The Psychology of Memory

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Our memories are not impartial accumulation of every second we've lived. They're the narratives we've assembled out of selected moments. A perfect memory couldn't be a narrative any more than an unedited security cam footage could be a feature film. It's like that our sense of self comes from the fact that we selectively interpret parts of our memory and experience to form our sense of who we are.

Memory is highly selective and often inaccurate. But what if we had an easily searchable video record of all our experiences and interactions? How would that affect our relationships? What would it reveal about our characters and our sense of who we are? Is there a kind of truth that can’t be determined by perfect objectivity? David and Tamler dive deep into Ted Chiang’s amazingly rich and poignant short story “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” which explores how new technologies shape individual and group identities.

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