Clark and Chalmers claim that an external resource satisfying the following criteria counts as a memory: the agent has constant access to the resource; the information in the resource is directly available; retrieved information is automatically endorsed; information is stored as a consequence of past endorsement. Research on forgetting and metamemory shows that most of these criteria are not satisfied by biological memory, so they are inadequate. More psychologically realistic criteria generate a similar classification of standard putative (...) external memories, but the criteria still do not capture the function of memory. An adequate account of memory function, compatible with its evolution and its roles in prospection and imagination, suggests that external memory performs a function not performed by biological memory systems. External memory is thus not memory. This has implications for: extended mind theorizing, ecological validity of memory research, the causal theory of memory. (shrink)

The hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) claims that the cognitive processes that materially realise thinking are sometimes partially constituted by entities that are located external to an agent’s body in its local envi- ronment. We show how proponents of HEC need not claim that an agent must have a central nervous system, or physically instantiate processes organised in such a way as to play a causal role equivalent to that of the brain if that agent is to be capable (...) of cognition. Focusing on the case of spatial memory, we make our argument by taking a close look at the striking example of Physarum Polycephalum plasmodium (i.e., slime mould) which uses self- produced non-living extracellular slime trails to navigate its environment. We will argue that the use of exter- nalized spatial memory by basal organisms like Physarum is an example of extended cognition. Moreover, it is a possible evolutionary precursor to the use of internal spatial memory and recall in animals thus demonstrating how extended cognition may have emerged early in evolutionary history. (shrink)

‘External memories’ raise a question about context: ‘external to what?’ External memory is a technical term applied to everything that can be memorized in an individual's environment. As a general rule I have decided to retain the technical terms that characterize the area of the topic under discussion. It was Ted Nelson who coined the word hypertext in 1967 to signify non-sequential writing as well as a computer technology that allowed the user to move about freely (...) by means of software links. I shall use the term software to mean computer programs. Electronic publishing started with the Xanadu system developed by Nelson. At the lowest level a hypertext is a system for managing databases that allows the user to connect together information screens using links. It is a collection of texts interconnected by means of interactive switches. This dynamic presentation of non-linear texts could not be printed on a conventional page. Hypertext allows the origin of a piece of information to be traced. In this article traceability is synonymous with explanation: ‘Why was this equipment designed in one way rather than another?’ It is about discovering the route of the design process that led to the eventual idea for the equipment. The necessary explanations are often required long after decisions were made, and this is why traceability is a matter of memory. The term agent is often used to mean those members of a community that act on its behalf. There are agents for a company or public department. There are biological agents. In a non-technological world traceability is ideally carried out by human agents who explain to other human agents. The term agent has been extended into the computer world to mean software to which the user delegates, sometimes unwittingly, tasks of varying complexity. These are then called software agents. In this article I refer to agent in its wider meaning, to be understood as an actor or an entity able to act in a limited context and having a quite specific role and appropriate resources. (shrink)

In this article, I extend the feminist use of Friedrich Nietzsche’s account of memory and forgetting to consider the contemporary externalization of memory foregrounded by transgender experience. Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals argues that memory is “burnt in” to the forgetful body as a necessary part of subject-formation and the requirements of a social order. Feminist philosophers have employed Nietzsche’s account to illuminate how gender, as memory, becomes embodied. While the account of the “burnt in” (...) repetitions of gender allows us to theorize processes of embodied identity on an individual level, analyzing gender today requires also accounting for how gender is externalized. I take up this question through the specific examples of identity documents and sex-segregated bathrooms. Returning to Nietzsche’s call to practice a resistant forgetting, I conclude by exploring the distinct strategies required to disrupt externalized memory. These strategies include contesting the use of past gender assignments in data collection and rewriting architectural reminders of gender. (shrink)

