Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
There is evidence that human memory is *extremely* fallible . . .
And suggestible. And malleable. The extent of this in normal, healthy people has only been discovered in recent decades. It explains a lot about history and human nature. It is regrettable in some ways, but my guess is that this same mental flexibility allows creativity.
There are a few people with perfect memories. That is, people who can correctly recall what they had for breakfast and what the weather was like on June 1, 1967. This has been confirmed by looking up old weather data. There are others who can recite from memory books that they read once decades ago. Such people are not notably creative. Most of them are miserable, and apparently incapable of original thinking. I think the ability to forget things and confuse them is essential to discovering new ways to look at old facts. I hope that is true because I myself feel reborn practically every day, having (it seems) forgotten all that I ever knew about programming, calorimetry and women, among other things. It makes life an adventure.
- Jed
