Memory
My wife tells me I have a terrible memory. She says last year I put an air conditioner in my office window, and removed it for winter. I have no recollection of this. It is quite possibly true, but I don't know. There are no obvious signs on the window itself, though markings exist that could be construed as related to such activity as holding an air conditioner in place.
On the other hand, when the Duelfer report came out in September 2004, I could remember various minute details about Charles Duelfer's appearance on PBS NewsHour (at the time, as a minor State Dept. official) in January 2004, despite not having given it any serious consideration in the interim, except for a mental note in February 2004 when he was appointed to take David Kay's place.
Sherlock Holmes remarked to Watson, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
I am pleased that, for the most part, my brain-attic stores things most likely to be most important automatically, without my conscious interference.
Either that, or, unbeknownst to me, a space alien is helping me to control my engrams with an e-meter.
On the other hand, when the Duelfer report came out in September 2004, I could remember various minute details about Charles Duelfer's appearance on PBS NewsHour (at the time, as a minor State Dept. official) in January 2004, despite not having given it any serious consideration in the interim, except for a mental note in February 2004 when he was appointed to take David Kay's place.
Sherlock Holmes remarked to Watson, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
I am pleased that, for the most part, my brain-attic stores things most likely to be most important automatically, without my conscious interference.
Either that, or, unbeknownst to me, a space alien is helping me to control my engrams with an e-meter.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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