WEBVTT - Thanks for the Memories 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:13.840 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.680 podcast that looks at the future and says someone mutters 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.200 and the street lamp gutters. Soon it will be morning. 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.320 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, we're all 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.239 back together again. Yeah. Oh it's been a little while. Yeah, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.080 it's been quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah, I forgot how 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.800 small this table is when there are three people around it. Well, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:33.920 that we had three one time while you were gone, 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:39.640 we had Holly was on. She was great. Oh I'm glad, Yes, Holly. 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.600 Holly is always wonderful. So it's it's a great memory 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.200 of mine to think back on Holly in that episode. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.000 You know now that you say the word memory, Yeah, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.880 almost as if it were a segue. I recall something. 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.600 It's a memory I have about a thought I had 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.200 about memories. I remember that. So let me take y'all 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.160 back to a couple of months ago, I please do, 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:05.880 Or it might have been a couple of years ago. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.000 I don't know. My memory is not very good. When 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.800 I was researching the brain to brain communication video that 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:14.720 I wrote, there was a video episode we did a 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.160 while back, and it was about the idea of people 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:23.520 communicating without words from brain to brain. So in one 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.679 of the experiments described in the video, they had two 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.800 people sitting in rooms in different buildings, and they were 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.240 using a combination of an e G cap on one 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.000 end and then a transcranial magnetic stimulation device on the 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.560 other end to have one person caused the other person's 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.320 brain to press a button. Right, So that's kind of cool. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.040 The brain actually caused the person's finger to push the button. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.960 That's right. Well, the brain caused the other person's brain 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.560 to cause the person's finger to press them exactly as 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.000 opposed to the brain itself pushing the button. Just want 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:57.720 to be like leaping out through the ear and going 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.000 to deep right, which would have been brang prang ish. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.600 The yeah, the the the idea of being in that 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.040 video you you were. We were taking that concept of 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.320 a direct brain to brain communication and saying, what if 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.560 this could be extended to the point where someone could 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.840 transfer an entire brain state to someone else? Right, Sure, 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.880 we don't know the ultimate end of what can be 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.600 shared from brain to brain, because this example in this 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.919 video that we talked about. It was very basic. It 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.600 It's essentially just a one bit impulse. It's saying press now, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.200 you know, like action, do something. But what the most 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.560 optimistic advocates of brain to brain communication we're saying is 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.000 that one day, based on these same technologies, just taken 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.120 to a much more complex level, you might actually be 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.399 able to share really complex contents of the brain, such 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.440 as skills like you could train somebody on a skill 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.919 like I know kung fu, right, just with a brain transfer, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.240 you can put that knowledge brain state into their brain. 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.000 Or you could share a memory of yours directly into 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.240 somebody else's brain without words, going like oh I I 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.040 had I saw this beautiful sunset once here you go, right, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:16.640 including the emotions I experienced when I saw this thing. Sure, 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:18.920 And to be honest, we don't know if something like 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.239 that is possible or not. It might be, it might 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.000 not be. But I actually thought about this problem a lot, 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.120 and while I certainly wouldn't say it's impossible to have 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.600 somebody else's memories beamed into your brain, I do kind 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:36.640 of wonder because let's imagine how this would work. Uh, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.040 Let's say you're trying to transfer a memory of when 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.240 you were at a birthday party when you were seven 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.200 years old, and you were handed a little paper plate 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:48.760 with a piece of birthday cake on it, and there 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.000 was a big scorpion sitting on that piece of birthday cake. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.680 This is where we learned how terrible Joe's childhood was. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.600 It rained every time there was a pool party. Now, 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.360 if you have a videotape of this event, it would 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.480 be easy to transfer a video file from one computer 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.120 to another, right, assuming it's a common, easily read file 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.600 type and you have the right libraries, codex whatever to 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.200 translate the file. But the reason you need something like 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.320 a codec is that there are potentially infinite number of 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:24.279 ways visual information like video could be encoded as information 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.760 for storage and transfer. Right, So, if you had a 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.520 video of this event on your hard drive, there wouldn't 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.080 be a little picture of a piece of birthday cake 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.040 with sprinkles and big happy scorpions sitting on it somewhere 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.039 inside your computer. It would just be a file like 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.400 any other file, long string of data bits, ones and zeros. 