The accuracy of a person's memory might seem obvious to them to the point they believe in it, unless they forsake assumptions. Oh, the capacity for memory and individual recollections can be known to exist within your mind due to rationalistic introspection. This much is absolutely certain for whoever makes no assumptions and looks to reason. Having a memory--even a highly vivid one--just does not mean the event recalled really happened or happened in the exact way remembered. Likewise, not remembering something does not mean it did not happen. And someone with a murky memory can still know with absolute certainty that they do or do not recall a particular thing.
Ironic it is that one must still rely on memory to remember that one's memory is faulty, which then would left to itself logically undermine the basis of believing that a given memory of the past is accurate. It is really the direct experience in the moments of haziness that logically necessitates that one's memory is flawed as far as easy recollection is concerned; while the objects of memories or sensory perceptions might not be what our perceptions suggest, at least the mental experience could only exist whenever it is experienced, even the perception of a poorly working memory. Turning to other minds is of no epistemological deliverance by itself beyond the fallible, uncertain kind, for how can one know by asking and hearing from other people if their own memory is accurate or if they are intentionally trying to deceive? As always, logical proof grounds knowledge one way or another and not passive experience, including that of memories that are ultimately beyond our control as to whether we can retain them or not.
One can thankfully know something beyond whether one has a given memory or not (and the logical facts about how it is possible for memory to be accurate or inaccurate despite which is the case being unprovable). If one's memory was so distorted or inactive that one could not recall anything outside of one's immediate focus in the present moment, then one would be confused or surprised by almost everything in one's thoughts and sensory experiences. Remember (I use this word sarcastically), memory is crucial to moment-to-moment functioning. The qualifying truth here is that the sensory perceptions one's memories align with in order to result in a lack of immediate disorientation might themselves be illusory, which would mean that your memory might nonetheless only correspond to the interior of your mind rather than to external events and environments in a physical world.
In an age physically dominated by technology and ideologically dominated by the errors of sensory empiricism, it might not be difficult to find someone who would claim when pressed that you can know what happened in the past through the likes of audio or video recordings. Though the metaphysics and epistemology of memory are inevitably a matter of strict logical necessity one way or another rather than something dependent upon external, potentially misleading evidences, this is the route some might go if pushed. The folly of this is plain to anyone who recognizes the non sequiturs a person must hold to if they believe that, say, recorder playback must be accurate. Technology only adds more epistemological layers rather than eliminating the basis for legitimate doubt! Someone can assume otherwise, but they cannot know.
Technology still provides strong evidences that an event one might not remember or remember in a certain way really did occur. But recordings are mere evidences that fall spectacularly short of logical proof. What exactly has and has not happened in the past is all the same not a verifiable matter, not with human limitations. Neither personal memory nor the testimony of others nor written documentation nor recording technology can truly establish what particular events have happened. Memory and memories exist, a memory can only be either accurate or inaccurate, and which of these possibilities is true cannot be demonstrated.
No comments:
Post a Comment