History and Memory Revisited Memory, History, and the Brain II: Whence Nostalgia and the Constraints

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History and Memory RevisitedMemory, History, and
the Brain II Whence Nostalgia and the
Constraints on Stories?

• Brown Bag Discussion
• Bryn Mawr College
• April Fools Day, 2005
• First Fool Elliott Shore
• Second Fool Paul Grobstein
• Third Fool Paula Viterbo

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• April Fools Day
• and
• Nostalgia

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What Paul and Elliott concluded in November
(Memory and the Brain I)

• Re. memory
• There is nothing in our brains or elsewhere in
  our bodies that contains complete memories of
  experiences (stories)
• There are, however, traces (changes in the
  neurobiological system) that occur as a result of
  experiences
• What we call memories are re-creations, stories
  about past experiences, based on traces. A memory
  (story) is created anew each time one remembers.
  Memories are constructed in the present from past
  traces.
• Re. history
• History is also a re-creation of the past in the
  present
• History is not a guide to the future because it
  is the current processing of past memories in
  ways that appear useful in the present

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Leftover questions and pointers to possible
answers

• What are those traces in the brain? Can we
  understand psychological and cultural
  explanations in neurobiological terms?
• Are there limits / constraints to the stories we
  tell ourselves about the past?
• Are there time-independent memories (knowledge)?
  Individual vs. species memory
• Three ways to think about constraints on stories
• Neurological (Paul Paula)
• Psychological (Azade)
• Cultural (Kalala)

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Neurobiological constraints the bipartite brain
the role of the neocortex

• There is a part of the brain (upper brain,
  neocortex) that aspires to coherent stories,
  and it tries to fit new input (from the rest of
  the brain) into the coherent structures it has
  (hence a propensity, among humans,
  for nostalgia).  Its not, then, so much what
  sticks as what is (and is not) incorporated into
  stories that matters.
• http//serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/mentalhealth
  /neuropsychotherapy/31march05/

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The Relation between Memory and History

• Events
• Brains

Traces in the brain (patterns of firing neurons)
Primary sources
Individual memory Neurobiology Psychology Cognitiv
e science
Collective memory Alternative histories Psychology
Sociology Anthropolgy Literature History
Official history History
Individual self-identity After playing and
replaying them, we become our memories
Collective identity Nationalisms
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Complicating the model

• Neither memory nor history are faithful replicas
  of the past, nor infallible guides to the
  present. BUT they are based on some kind of
  record of the past. Memories are incomplete and
  interpretive, processed in the brains lower
  module. Used by both the lower and upper
  brain, memory and history provide some kind of
  guide to the present. In other words, humans
  learn.
• Both memory and history are recreated from traces
  (neurological, historical sources). BUT traces
  need to be interpreted (by the brains upper
  module) in order to become explicit memories or
  histories. AND not all interpretations are
  possible.

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Complicating the model

• Stories are constrained by the brains internal
  environment (neurological, genetic), as well as
  its external environment (cultural, social).
• Like most historians, brains (or their upper
  modules) are contextualists (not extreme
  constructionists). And like a maligned minority
  of historians, they are presentists (they
  interpret the past in the light of the present).
• BUT in the hands of contextualist historians (or
  their upper modules), history can be a guide to
  the future. Although some presentist biases are
  inevitable, historians are trained to interpret
  the past as much as possible in its own context.
  Comparative contextual analyses enables them to
  use (with limitations) the past as a guide to the
  future.

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Whence nostalgia?

• Psychological / cultural explanations
• Inertia
• Fear of change / loss
• Mistrust of unknown future
• The brains upper module values the coherence
  and stability of the stories it constructs
• Symmetry between remembrance (nostalgia) and
  forgetfulness (painful and useless memories)
• Neurobiological explanations
• The brain works in the present, based on traces
  from the past. The brain constructs stories that
  transform the past into the present.
• The brain does not care about the future.
• Memories used over and over again are reinforced
  in the brain (neurological pathways genetic
  encoding)
• Conservation of energy?
• Evolutionary explanations
• Is nostalgia adaptive? Does it conserve energy?
• What makes memories stick? (genetic explanations)

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Return to Summary of Brown Bag Discussion