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.120 We know how that goes. That's some kind of program 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.839 then compiles or or kind of filters down into a 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.960 single image or a series of images rather exactly. So 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.880 the reason we have common file types and codex and 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.160 stuff is so all of our computers can agree on 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.680 how to translate these bits of data into lard pixels 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.120 on the screen or vice versa from recording them from 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:07.320 a lens. But our brains don't have common file types yet, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.440 do they know? They don't? Well, you know, we can't 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.280 even we can't even describe the file types that are there, right, 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.280 we don't even fully understand how episodic memories are encoded 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.159 in the brain. And by episodic memories, I mean something 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.000 like that, like we're calling a particular event and what 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.160 happened and how it made you feel. Yeah, yeah, all 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.440 things like that, as opposed to what we might call 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.760 semantic memories, which are more like remembering how to do something, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.640 or remembering what a fork is for, or or what 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.880 a scorpion can do to you, or something your birthday 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.160 party with your seven. So, when you think about it, 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.599 describing your memory and words to another person is sort 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.080 of one crude way of translating or converting a memory 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:56.880 file type across possibly incompatible file types. Right, It's like 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.240 a converter program in a way. But of course, some 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.200 aspects of the experience can always be lost when you're 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.440 transferring a memory this way. That's why we find ourselves 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:07.800 saying things like, well, I guess you really had to 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.400 be there, so something gets lost in this translation. So 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.760 it's it's even, it goes beyond even the The analogy 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:16.880 that we could draw is imagine that we're in the 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.200 early days of computers, where every computer is its own 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.000 individual type of thing, and the type of computer I 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.159 own and the type of computer Laura owns, the type 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.640 of computer Joe owns are all different types. We don't 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.240 all have mac os or Windows. There's not intercompatible. There's 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.800 no way for me to send the work that I 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.479 do on mine onto yours and haven't mean anything. They're 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:41.800 all based on different operating systems, and so I have 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.200 I might have something on my machine and I want 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:45.799 to share it with YouTube, but I'm kind of stuck 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:47.799 because I don't have a way of doing that unless 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.400 you say, hey, come over and look directly at my screen, 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.560 which there's no analog for in human brain memory stuff. Yeah, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.520 and oh wait, no, hold on, there's that consciousness binding 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.839 machine we talked about. Well weight, I dreamed that I 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.120 was about to say, like, I'd love to the other 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.080 episode recording will I was a vacation. Uh No. I 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.200 was going to also say, though, that even even this 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.320 example with the analogy, it's it's not um, it's not 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:19.040 completely accurate. Because with a computer we could actually point 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:24.080 to the the the file name and say this represents 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.760 that memory. We can't do that in the brain to 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:33.160 the extent where we can identify a specific series of 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.360 neurons and say this represents that memory. Yeah, that's totally true. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.480 We don't know if in theory we could one day 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.240 do that. We certainly can't do that now, and we 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.760 don't know if we could do it, if that would 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.840 be at any way transferable. Very good point. Now, on 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.760 the other hand, in favor of the idea of sort 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:58.400 of technological compatibility for organic memories when we record, store, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.360 and recall memories, I think we all agree that something 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.760 physical is happening in the brain. Like even if you're 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.440 a duellist and you believe you know that there's something 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.040 sort of like supernatural, a soul or something going beyond 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.480 the brain, I think even most people who think this 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:18.640 don't think that memory encoding and recall is a supernatural process. Yeah. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.040 I think everyone agrees that it's a more than the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.560 sum of its parts kind of situation, but something that 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:28.120 we hypothetically eventually will be able to suss out. Yeah, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.320 it is. It is a physical thing that happens in 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.559 the brain. If it's a physical thing that happens in 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.480 the brain, then it can, in theory at least be 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.440 measured and recorded by scientific instruments. I'm not sure if 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.600 it can be without killing the brain, but at least 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.360 it is in theory possible to see, Okay, here the 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.200 physical states of every single cell in the brain and 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.560 what they're doing in relationship to each other. So you 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.480 should be able to record with the physical reality of 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.480 a certain memory being recalled, is Yeah, once we get 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.320 to the point where we have the data capacity, just 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.160 the thorough put really to to watch all of those 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.920 things carefully enough