We propose a new integrative framework of external time monitoring in prospective memory (PM) tasks and its relation with performance. Starting from existing empirical regularities and our theoretical analysis, the framework predicts that external monitoring in PM tasks comprises a first stage of loose monitoring to keep track of the passage of time, and a subsequent stage of finer-grained monitoring, based on interval reduction, to meet the PM deadline. Following our framework, we predicted and observed in three (...) different datasets (N = 375): (1) a marked increase in external monitoring frequency in the final part of the period of the PM task, well captured by a proportional rate exponential growth function; (2) a positive association between individual compliance with this monitoring pattern and PM performance; (3) a positive relation between monitoring frequency in the time window immediately preceding the PM deadline and PM performance at the individual level; and (4) good individual compliance with an interval reduction pattern in external monitoring, especially in the time window closer to the PM deadline. These results support the proposed integrative framework, which has the potential to foster future research on external monitoring in PM and in other fields of cognitive science. (shrink)

The ability to integrate information from diverse texts and to detect logical implications of the integrated information is fundamental to the understanding process. This paper shows that identifying and configuring relevant facts in order to support hypothesized inferences is extremely difficult unless the facts have been committed to memory. Simply reading relevant texts for familiarization and then referring to them as needed provides an inadequate basis for deductive logic. Further, apprehension of the logical configuration of fads underlying a particular (...) inference can be an essentially automatic process for the reasoner who has structured the facts appropriately in memory. A model of search and memory mechanisms is proposed. It accounts for accuracy and reaction time data, as well as individual differences in inference evaluation. The implications of the superiority of memorization over familiarization‐plus‐referencing as a basis for learning and reasoning are discussed. (shrink)

The ability to integrate information from diverse texts and to detect logical implications of the integrated information is fundamental to the understanding process. This paper shows that identifying and configuring relevant facts in order to support hypothesized inferences is extremely difficult unless the facts have been committed to memory. Simply reading relevant texts for familiarization and then referring to them as needed provides an inadequate basis for deductive logic. Further, apprehension of the logical configuration of fads underlying a particular (...) inference can be an essentially automatic process for the reasoner who has structured the facts appropriately in memory. A model of search and memory mechanisms is proposed. It accounts for accuracy and reaction time data, as well as individual differences in inference evaluation. The implications of the superiority of memorization over familiarization‐plus‐referencing as a basis for learning and reasoning are discussed. (shrink)

Our memories elicit, in us, both beliefs about what the external world was like in the past, and beliefs about what our own past experience of it was like in the past. What explains the power of memories to do that? I tackle this question by offering an account of the content of our memories. According to this account, our memories are ‘token-reflexives’, in that they represent their own causal origin. My main contention will be that our memories are (...) able to provide us with evidence for the two types of beliefs due to the self-referential nature of their content. First, I will put forward a series of thought-experiments intended to raise several intuitions about the veridicality of memories. Next, I will introduce the view that memories are token-reflexives, and I will motivate it by pointing out that the view accommodates the relevant intuitions. And, then, I will return to the two types of beliefs prompted by our memories, and argue that conceiving memories as token-reflexives allows us to explain why memory has the power to elicit the two types of beliefs in us. (shrink)

Memory technologies are cultural artifacts that scaffold, transform, and are interwoven with human biological memory systems. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic and integrative survey of their philosophical dimensions, including their metaphysical, epistemological and ethical dimensions, drawing together debates across the humanities, cognitive sciences, and social sciences. Metaphysical dimensions of memory technologies include their function, the nature of their informational properties, ways of classifying them, and their ontological status. Epistemological dimensions include the truth-conduciveness (...) of external memory, the conditions under which external memory counts as knowledge, and the metacognitive monitoring of external memory processes. And lastly, ethical and normative dimensions include the desirability of the effects memory technologies have on biological memory, their effects on self and culture, and their moral status. Whilst the focus in the article is largely philosophical and conceptual, empirical issues such as the way we interact with memory technologies in various contexts are also discussed. We thus take a naturalistic approach in which philosophical and empirical concepts and approaches are seen as continuous. (shrink)

