The Physical Meaning of Memory
If memory is only inside our heads then it seems that there isn’t much to base it on that is very tangible.
It is said tha apes and other primates that can learn sign language have wonderful episodic memory but not great semantic memory. Episodic memory is tied to specific situations and interactions between specific primates. It is thought that they can recall these memories like “flash-backs on a mental screen.” (Hoffemeyer p.104, Signs of Meaning in the Universe)
Procedural Memory is based on repeating a very specific procedure to do a specific thing. Hoffemeyer writes that “all animals possess some degree of procedural memory; episodic memory appears to be isolated to mammals and birds.” (p.105)
Episodic memory entails a need for a tonne of extra neural space. Primate brains with extremely close social structures have brains that are even larger than ours. Why? Hoffemeyer offers that the memory required to recall all your past actions with each member of the tribe is utterly important to maintaining the cohesion of the tribe. He offers that relations can quickly fall to pieces if not monitored and tended on a daily basis. This requires a lot of brain capacity I would think by the sheer complexity of social situations that might appear to break rules of thumb and all kinds of social laws more by accident than anything else.
Semantic memory is said to be unique to humans. Semantic memory is sort of the root power of memory to construct any world or idea you might imagine. Semantic memory takes ideas from any situation and uses them in an imaginary or abstract context.
If someone tells you, “That’s a shitty idea!” Episodic memory might tell you of a situation where someone was joking around when they said the same phrase. They actually meant it was a great idea. Procedural memory might tell you that the person who said that arrived at the same idea yesterday from the same line of reasoning. Episodic and procedural memory are definitely linked because you need a memory of a specific case or process. If your ability to remember a specific case is limited, procedural memory is what kicks in. So a person with strong procedural memory may remember how to brush their hair, but with weak episodic memory they may not remember the last time they brushed it.
Semantic memory is a combination of both of these forms of memory, with an added twist: creating imagined situations and contexts to map out a range of possibilities as in chess.
What is so strange here is that what is so different between bird culture, primate culture, and human culture is that we have buildings that have existed as a foundation of human cultural memory for thousands of years. An average human house lasts longer than the lives of most animals. Our culture and our spoken and written languages have kept the stories of these places alive since they were built. And they express human motivations and desires and represent a marker that moves beyond any one generation unmoving like a perfect biomarker for memory. Public works and urban planning are perhaps a very large part of the complexity and power of human language.
Do we know of any such works from other lifeforms? Cities built which isolate them from the dangers of nature to such a high degree that they can live in comfort and do what they please as long as they wish?
