tell him it appears as though he's going through heroine withdrawal and upon learning this takes it upon himself to score some heroine instead of spending another day throwing up blood.
I'm pretty sure that vomiting blood is not a typical withdrawal symptom. You're right though, if it could fail in extreme cases, then it wouldn't work at all.
It may not be typical but having known someone who experienced that when getting off heroine it is a possibility. That combined with the fact that it would have to erase basically this person's entire social circle from their memory so they do not come into contact with someone who can get them drugs, and most of their memories of having a drug addiction which may be any where from six months to years, and keeping them away from anything that could remind them of their drug addiction you'd basically be working with an infant by the time all the necessary memories were purged.
Edit: I'm not even sure if there are cases of non-extreme drug addictions besides guys that spend all their time smoking weed...
That's a good point, regarding the possibility that erasure of their whole life may be required. Rehab teaches you to learn from your mistakes, and is probably the best first choice for recovery. Erasure of those mistakes, and the desire itself, would probably be best reserved for a last ditch effort.
(I don't mean extreme addictions, I mean extremely pronounced withdrawal symptoms, to the point of being life threatening, like those you describe.)
This also raises another question for me. Eternal Sunshine presents memory erasure as a solution, with extremely limited/temporary success. However, that movie also exists in a world where the procedure is not common knowledge. It seems that not knowing the procedure took place is a key factor in long term success. In this world, people do not suspect that they'd been wiped when presented with artifacts from their missing past that no longer make sense. They don't know about memory wipes, so they don't think "was my memory wiped? I wonder what it was..."
I think that if everyone knew about the existence of the procedure, they would probably relapse much faster (like the woman calling for an appointment who had been wiped several times). Thus, real-world implementation of this technology to resolve the sort of serious issues covered in the movie (ie: those beyond 'I want to play that game again'), would be ultimately self-defeating.
[Edit] Regarding infinite replayability. Perhaps rather than deleting the memory with a dangerous procedure, employ a drug that temporarily inhibits the creation of memory before you play it. The downside here would be that if the game sucked, you wouldn't be able to remember, and would subject yourself to the misery over and over until someone told you how much you hated it.
As for the social circle, well they would have to re-learn the desire for drugs. So maybe if they're told they had a problem they would steer clear and not be tempted. Of course it depends how accurate we can be at deleting memories. If we can keep some things like horrible experiences while getting rid of the stuff that makes them an addict then win.
After they've committed their first crime, rehabilitation has failed and they've committed a second crime.