Previous studies have suggested that auditory hallucination is closely related to thought insertion. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the external misattribution of thought and auditory hallucination-like experiences. We used the AHES-17, which measures auditory hallucination-like experiences in normal, healthy people, and the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm, in which false alarms of critical lure are regarded as spontaneous external misattribution of thought. We found that critical lures elicited increased the number of false alarms as AHES-17 scores increased and (...) that scores of AHES-17 predicted the rate of false memory of critical lures. Furthermore, we revealed that the relationship between AHES-17 scores and the rates of false alarms to critical lures was strictly linear. Therefore, it might be said that individual differences in auditory hallucination-like experiences are highly related to the external misattribution of thought. We discussed these results from the perspective of the sense of agency over thought. (shrink)

Drawing on ideas from philosophy (in particular, epistemology), I argue that one of memory’s most important functions is to provide its owner with knowledge of the physical world. This knowledge helps satisfy the organism’s need to confer stability on an ever-changing reality so the objects in which it consists can be identified and reidentified. I then draw a distinction between sources of knowledge (i.e., from physical vs. subjective reality) and argue—based on evolutionary principles—that because memory was designed by (...) natural selection to interface with the physical world, knowledge acquired via sensory/perceptual experiences should be better remembered than internally generated knowledge made available by introspection. A study conducted to test this hypothesis provides support. I conclude that a serious interdisciplinary approach to issues typically considered the purview of psychology best enables researchers to craft well-specified, theoretically based hypotheses that directly target functions of the mind. (shrink)

Recent developments in science and technology point to the need to unify, and extend, the definition of memory. On the one hand, molecular neurobiology has shown that memory is largely a chemical process, which includes conditioning and any form of stored experience. On the other hand, information technology has led many to claim that cognition is also extended, that is, memory may be stored outside of the brain. In this paper, we review these advances and describe the (...) increasingly accepted extended definition of memory. This definition is largely accepted in neuroscience but not explicitly stated. In the extended definition, memory is the capacity to store and/or retrieve information. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We stress that memory still requires incorporation, that is, a corpore. It is a relationship -- where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. We further argue that, if we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain -- and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” -- then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then. (shrink)

How is technology changing the way people remember? This book explores the interplay of memory stored in the brain and outside of the brain, providing a thorough interdisciplinary review of the current literature, including relevant theoretical frameworks from across a variety of disciplines in the sciences, arts, and humanities. It also presents the findings of a rich and novel empirical data set, based on a comprehensive survey on the shifting interplay of internal and external memory in the (...) 21st century. Results reveal a growing symbiosis between the two forms of memory in our everyday lives. The book presents a new theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of internal and external memory, and their complementary strengths. It concludes with a guide to important dimensions, questions, and methods for future research. Memory and Technology will be of interest to researchers, professors, and students across the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, library and information science, human factors, media and cultural studies, anthropology and archaeology, photography, and cognitive rehabilitation, as well as anyone interested in how technology is affecting human memory. _____ "This is a novel book, with interesting and valuable data on an important, meaningful topic, as well as a gathering of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ideas...The research is accurately represented and inclusive. As a teaching tool, I can envision graduate seminars in different disciplines drawing on the material as the basis for teaching and discussions." Dr. Linda A. Henkel, Fairfield University "This book documents the achievements of a vibrant scientific project – you feel the enthusiasm of the authors for their research. The organization of the manuscript introduces the reader into a comparatively new field the same way as pioneering authors have approached it." Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schönpflug, Freie Universität Berlin. (shrink)

Attention is strongly influenced by both external stimuli and internal goals. However, this useful dichotomy does not readily capture the ubiquitous and often automatic contribution of past experience stored in memory. We review recent evidence about how multiple memory systems control attention, consider how such interactions are manifested in the brain, and highlight how this framework for ‘memory-guided attention’ might help systematize previous findings and guide future research.

