Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

kenglander's picture

I think it's really

I think it's really interesting that your brought up the idea of how society views photographic memory and the sort of "magic" that surrounds it. To some extent, it seems like society would view a photographic memory as being particularly valuable-- one would be able to preserve moments "objectively" for an extended period of time.

Suppose photographic memory does exist. Would we as a society trust the memories of this person over the memories of another? A perfectly memorized visual representation of an event does not equal objectivity and whatever personal objectivity did exist could be lost in trying to communicate the memory to others. Nevertheless, is a photographic memory less distorted than the memory of a typical person (which is subjectively remembered and then subjectively re-communicated)? What implications do "less distorted" memories have on how we understand memories? realities?

Reply

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
12 + 5 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.