I'll bet that Charan Ranganath is a great teacher (he is a professor at UC Davis). He has a talent for fitting scientific details into a clear big picture conceptual framework, while also tying it back to everyday experiences. He includes personal stories so that we feel like we know him; for example, the preface includes references to Hüsker Dü and fIREHOSE and many of the chapter/section titles are unattributed musical references.
The book is about the neural mechanisms of memory. Ranganath suggests that we should consider the purpose of memory.
Contrary to popular belief, the most important message to come from the science of memory is not that you can or even should remember more. The problem isn't your memory, it's that we have the wrong expectations for what memory is for in the first place. ... The mechanisms of memory were not cobbled together to help us remember the name of that guy we met at that thing.
When you think about why we remember, how we use memories to learn and make decisions, many vagaries of the mind start to make sense: the things we remember vs the things we forget, the malleability of our recollections, the "tip of the tongue" phenomena. Our goal should not be to remember more but to be more intentional about what we remember.
The chapters in "Part 3: The Implications" felt more vague and speculative than the rest of the book. Perhaps that is appropriate given their broader scope, but it means the end was anti-climactic.
No comments:
Post a Comment