This paper evaluates the Natural-Kinds Argument for cognitive extension, which purports to show that the kinds presupposed by our best cognitive science have instances external to human organism. Various interpretations of the argument are articulated and evaluated, using the overarching categories of memory and cognition as test cases. Particular emphasis is placed on criteria for the scientific legitimacy of generic kinds, that is, kinds characterized in very broad terms rather than in terms of their fine-grained causal roles. Given (...) the current state of cognitive science, I conclude that we have no reason to think memory or cognition are generic natural kinds that can ground an argument for cognitive extension. (shrink)

Recent debates on mental extension and distributed cognition have taught us that environmental resources play an important and often indispensable role in supporting cognitive capacities. In order to clarify how interactions between the mind –particularly memory– and the world take place, this paper presents the “selection problem” and the “endorsement problem” as structural problems arising from such interactions in cases of mental scaffolding. On the one hand, the selection problem arises each time an agent is confronted with a cognitive (...) problem, since she has to choose whether to solve it internally or externally. How does she choose? On the other hand, when confronted with the internally or externally retrieved solution to a cognitive task, the subject has to decide whether to endorse the information. How does the subject decide whether to endorse it or not? The last section proposes a solution to each problem in terms of metamemory and metacognitive feelings. Metamemory evaluates memory each time the subject is confronted with a memory task and elicits either a positive or negative metacognitive feeling that guides the decision. (shrink)

This paper addresses relations between memory and imagery in expert sport in relation to visual or visuospatial perspective. Imagining, remembering, and moving potentially interact via related forms of episodic simulation, whether future- or past-directed. Sometimes I see myself engaged in action: many experts report switching between such external visual perspectives and an internal, 'own-eyes', or field perspective on their past or possible performance. Perspective in retrieval and in imagery may be flexible and multiple. I raise a range of (...) topics for empirical research on perspective and visualization. (shrink)

Geven, Ben‐Shakhar, Kindt and Verschuere point out that research on deception detection usually employs instructed cheating. They experimentally demonstrate that participants show slower reaction times for concealed information than for other information, regardless of whether they are explicitly instructed to cheat or whether they can freely choose to cheat or not. Finding this ‘cognitive signature of lying’ with self‐initiated cheating too is argued by the authors to strengthen the external validity of deception detection research. [75].

Why do people create extra representations to help them make sense of situations, diagrams, illustrations, instructions and problems? The obvious explanation— external representations save internal memory and com- putation—is only part of the story. I discuss seven ways external representations enhance cognitive power: they change the cost structure of the inferential landscape; they provide a structure that can serve as a shareable object of thought; they create persistent referents; they facilitate re- representation; they are often a more (...) natural representation of structure than mental representations; they facilitate the computation of more explicit encoding of information; they enable the construction of arbitrarily complex structure; and they lower the cost of controlling thought—they help coordinate thought. Jointly, these functions allow people to think more powerfully with external representations than without. They allow us to think the previously unthinkable. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the view that judgments based on episodic memory are immune to error through misidentification. I will put forward a proposal about the contents of episodic memories according to which a memory represents a perception of a past event. I will also offer a proposal about the contents of perceptual experiences according to which a perceptual experience represents some relations that its subject bears to events in the external world. The (...) combination of the two views will yield the outcome that the subject is always an intentional object of her own memories: In episodic memory, one remembers being the subject whose extrinsic properties were experienced in some past perception. For that reason, one cannot misidentify oneself in memory unless one is having an inaccurate memory. Thus, the source of immunity to error through misidentification in memory lies in the nature of mnemonic content. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychological research on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debate on extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extended cognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural, bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary properties are integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the nature of remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarity (...) argument, say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “a non-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory as the study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, within nervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual and empirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms of cognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognition literature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), we develop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relations between agents and external resources, both technological and social. On this basis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysical claims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources, a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transform explanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical results as evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin. We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientific psychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empirical traditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory. We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering, aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups. Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition can thus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivated research programs in the cognitive psychology of memory. (shrink)