to designate them. Yeah. Sure. And so 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.760 if we accept that the basis of all our memories 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.720 is some kind of physical fact about the brain, and 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.360 those physical facts can be measured, then shouldn't all of 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:23.520 our memories be somehow recordable from the outside. Well maybe 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.000 and maybe not. So I thought we should look at 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.400 this question today and sort of examine the field of 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.720 memory and technology and see what we can reasonably say 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.120 about where technology and memory meet. Will we one day 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.080 be able to record our memories onto computers, will we 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.120 be able to share them between brains without words? And 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.840 what the future of memory and technology is and these 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.679 are all, you know, really cool questions to ask, and 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.440 we've already mentioned it before in the episode, but there's 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.240 so much that we don't know about the brain and 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.600 how memory works that this is going to be largely speculative. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.880 We're going to try and lay the foundation of what 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.120 we understand about memory, but honestly, we are on the 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.920 very first steps of a very what could be a 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:13.559 very long journey. We don't even know how long the 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.680 journey will be, right, We we have no idea, right. Uh. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.240 Plenty of researchers are working on this kind of stuff, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:21.600 and we'll talk about a few of them later on 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.600 in the podcast. But first, first, let's talk about what 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.800 we solidly do know about how memory is encoded in 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.560 the brain. Okay, Well it's going to be short, alright, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:37.240 So yeah, that word solidly solidly. Uh. You you can 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.040 you encounter things and you process them and later you 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.280 can recall a simulation of the thing that happened. Oh, 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.319 we we're pretty sure that we know a little bit 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.319 more than that, a little bit more. There actually has 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.480 been some very recent uh information coming out from a 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.920 study that I think, Joe you you came across a 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.360 blog on on the the idea about something that could 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.679 really shake up the the idea of how memories are 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.440 stored in the brain. But we'll get to that in 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.079 a second. So, first of all, we generally talk about 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:13.120 three uh phases of memory. We talked about the encoding 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.240 of memory, the storage of memory, and the retrieval of memory. UH. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:22.160 And it's really a complex construction of the results from 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.880 multiple regions of the brain all working together to encode 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.840 a memory and store it. So memory remembering things and 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.920 and forming new memories is very similar to thinking in general. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.599 It involves multiple regions of the brain working in concerts. 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.280 So it's not like there's one part of your brain 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.560 and that's the memory factory and that's all it does. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.240 There's a lot of stuff that works together to do this. Now, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.880 there are some facilitators that are really important in the 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.000 encoding of memory. So first we have to perceive something 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.640 in order to form a memory of some sort. See 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.000 the scorpion, yes, yeah, not just the scorpion. You also 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.719 see the cake, You feel the plate, you hear the 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:09.480 children screaming you, the smell of cake, and scorpion enters 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.840 your nostrils. All these things are collectively part of that experience, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.000 and you have an emotion of I wanted that cake, 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.400 or maybe I wonder if scorpions are edible. I mean, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.920 who knows what's going through your mind. So those perceptions 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.520 are integrated into a single experience, and the Hippo campus 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.520 plays a big part in this. The Hippo campus is 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.240 kind of working as a manager, pulling all this this 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:39.280 the separate lines of data and integrating them into what 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.640 will eventually be turned into the memory um. And that 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.800 pretty much is the collection of all the perceptions that 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.680 define that experience. Right now, here's where we start getting 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.240 into things that we believe are going on, but we 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.760 don't know for sure because we don't fully understand the 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.640 workings of the brain. So xts think that the hippocampus 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.959 and the frontal cortex tag team together to sort through 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.400 these integrated experiences that the hippocampus has pulled together and 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.480 determine which ones are keepers and which ones you can 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.400 toss away. So, in other words, we've got stuff happening 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.720 around us all the time, much of it we are 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.920 not consciously aware of because we're not focusing on that 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.840 at the moment, or if we are consciously aware of it, 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.320 we're not going to remember it later. Yeah, we're not. