I sometimes question if my memories are even real… or if I’m missing any.
Like I feel like there are hidden traumas that got wiped by someone, like… trauma that’s even worse than those that I currently remember, or I wonder if the happy memories are perhaps implanted by someone to try to cover up trauma.
I often wonder if I really am me, what if this is all fabricated, what if my name isn’t actually ■■■ and I wasn’t actually born in ■■■■.
Do y’all even trust your current memories? Do you trust that you are who your memories say you are?
P.S. Oh btw, in the past year, I learned about ECT, electro-convulsive therapy that’s used in some cases of severe depression, and one of the side effects is that it apparantly randonly deletes some of your memories… so its partially already here… terrifying…
You’ve basically said much of what I was going to!
We know where memories are stored in the brain, physically. The biggest problem with targeting specific memories is simply a matter of working out which neurons are tied to that memory.
We can already, fairly crudely, see roughly where a memory is stored by looking at brain activity when the patient recalls it. We can also directly trigger memory recollection by applying electrodes to the brain during brain surgery.
There’s still massive engineering challenges to overcome to get this to a practical stage, but engineering challenges are usually surmountable. With that in mind, do I think the technology will be doable, ever?
Technology to erase specific memories - absolutely.
Technology to replace specific memories with new ones - I suspect yes, but that’ll need some big leaps in our understanding of how memories actually work.
Technology to do this with just a flash of light - no, probably not.