Why do people create extra representations to help them make sense of situations, diagrams, illustrations, instructions and problems? The obvious explanation – external representations save internal memory and computation – is only part of the story. I discuss eight ways external representations enhance cognitive power: they provide a structure that can serve as a shareable object of thought; they create persistent referents; they change the cost structure of the inferential landscape; they facilitate re-representation; they are often a (...) more natural representation of structure than mental representations; they facilitate the computation of more explicit encoding of information; they enable the construction of arbitrarily complex structure; and they lower the cost of controlling thought – they help coordinate thought. (shrink)

Sometimes I remember my past experiences from an ‘observer’ perspective, seeing myself in the remembered scene. This paper analyses the distinction in personal memory between such external observer visuospatial perspectives and ‘field’ perspectives, in which I experience the remembered actions and events as from my original point of view. It argues that Richard Wollheim’s related distinction between centred and acentred memory fails to capture the key phenomena, and criticizes Wollheim’s reasons for doubting that observer ‘memories’ are genuine (...) personal memories. Since field perspectives in personal memory are also likely to be the product of constructive processes, we should reject the common assumption that such constructive processes inevitably bring distortion and error. Yet field perspectives tend to be treated as privileged also in the domains of memory for skilled movement, and memory for trauma. In each case, it is argued that visuospatial perspective in personal memory should be distinguished from other kinds of perspective such as kinesthetic perspective and emotional perspective. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of extended and distributed cognition theory for our notions of personal identity. On an extended and distributed approach to cognition, external information is under certain conditions constitutive of memory. On a narrative approach to personal identity, autobiographical memory is constitutive of our diachronic self. In this paper, I bring these two approaches together and argue that external information can be constitutive of one’s autobiographical memory and thus also of one’s diachronic (...) self. To develop this claim, I draw on recent empirical work in human-computer interaction, looking at lifelogging technologies in both healthcare and everyday contexts. I argue that personal identity can neither be reduced to psychological structures instantiated by the brain nor by biological structures instantiated by the organism, but should be seen as an environmentally-distributed and relational construct. In other words, the complex web of cognitive relations we develop and maintain with other people and technological artifacts partly determines our self. This view has conceptual, methodological, and normative implications: we should broaden our concepts of the self as to include social and artifactual structures, focus on external memory systems in the (empirical) study of personal identity, and not interfere with people’s distributed minds and selves. (shrink)

The epistemic arrow of time is the fact that our knowledge of the past seems to be both of a different kind and more detailed than our knowledge of the future. Just like with the other arrows of time, it has often been speculated that the epistemic arrow arises due to the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper, we investigate the epistemic arrow of time using a fully formal framework. We begin by defining a memory system as any (...) physical system whose present state can provide information about the state of the external world at some time other than the present. We then identify two types of memory systems in our universe, along with an important special case of the first type, which we distinguish as a third type of memory system. We show that two of these types of memory systems are time-symmetric, able to provide knowledge about both the past and the future. However, the third type of memory systems exploits the second law of thermodynamics, at least in all of its instances in our universe that we are aware of. The result is that in our universe, this type of memory system only ever provides information about the past. We also argue that human memory is of this third type, completing the argument. We end by scrutinizing the basis of the second law itself. This uncovers a previously unappreciated formal problem for common arguments that try to derive the second law from the “Past Hypothesis”, i.e., from the claim that the very early universe was in a state of extremely low entropy. Our analysis is indebted to prior work by one of us but expands and improves upon this work in several respects. (shrink)