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.640 There was nothing going on up in that corner of 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.160 the room, so we can just blot it right out. Yeah, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.959 that that's just a great spot in the memory. There's 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.600 nothing like you know, it may turn out that, uh, 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.079 there was actually something going on over there, there was 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.400 a pinana on fire, but that was not important to 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.160 the moment where the scorpion was sitting there on your cake, 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.720 so it doesn't factor into your memory. It wasn't encoded, um, 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:49.880 so if it's not encoded, it just kind of fades away, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.280 you know it. Just so, the frontal cortex and the 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.480 hippocampus together are saying, all right, this is what's important 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.240 for this memory. This is what we're going to store 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.600 for later. All this other stuff we're gonna leave behind. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.400 It's important. So you don't get overloaded with all the 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.199 data around you all the time. But then, of course, 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.600 from our experience, you can think about how even that 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.959 is not necessarily a totally clear distinction. I mean, think 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.160 about all of the things you experience that you probably 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.280 yourself wouldn't be able to recall clearly just out of 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.720 the blue. But if somebody sort of like repeated it 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.760 to you, you know, said like, hey, remember when Jonathan 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.240 said X, Y and Z, you might be like, oh, yeah, 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.600 I think he did say that. Yeah. The same sort 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.720 of thing that when you encounter a smell that's similar 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.400 to one that that played a really important part in 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.920 a memory that of yours, it brings that back. So 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.120 for me, for example, the one that I will always 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.480 associate with a particular part of my life is the 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.080 smell uh that you get when you go to like 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:59.360 a giant indoor pool. The chemicals like that immediately takes 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.000 me back to swim lessons when I was a little kid. 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.520 Doesn't matter how old I get, as so as I 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.080 smell it, boom, I'm back there summer break. It smells 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.960 like the Gainsville College pool uh and uh and and 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.840 the terror that I experienced on a weekly basis going 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.400 to swimming lessons. Uh. So you know, that's the sort 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.360 of stuff that that like. It just it keys into 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.440 those those little memories. We'll talk a little bit more 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.720 about what we think is happening when that goes on. Well, sure, 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.080 because the memory doesn't exist, I mean the same way 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.160 that a video file isn't a series of physical images 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.640 inside your computer somewhere. That's not how it does, and 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.960 that's not how the brain does either. It's it's a 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.840 series of electrical impulses or electrochemical impulses. Rather. Yeah, it's 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.960 it's these electrochemical reactions in the brain. I mean, we're 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.680 talking about neurons that are communicating with these various hormones 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.760 and electrical chemical reactions. It's really complicated. We don't have 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.920 a full understanding of it. But our brains are really plastic, right, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.960 so when we encounter new material, it starts shuffling stuff 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.800 around to incorporate it. Sometimes it's a means of comparing 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.520 a new experience to one that you have already had. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.760 This is important for memory. It's an important thing about 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.840 our survival, right because let's say you've encountered something that 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.760 nearly killed you and then later on in life you 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.840 encounter it again. It's important that you remember that it 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.160 nearly killed you the last time. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, And 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.120 that's sort of the way that a particular smell can, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.120 like the smell of a food that you got really 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.840 sick off of, or tequilo or etcetera. Whatever it happens 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:42.080 to me that it was um will will turn you 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.840 off later in the future. Right, So, repeating as supposed 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.680 to later in the past. Sorry, repeating an experience multiple 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.960 times reinforces these electrochemical reactions in the order that they 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:59.160 happen and in the patterns that they form. So there's 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.960 one kind of a prevailing theory, at least for a 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.440 very long time anyway, that memories are essentially these these 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:15.160 um networks of neurons that represent the collective perceptions integrated 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.760 into that experience. Or it's a it's a pathway of 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:25.520 electrochemical signals across a series of those neurons, right right, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.320 it's it's a synaptic thing, right, You're looking at the 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.680 actual electrochemical reactions across series of synapses. Uh. So that 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:35.720 was like the that's like the large theory about the 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.119 idea of you form a memory. You have this experience, 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:44.400 a your brain encodes it and it is translated across 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.680 the series of neurons through the synaptic communications, and that 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.760 represents the memory. And every time you remember, you are 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.320 essentially constructing that same pathway, that same series of of 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.440 communications all over the little the little thought cards kind 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.680 of dashes straight across that that same pathway. Right, it's 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:07.440 the it's not the destination, it's the journey theory of right. Sure, sure, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.359 but there is a recent study that's kind of challenged that. Right. Yeah, 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.280 this was the one that I was talking about that 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:17.080 Joe had shared with us before the podcast, where the 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.760 story is that it might not just be the synapses 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.879 that are important, and maybe the neurons themselves have undergone 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.679 some kind of change that mean that the neurons have 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.000 something of the memory in them. And the reason why 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:34.760 I'm being so vague with the language is because we 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.280 don't have the full understanding of it. We merely have 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.159 seen an experiment that tests this hypothesis with slug with 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.920 slugs yea C slugs, because C slug brains and human 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:50.840 brains are so similar. Depends on the humans. The experiment 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.200 was that they did conditioning with C slugs with mild 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.879 electric shocks. There's gonna be a lot of mode electric 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.720 shocks in this episode, for better or worse, but at 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.760 any rate, the sea slugs, yeah, well they were, they were. 