The making, keeping and losing of memory          Prof. Richard Morris
Channel: Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
Date: 09/12/2021

The capacity for memory is one of our prize possessions – defining our individuality and affording the bonds that cement so many aspects of friendship and family life.  Remembrance is a facet of our culture and ordinary everyday memory essential in our daily life and work.  But how does memory work?  There are different types of memory, which I shall illustrate, and an intriguing facet of long-term memory is the paradoxical importance of both keeping memories and of forgetting others. I shall try to explain why we shouldn’t be so ashamed of being forgetful in terms of the underlying physiology until, of course, it becomes extreme as in certain neurological conditions. Even then it degrades with a selectivity that reflects facets of how memory works and enables our individuality to be retained. One new puzzle is whether the need for memory is being subverted by all the social media devices we now have at hand.  In some respects, yes, but I shall argue conservatively that the faculty of memory is as precious as ever.