Without systems of public, external symbols for recording information, nonliterate communities have to rely on human memory for the retention and transmission of cultural knowledge. Religious expressions either evolved in directions that rendered them memorable or they were--quite literally--forgotten. Most religious systems, including all of the great world religions, emerged among populations that were mostly illiterate (even if there was a literate elite). Thus, it should come as no surprise that religious systems and ritual systems, in particular, have (...) evolved so as to exploit variables that facilitate memory. No doubt, the invention of literacy ameliorates these variables' influence, however, the availability of such cultural tools neither eliminates that influence nor even surmounts it. Experimental psychologists have clarified variables that contribute to extraordinary recall for events that arise in the normal course of life. Probably, the most obvious is frequency. Experiencing events of the same type frequently aids memory for that type of event, though not necessarily for the details of any of the particular instances of that type. When Jains carry out the Puja ritual day after day, they become adept at its performance. Although they are fluent with the ritual's details, it is possible that they do not remember even one of their previous performances distinctively. (shrink)

In this chapter, the focus switches from perception to memory. I shall argue that the sort of principles which emerged in the discussion of perception also apply to the case of memory. More precisely, I shall argue that precise analogues of the principles P1–P4 occur for at least some memory processes. Consequently, at least some memory processes can be understood not as purely internal processes, but as a series of interactions between a remembering organism and its (...) environment. For at least some memory processes, that is, there is no respectable theoretical reason for regarding them as purely internal processes. On the contrary, although not all forms of remembering necessarily involve interactions between organisms and environments, none the less the type of memory peculiar to modern human beings is typically made up of both internal and external processes, and, hence, the cognitive structures responsible for this type of memory are essentially environment-involving. (shrink)

Speculations of this last type have existed from a much earlier period in the Eastern civilizations, particularly in those areas affected by Hindu philosophy. For example, in the Sánkhya or Yoga-Sútras by Patánjali, we find a very radical distinction between the external world and the individual soul or self. But for Sánkhya, the "external world" includes everything that could possibly be an object of consciousness--physical objects and their relationships, sensations and imaginations, dreams, memories, expectations, etc. In other words, (...) for Sánkhya, our thoughts or desires, far from being the "cause" of the external world as in some forms of Western idealism, are simply other aspects of the external world itself, that is, merely particular items in the totality of our consciousness. On the other hand, the individual soul or self is only the spectator of this consciousness and not ordinarily conscious of itself. If the self were to become conscious of "itself" in the same way that it was conscious of all other objects, all that it would really be aware of would be another object of consciousness---the mere idea of itself, while it would remain the unknown knower. Nevertheless, realizing that a completely "unconscious self" would be simply a postulate of thought and therefore part of the external world, the Sánkhya-Sútras emphasize that the self can become aware of itself by another and more intuitive means. (shrink)

A national survey sent to 450 female and 450 male licensed psychologists (return rate = 42%) found that about 73% of the participants reported encountering at least one patient who claimed to recover previously forgotten memories of childhood sex abuse. About 21% of the therapists concluded that, for at least one patient, the memory was false; about 50% of the therapists reported that at least one patient had found external validation for the abuse; about 12% of the therapists (...) reported at least one client who later decided that the memory was false; and about 15% of the therapists reported that at least one client who recovered memories filed a civil or criminal complaint. About 15% of the therapists reported encountering at least one patient alleged to have sexually abused a child who later recovered previously forgotten memories of the abuse. About 21% of these therapists concluded that, in at least one case, the memory was false; about 6% of the therapists concluded that, in at least one case, there appeared to be external validation for the memories; about 1% reported that, in at least one case, the person recovering the memories concluded that the memories had been false; and about 6% of these therapists reported at least one case in which a civil or criminal complaint had been filed against their client. Findings were analyzed in terns of therapist gender, patient gender, and theoretical orientation. (shrink)

