More Memories

“A notable advance was the evolutionary ´invention´ of memory. By this device, the timing of muscle contractions could be influenced not only by events in the immediate past, but by events in the distant past as well. The memory, or store, is an essential part of s digital computer too. Computer memories are more reliable than human ones, but they are less capacious, and enormously less sophisticated in their techniques of information retrieval.” (Dawkins Pg. 50).

This passage from “The Selfish Gene” had an amazing resemblance with the radio lab that we heard in class a couple of weeks ago about memories. Although Dawkins`s idea is much less developed, both agree on several aspects. The first point that I would like to mention is the connection that they both make with computers. In the book, memories are said to be like computers in the sense that they both store memories. There are major differences however, such as the fact that although computer memories are more reliable, they are less capacious and sophisticated. The radio lab also stated a connection between human memories and computers, but also listed several more reasons why they differ. To begin with, memories are real, physical things, made up of proteins and neurons. Every time you bring back a memory, you are not remembering it, you are recreating it, and very time this happens, the memory changes a little bit. The more you use a memory the more it will change. In a computer, memories never change. With this text alone, I cannot be sure that Dawkins was aware of this fact. But he does explain how “the timing of muscle contractions could be influenced not only by events in the immediate past, but by events in the distant past as well”, showing more evidence that memories are existent things and how exactly they work in the brain.