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Post by PhantomWolf on Mar 9, 2010 7:00:35 GMT -4
Except it has been shown that under the right circumstances we can recall that information, no matter how mundane, even if we don't think we could remember it. You know what the word "confabulation" means? Or the related term "false memory"? People have gone to jail because of false memories of criminal acts that never happened. Did you actually bother reading my posts?
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Post by ka9q on Mar 15, 2010 5:34:29 GMT -4
Yeah, I read your posts. I'm just expressing skepticism.
People have gone to jail for crimes they did not commit precisely because judges and juries believed, incorrectly, claims that certain memories could be recalled under the right circumstances.
When someone wants to retrieve a memory thought to be lost, one can very reasonably presume that the information being sought is otherwise unavailable. That can make it very difficult or impossible to corroborate the recovered memory, i.e., to know if it is actually true. That in turn makes it difficult to pass judgment on the general validity of methods for retrieving such "lost" memories.
And when the recovered memory becomes testimony against someone in a legal proceeding, as it often has, the scientific validity of the process becomes extremely important.
Since our criminal trials are still nominally based on the principle of reasonable doubt that seems more honored in the breach than the observance these days, it seems to me quite wise to be more than a little skeptical of such claims.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Mar 15, 2010 15:27:16 GMT -4
Yeah, I read your posts. I'm just expressing skepticism. People have gone to jail for crimes they did not commit precisely because judges and juries believed, incorrectly, claims that certain memories could be recalled under the right circumstances. When someone wants to retrieve a memory thought to be lost, one can very reasonably presume that the information being sought is otherwise unavailable. That can make it very difficult or impossible to corroborate the recovered memory, i.e., to know if it is actually true. That in turn makes it difficult to pass judgment on the general validity of methods for retrieving such "lost" memories. And when the recovered memory becomes testimony against someone in a legal proceeding, as it often has, the scientific validity of the process becomes extremely important. Since our criminal trials are still nominally based on the principle of reasonable doubt that seems more honored in the breach than the observance these days, it seems to me quite wise to be more than a little skeptical of such claims. The reason I asked if you bothered reading my posts was because I specifically adressed False Memories. We do know however, that real memories can be recovered as well through experimentation where we control the situation to be recalled without the subject being aware of what they are partaking in and then compare the later recalled details with the original situation. The Mythbusters did a very basic form of this on their show, the experiment was a little rough, but it did show that the methods work if done correctly. Memory is a very fragile thing though, because many of the paths are similar they can be intertwined easily, and they can be over written with new information if the interviewer is not very careful in what they are doing. We do have to be careful with "Recovered memory" but it is not because the person can't recover real memories, it is because if the techniques are done wrong, then not only can false memories occur from conflicting similar senarios, but they can overwrite the real memories with something totally false, just like writing over data on a computer's HDD, and unlike doing that, getting the information back from the brain is all but impossible once it has been damaged.
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Post by ka9q on Mar 17, 2010 18:54:31 GMT -4
Memory is a very fragile thing though, because many of the paths are similar they can be intertwined easily, and they can be over written with new information if the interviewer is not very careful in what they are doing. Yes. I still have a memory of once being lost in the woods near our house when I was very young. To this day I haven't a clue whether it really happened, whether I confabulated it, or if it was simply a dream that I happened to remember after waking, unlike the hundreds of thousands of dreams that I've long forgotten. Now this particular memory is about an innocuous incident. But what if it had involved sexual abuse, or some other crime? Then its reality could have taken on a great deal of importance. Knowing what I now know about false memories, I would never rely on a memory like this to accuse someone of a crime. But how many others know how fallible their own memories can be?
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Post by BertL on Mar 17, 2010 20:48:29 GMT -4
I remember being angry about not being allowed to go with my aunt to her house one day (she's like a grandma to me - I used to go there two days a week), and I remember being so angry I ran away from home for it. I must have been about three at the most, at that time. When I recently talked about the event with my moter, I found out I never did walk away for that reason, and that the two events were entirely unrelated.
Funny how the mind plays tricks on you.
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