Is the Internet replacing our own memory?

[Ian Livingston]

And, after all, there's a soul in every chip, right?

And we can just as easily argue that the printing press cut more
mnemonic power than the computer ever will.

On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 7/16/2011 2:16 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>
> P writes:
> When I first saw that Google and the Internet were affecting memory I
> thought O my God, Memory Loss.
>
> But fortunately the research is only about memory utilization, not
> memory loss.
>
> Or is that a distinction without a difference?
>
> P
>
> I think it is another example of bad reasoning in or around a study. It is
> definitely
> memory utilization or such, imho
>
> I am blessed with a decent memory, yet long before the internet, I KNOW I
> convinced myself via action that I did not have to remember many
> things---since
> somehow mind is limited---I knew I could always look up. So, I didn't
> remember
> many of them.
>
> Only what one lovest well, remains.---Pound
>
> Isn't it the wonder of it all that protoplasmic and silicon-based memory
> work so beautifully in cooperation with each other, using one to access the
> other and vice versa.
>
> I wouldn't be at all surprised if when brain functions are better understood
> and research methods become more sophisticated that it will be shown that
> google has actually IMPROVED our natural memories.
>
> The other view would be that at a certain point there won't even BE natural
> memories.
>
> P
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant