13 July 2017
Flushing The Mind
Those with total recall belong in the funny farm.
By Chin Chin
The Commonwealth has made many fine contributions to Britain and its citizens over the years: wealth, prestige, resources, support in time of war and cultural enrichment in time of peace. But the best thing of all is a revelation, obvious once you have heard it, but novel and revolutionary for all that: Professor Blake Richards and other academics from the University of Toronto argue in the journal Neuron that forgetting things as you get older is a sign of mental health and not decay.
Sherlock Holmes got close to the point in A Study in Scarlet when he describes the brain as being like an empty attic with a finite capacity. Justifying his absence of interest in things not germane to his profession he said:
“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.”
Elementary, really, but science has moved on and the Canadian approach is slightly different. The idea there is that, although the brain has all the capacity it needs, it is healthy for it to be flushed out from time to time to enable it to deal with new challenges. Good brains discard the irrelevant, enabling them to recognise patterns without getting bogged down in too much detail. Remember too much and you will not see the wood for the trees. According to the Professor, those with total recall tend to end up as nutters rather than as high achievers.
That last bit certainly accords with experience and it is a relief to know that by forgetting an anniversary you are merely showing how far you are from the funny farm. Still, it must be quite an operation for the brain to decide which bits of information should be thrown away and which bits should be retained.
Let’s start with the contact list, the list of people who you remember when they come up to you in the street. How is the brain to decide which ones should be discarded altogether and which ones can be moved to an intermediate category of “I knew that I had seen them somewhere before”? To prevent any disastrous mistakes it would be wise, perhaps, to give it a few rules, much like those which you program in when you are sorting out the contacts in your computer.
Top of the list for retention are those who owe you money. Most good brains will keep them in mind automatically and I have certainly found that I am far better remembered by my creditors than by my debtors. There must be some sort of neural spreadsheet as well, since the creditors are good at remembering the circumstances under which they lent the money and exactly how much is due. Those to whom I have lent money are generally unspecific on both points.
Then there are those who are useful in other ways. Clients or employers, for example, or people of superior social status to whose dinner parties you would like to be invited. Clearly you wouldn’t want your brain to accidentally discard one of these, so they really need to be marked with the neural equivalent of an * to prevent this occurring. No doubt there will be further research on how the * can be fed into the memory but use could perhaps be made of the technique developed by small children for learning their multiplication tables. Put the list of important contacts under the pillow before going to sleep.
It isn’t just people, of course, that the brain has to retain or discard. There is lots of other information as well. Where you went on holiday last year, for example. Whether you have seen a particular play or read a particular book, for another. You will be able to think of lots more yourself, but the discarding of a human contact is more complex because it carries with it the need for specific etiquette. If you cannot remember whether you have read a book, the author is unlikely to approach you in the street. The position is very different when you have discarded a human being.
If you can actually remember that you have discarded them it is not as difficult as all that. You slip behind a tree or a letter box (as the Canadian theory becomes more refined we can expect an increase in street furniture), or, if caught in the open, assume the intense expression of concentration normally reserved for those who are composing a speech as they walk. Hopefully that will be enough to avoid an encounter, but things will go wrong from time to time.
“Hello, how nice to see you again” someone will say to you at a drinks party. As now, you have a choice. Should you remember them or should you admit that as far as you are aware you have never seen them before in your life? Suppose you go for the second option, then the conversation may go badly wrong.
“Flushed me out of your memory, have you? Is that because you think I’m socially inferior? No, that doesn’t seem likely in your case. It must be something else. I know. It’s the £50 I lent you last week. Thought you would get away with it by discarding me, did you? Just like your sort. I’ll have it back now.” A violent struggle threatens and you have no idea whether you borrowed £50 or not.
Well, that didn’t go too well, did it? Perhaps then the better course is to pretend that you know them and ask one or two probing questions. That was the technique used by Sir John Gielgud in Harrods when, shortly after the war, he saw a woman who he knew that he knew approaching. She greeted him familiarly but he could not, for the life of him, remember exactly who she was. After a few minutes chitchat he decided on a test question:
“Exactly what does your husband do nowadays?” he asked.
“Well, he is still King,” replied the Queen Mother.
Perhaps it is better not to try to be clever and simply to focus vacantly on the horizon. Then they will simply assume that your mind has gone. And, after all, if the Canadian scientists are wrong, perhaps they won’t be so far from the mark.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