Human biological memory systems have adapted to use technological artifacts to overcome some of the limitations of these systems. For example, when performing a difficult calculation, we use pen and paper to create and store external number symbols; when remembering our appointments, we use a calendar; when remembering what to buy, we use a shopping list. This chapter looks at the history of memory artifacts, describing the evolution from cave paintings to virtual reality. It first characterizes (...) class='Hi'>memory artifacts, memory systems, and the two main functions such artifacts have, which are to aid individual users in completing memory tasks and as a cultural inheritance channel (section 2). It then outlines some of our first symbolic practices such as making cave paintings and figurines, and then moves on to outline several key developments in external representational systems and the artifacts that support these such as written language, numeral systems and counting devices, diagrams and maps, measuring devices, libraries and archives, photographs, analogue and digital computational artifacts, the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and smartphones (section 3). After that, it makes some brief points about the cumulative nature of the cultural evolution of memory artifacts and speculates about the possible future of memory artifacts, arguing that it is very difficult to look beyond an epistemological horizon of more than five years (section 4). (shrink)

While ostensibly a thesis on good remembering, this study combines a methodology for analysing remembering practices, and a commentary on the projected course of memory as a cultural practice. The methodology is inspired by broadly sympathetic accounts of cognition, mind, and memory as systemic: partly, though critically constituted by agents’ environment and their activities within it. This subject of these kinds of approach is variably referred to as ‘collective memory’ or ‘distributed cognition’. The active and environmental factors (...) are called ‘supports’. A consequence of the distributed or collective approach is that as the supports change, then so too do practices of memory. Not only does this warrant a context sensitive approach to the ethics of memory, it is on this basis that the thesis indicates an evolving relationship between agents and practices of memory. One way to practice good remembering is to ensure that one’s memories are truth-apt to the past. An alternative view of good remembering understands remembering as a meaning-making process. Good remembering might be conceived then as a process aimed at integrating agents’ understanding of their past with present conditions for remembering, and with expectations of the future, to encourage a kind of Aristotelian flourishing. But encouraging this flourishing would also seem to require that agents take some responsibility for the supports of memory; either maintaining them when they support good remembering, or ‘fixing’ them when they do not. This study concentrates on this requirement. To this end, a set of guiding themes are suggested for the analysis of remembering practices: object affordance ; uptake ; rhythmaticity ; and, coupling. The analytical guides do not provide a method for good remembering. Rather, they assist in the analysis of remembering practices insofar as they either support or fail to support the sorts of connections that good remembering requires. These connections are not just those between the past, present, and the future. As memory relies on external supports, the analytical guides also attend to the qualities of the connections between them, and between them and agents. The guides are selected on the basis that each one is a critical factor in the mnemonics of one or more of the four sets of environments and activities, or domains, that are examined in the study – namely: architecture; autobiographical memory; music; and, movement. The four domains share similar features and characteristics and so are not fully independent of each other. Their commonalities are the product of the close relationship between mind and space: not only does memory have an external component, but also the organisation of memory and space has similarities. Nevertheless, some commonalities can be manifested in seemingly non-spatial ways, such as ‘personalisation’. The spatiality that subtends memory, and permeates it with the rhythms it supports, is understood to support cultures of memory. Change in the spatiality of mind produces changes in the drawing of connections in remembering, and thus in the qualities of memory. The final part of the thesis suggests that the examples in the four domains, as well as the current spatiality of memory itself, which is interested in tracking the movements of things and their trajectories more generally, supports a culture of memory that is increasingly oriented to the future. This is not to say that a concern for ‘the future’ is the key to addressing all bad remembering. In more general terms, it is by attending to the rhythms of a mnemonic practice that agents are best positioned to take a critical approach to their remembering. (shrink)

In On the Difficulty of Living Together, Manuel Cruz launches a nuanced study of memory and forgetting, defining their forms and uses, political meanings, and social and historical implications. Memory is not an intrinsically positive phenomenon, he argues, but an impressionable and malleable one, used to advance a variety of agendas. Cruz focuses on five memory models: that which is inherently valuable, that which legitimizes the present, that which supports retributive justice, that which is essential to mourning, (...) and that which elicits renunciation or revelation. His methodical approach makes sense of memory's positive and negative effects, its contradictions, and its tensions. Cruz shows us that remembering is not necessarily an end in itself, nor is it a supreme value, immune to external influence. The exercise of memory guarantees nothing, though many insist it is a progressive act preventing the repetition of past mistakes. Tying the making of memory to the movements of history, Cruz prioritizes memory's political dimensions over its philosophical aspects and helps us remember its myriad uses. (shrink)