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.240 They learned to withdraw from the shocks. What other flavor 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:16.400 of electrical shocks are are there, spicy, there's nuclear three 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:21.280 mile island shocks. Um, So the slugs, the slugs learned 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:26.320 to withdraw from these electric shocks. And then the researchers, uh, 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:31.200 they they inhibited the synaptic connections. They disrupted the synaptic 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:36.080 connections that were associated. They thought, with the formation of 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.879 the memory, hey, this thing will hurt you, go away 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.680 from it. But they they observed the slugs were still 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:48.200 withdrawing even though the synaptic pathways had been disrupted. So 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.920 that led them to the conclusion that perhaps the neurons 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.560 themselves must have something to do with memory formation, and 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.360 it's not just the synaptic passageways, and possibly we would 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.520 might be able to use that information in the future 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.160 to treat people who have certain types of memory problems 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.719 where the neurons are healthy but the synapses are no 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:13.240 longer communicating. They the thought is perhaps the memories are 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.800 not lost, they just can't be accident. So that's kind 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.640 of interesting. But again, this is early days, right, that's 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.639 so crazy, the idea that you could have potential memories 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.359 in your brain. Yeah, that just you just can't you 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.480 can't recall them, but they're there. That's a possibility. Now, 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.480 whether or not that's actually true, it's still too early 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.040 to say, but it is an interesting hypothesis, and it 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.160 may very well be that the actual reality is some 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.000 combination of the things we already thought we knew and 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.960 this new emerging information. It's probably a combination of the two. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.240 And because you know it's it can be pretty complex stuff. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.840 The idea being here that that it's it's very difficult, 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.520 very challenging to talk about how technology is going to 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.520 interact with our memory when we don't fully understand the 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.280 actual process of creating those memories in the first place. 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.679 What we do know is that memory memory is malleable, 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.760 right Oh yeah, yeah, Well, the that that pathway that 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:17.080 a memory sort of exists on changes every time, changes 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.399 very slightly. Every time you call up that memory. It 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.720 can potentially change a great deal, But most of the 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:27.760 time it's little details, things that either get embellished, like 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.360 when when you are remembering, you are reconstructing, You're not really. Uh, 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.240 it's not the same as going into a filing cabinet 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.320 and pulling out the file marked whatever your memory is 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.919 seven seven year seventh birthday. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not like. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.840 It's not like playing a tape. It's like a reconstructing 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.480 frame by frame. Yeah. I I likened it to imagine 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.400 that you are putting on a play, and the script 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.960 it represents the original event, the play is the the 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.440 you you recalling the event every time you see a play. 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.679 If you go see a play more than once, you 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.800 will notice that there are little differences in each performance, 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:08.720 just because there are a lot of different parts that 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.760 come along with any play. Uh, and because humans are 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.000 bad at repeating precise actions precisely. Yeah. Yeah, you can't 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.560 do it exactly every single time, right, Yeah. And then 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:21.640 some people's brains are like going to see a play 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.520 where you've got those actors who work by beats instead 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.720 of you know, they're like the script and important but more. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:30.159 But but either way, you know you're you're going to 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:32.199 see have a different experience each time. It might not 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.719 be significantly different, you might say. You might say when 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:37.840 you walk out, like, you know, I liked it better 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.400 the second time than the first time, and I can't 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.560 really you know, there were little changes that were different. 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:44.680 The same sort of thing when you're remembering, and your 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.959 brain tends to fill in gaps too, So when you 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:52.679 are remembering something and perhaps the connections aren't going straight 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.240 through the way they did when you first formed this memory, 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.480 your brain's like, well, let's just what'll work. Let's just 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.760 Fred Fred was there, putting Fred into this memory now 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.160