Memory Practices in the Sciences
Revision as of 17:17, 16 September 2023 by Michael Murtaugh (talk | contribs) (Created page with "from chapter 4: The Mnemonic Deep ... More deeply, they resolve into theoretical questions of just what d inow about the past, and how do we know it.We do not want a world wittt1 perfect memory: * ''Perfect memory has a high overhead'': It would be nice if we could preserve all external murals in Italy, but this militates against our action in the present (we can't paint our current houses). * ''Perfect menory is not what it seems'': The Ise Shrine in Japan has been t...")
from chapter 4: The Mnemonic Deep
... More deeply, they resolve into theoretical questions of just what d inow about the past, and how do we know it.We do not want a world wittt1 perfect memory:
- Perfect memory has a high overhead: It would be nice if we could preserve all external murals in Italy, but this militates against our action in the present (we can't paint our current houses).
- Perfect menory is not what it seems: The Ise Shrine in Japan has been torn
and rebuilt every twenty years since AD 652 using the same tools and skill it is recognized as the oldest temple in the country. What is being preser here is not the ding an sich(which creates a legacy of preservation techni but the mode of building(which creates a legacy of organizational forms).Th overhead problem of course recurs at this level.
- Perfect menory does not matter if no one listening to your stories: The "archival literature" in science is written as if someone someday will have time to go back and read all this welter of material and make sense of it - assigning priority, determining value,and so forth. This is the secular version of the Last
Judgment - and is equally dependent on an Entity capable of massive datata storage and analysis. There is no evidence that this Entity is in the process formation.