Selective memory apparently means we forget things we don't need to remember in order to facilitate decision making and remember the right stories. https://trib.in/2pPyTdT
The only thing I'm going to say about organizational memory and capacity is that I have a Sister in Law who was raised in a family that watched little to no Television. While my Brother and I can rattle off endless plots from endless mindless shows we've watched since we were kids, everything from Gilligans Island to Star Trek, my sister in law has become a doctor. I do sometimes wonder, how much more I might know, if I had only not filled my brain with so much popular culture and more books and real tangible applicable education. Decades back when you could actually walk through large Video rental stores, It was somewhat frightening how many movies I realized even back then, I had already seen. It may not feel that way when you are younger, but the older I get the more I seem to realize there is a finite amount of things I can really embrace and understand. I've forgotten more than you will ever know, becomes a legitimate statement to make.
I've lost count of the times I turn to my pc (or phone) to look up something real important, and an hour of Priuschat later...
I spend more and more time thinking about the hereafter. I walk into a room and go, "Now what did I come in here after?"
Selective memory is why I try to link classroom ideas to jokes or sex or other human bodily functions. Students may forget what they're told in other classrooms. Not my problem.
Same problem; same cure. Before leaving first room, imagine the thing you're fetching to be guarded by a rabid raccoon. Or covered with green space-alien slime. Or anything absurd. This will work until we're sufficiently addled to no longer think it odd for things to be covered with green space-alien slime. At that point, I do not know. Maybe Ginkgo.
I just remembered my favorite memory story. Two elderly couples get together and the one guy says to his buddy, "Hey! We went to a great restaurant last night. I sure wish I could remember the name of it. It's right on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't get it." He stops and thinks a minute, and then says, "What's that flower with thorns that smells so good?" "You mean a rose?" says the second guy. "Yeah. That's it." He turns and yells into the kitchen, "Hey, Rose! What's the name of that restaurant we went to last night?"
About 25 years ago, two engineers I was working with were talking about some 'home Alzheimer's test' that one had read about where a person picks up a trash can and tries to deposit a small item from each room in their house, and maybe returning them from whence they came.....I don't remember You have to remember that in the early 90's these sort of 'stories' were largely propagated off-line. My friend said...."Well.....I'd FAIL that test!....I would get to the first room, look down and wonder why I was holding a trashcan!" The office (lab) joke quickly became "Why am I holding this trashcan?" whenever somebody had to pause to remember what they were doing or became stuck in some other cerebral clutch. BTW. At the risk of being a buzz-kill, and in case anybody is thinking that I am making light of Alzheimer's......they're both right and wrong. Alzheimer's is a horrible disease.....probably the only thing I fear more than the big "C". I watched it destroy two people close to me and sometimes when I'm in the throes of a 'senior moment' I wonder if the tentacles of that disease are reaching out to me personally. I keep telling my wife that if I forget I am or who she is to leave me at a bus stop in Oregon, or to fly me out to some Scandinavian nation with socialistic leanings and abandon me in place. She counters with the fact that we have 5 acres of property, and she intends to disable the top 4 gears of the tractor and tell me to go cut the grass. Getting old isn't for wimps! As far as forgetful = smarter? I think it's forgetful = busier, and sometimes busier people just seem smarter! Gotta GO. Busy....Busy.....Busy! .....as soon as I remember what it was that I wanted to look up on the internet!
