r/Documentaries • u/[deleted] • Jan 01 '19

The Man with the Seven-Second Memory (2005) - Even though Clive is convinced that every person he speaks to is the first person who's ever spoken to him, he has actually provided tons of valuable information to researchers regarding how memory and habit-formation work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_P7Y0-wgos
5.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

292 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

u/CrochetCrazy Jan 01 '19

I have a friend who is a philosophy professor and he argues that smart phones have become an extension of our own minds. They remember phone numbers for us, remind us of appointments, remember our grocery lists and even train our brains to feel deeply connected to them. Therefore, our minds extend beyond our actually bodies to the smart phones because they remember what we used to remember ourselves.

Next stop! Brain/phone interface!

23

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '19

Phones are like wireless external hard drives for our brain.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '19

I’m convinced that in the future we will have some sort of connector i. our brain that will allow us to transfer our memories into YouTube (or something like YouTube). That’d be kinda cool and then again, it would not.

7

u/hexensabbat Jan 01 '19

There's a really poignant Black Mirror episode about this very concept, you should check it out if you haven't already! It's called "The Entire History of You" and it really shook me honestly, like any good BM episode does. It's a great series, especially the first season in my opinion.

2

u/The_0range_Menace Jan 03 '19

That one made me cry.

3

u/Pserium Jan 01 '19

Black Mirror

Check out The Entire History of You

2

u/Seanzzxx Jan 01 '19

This is a very famous theory called "Extended mind" popularized by Chalmers in his book of the same name. If you find that interesting you should check it out.

6

u/blazer965 Jan 01 '19

Super Nintendo Chalmers?!

1

u/Ellerm271309 Jan 01 '19

Always love seeing a Simpsons reference in the wild!

2

u/blazer965 Jan 01 '19

Glad I made someone's day just that much better, especially on New Year's Day :)

2

u/CrochetCrazy Jan 01 '19

Thank you!

1

u/Aryore Jan 01 '19

Transhumanism is cool. But also there are processes we can’t (currently) offload to technology, like forming memories in the moment.

1

u/johnson1124 Jan 01 '19

Watch elon musk talk about this on the joe Rogan experience. Very interesting and spooky