Liberal Arts Blog — Human Memory — Three Graphics, Three Levels of Memory

Liberal Arts Blog — Wednesday is the Joy of Science, Engineering, and Technology Day

Today’s Topic — Human Memory — Three Graphics, Three Levels of Memory

It has been said that you are your memories. But what you remember in the future is a function of what you choose to do today and how you choose to do it. You are a lump of clay in your own hands. Your prefrontal cortex is the sculptor of the rest of that jelly-like three pound blob called your brain. Today three images with a few comments attached to each. Do you have a favorite graphic related to memory? Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

DENDRITES, SYNAPSES, MYELIN SHEATH — use it or lose it

1. Less attention you give to some activity, fewer dendrites, fewer synapses, less myelin.

2. More attention you give to some activity, more dendrites, more synapses, more myelin.

3. The size of dendrites and synapses are also a function of the attention given.

NB: Repetition is key to learning. How you do what you do becomes who you are.

PARTS OF THE BRAIN INVOLVED IN MEMORY — taxi cab drivers and gymnasts

1. London Taxi Cab drivers have outsized Hippocampi as spatial intelligence is located there.

2. Gymnasts have super developed cerebella.

3. Decisions sculpt the brain.

NB: Repetition is key to learning. How you do what you do becomes who you are.

INDIVIDUAL VERSUS COLLECTIVE MEMORY

1. Who you hang with matters.

2. Family and community have a role in destiny.

3. Schools too. What is taught in school matters.

NB: The zip code you are born in matters.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:

“Be thine own palace or the world’s thy jail.” - John Donne

A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:

PDF with headlines — Google Drive

ATTACHMENT BELOW

#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).

#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, 11/17/20

YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to science, engineering, or technology. Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to science and engineering.

This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.