A Look at Foer’s Masterpiece on the Past, Present and Future of Memory

...

Foer claims that “the brain is always making mistakes, forgetting, misremembering. Writing is how we overcome those essential biological constraints.” (Foer, 2011) His argument is supported by the historical briefing of the development of writing along with his introduction on how we’re reliant on technology to tell us where to go, what we had planned for the day, phone numbers and emails. This supports the argument that the human brain while mysterious is always making mistakes, misremembering and forgetting. I would argue that Foer is presenting writing and reading in that regards as tools that serve as a cue for remembering and that information stored in the brain need these cues to pull this info.

Foer dives more into this to claim that today we read books more for a check mark while being satisfied more with quantity over quality. This statement counters the question: what about learning? One could argue that reading a book could enrich one’s knowledge. An example from my readings would be the concept behind the book “The Alchemist”. While I believe somewhere in my brain all information in regards to this novel is retained, my brain prioritized the information in a way that the main idea and the eventual point of the book was kept in my mind and the first to surface when needed. Similar to my brain memorizing those arguments, Foer skips those that don’t interest my logic or brain.

In his “The End of remembering” Foer presented Gordon Bell, the Microsoft engineer who had invented a “surrogate memory”, a concept Foer perceives as the alternative to remembering. Bell who used his “the surrogate memory” to log all his activity justifies his efforts to create an external memory that allowed one to offer the cue the mind needed to remember a certain situation or conversation by saying: “Each day that passes I remember less and forget more”. Although I am not in favor of dimension or underestimating the power of the human brain, I agree with Bell. I also remember less and forget more each passing day, but I assume that this is due to our lack of training. It has become common today to log everything using today’s technologies such as google glass, iPhone and any other devices that can capture everything Bell had for his surrogate memory, but all misses one great point, these surrogate memories lack the ability human brain processes the information using logic, subjectivity and even attitude.

In conclusion, while I agree with Foer, that technology seems to have put an end for memory, I don’t imagine this end coming due to the complexity of our human brain and the mystical way it operates and how the information is stored, categorized and retained when needed or not needed. I also disagree with him on encouraging technology to take the soul out of reading and writing. Only to turn our brains into a walking index, rather than a processing unit that does quite more than subjective or objective processing.

References

Bartholoma, Petrosky, & Waite. (2014). Ways of Reading an anthology for writers (13 ed.). Boston: Bedford Martins.

Foer, J. (2011). The end of remembering. In J. Foer, Moonlight walking with Einstein.