In September 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that sparked controversy due to its equation of Nazism and Communism. The document made the USSR jointly responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War and accused the Russian government of whitewashing communist crimes and glorifying the Soviet totalitarian regime. This article presents the resolution as the latest expression of a broader discursive process that started with the accession process of the Central and Eastern European countries. To support this hypothesis, (...) I examine the genealogy of the resolution, namely the documents that originally outlined the stances expressed by the latter, as well as the debates at the EU Parliament that preceded its adoption. This analysis highlights in particular two fundamental tendencies, i.e. the entanglement of history and memory characterising the recent discourse on European integration and the frequent identification of the Central and Eastern European member states as victims. In the final paragraphs, I suggest that the construction of a shared ‘historical memory’ may represent a legitimising framework for the implementation of specific sets of political and economic ideas, but I also note that processes such as the one described in the article may ultimately damage the cohesion among the member states and the ability of the EU institutions to address relevant internal and external issues. (shrink)

In this article I begin to explore Friedrich Nietzsche’s and Jacques Derrida’s philosophies of history in terms of the persistence of forgetting within (non-subjective) memory. In section I, I shall outline the totalizing production of history understood as an unsuccessful attempt to erase the indifference of animality and the difference of madness. The following two sections are concerned with the particular kinds of non-subjective memories—memorials—that arise in the aftermath of this erasure and include writing and the archive (section II), (...) as well as the ghostly and genealogical confusions (section III). Throughout these sections I shall argue that each of the externalizations of memory in non-subjective memorials is contaminated by forgetting, both shaping and shaking up the foundations of history. Finally, section IV revisits the memorials and states of forgetting discussed in the previous sections in light of the (im)possibility of justice. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to understand Heidegger’s conception of technology in light of Stiegler’s critique of that conception, anchored in a discussion of books and libraries as technological artefacts. I argue, following Stiegler, that Heidegger did not adequately take into account the inherent technological character of the means by which Dasein’s heritage is transmitted to subsequent generations. Stiegler’s concept of epiphylogenesis—dead matter externally organized to support living, internal memory and instantiated in books and libraries—is therefore a useful supplement (...) to the Heideggerian account of the transmission of heritage. I examine the points where Heidegger mentions books and/or libraries in three exemplary texts from the beginning, middle, and end of his career, indicating at each point how Stiegler’s thought can supplement that of Heidegger. I conclude with a brief discussion of David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas, considered as a paradigmatic example of Stiegler’s conceptual framework. (shrink)

A striking feature of our memories of the personal past is that they involve different visual perspectives: one sometimes recalls past events from one’s original point of view (a field perspective), but one sometimes recalls them from an external point of view (an observer perspective). In philosophy, observer memories are often seen as being less than fully genuine and as being necessarily false or distorted. This paper looks at whether laypeople share the standard philosophical view by applying the methods (...) of experimental philosophy. We report the results of five studies suggesting that, while participants clearly categorize both field and observer memories as memories, they tend to judge that observer memories are slightly less accurate than field memories. Our results suggest, however, that in lay thought, the difference between field and observer memories is not nearly as clear-cut as philosophers have generally taken it to be. (shrink)

The origin of memories is thought to be found in sensory perception. This conception is central to how the memory sciences characterize encoding. This paper considers how novel memory traces can be formed independently of external sensory inputs. I present a case study in which memory traces are created without sensory perception using a technique I call optogenetic memory implantation. Comparing this artificial process with normal memory encoding, I consider its implications for rethinking the (...) causal chain that leads to remembering. (shrink)

Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid’s notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper argues that (...) the same is true of memory, and it offers an answer to the question: what type of conception does it employ? (shrink)