Category: Memory

The Fallibility of Memory: Chamberlain, Chambers, Communism

The other day I was trying to recall the name of the author of Witness and I came up with Houston Chamberlain. The author, of course, is Whittaker Chambers. The confusion was presumably sired by 'Chamber.' 

Memory, though infirm, is not wholly unreliable. If it were, I would not have been able to realize my mistake.

Whittaker Chambers on Beethoven

Whittaker Chambers (Witness, p. 19) on the Third Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:

. . . that music was the moment at which Beethoven finally passed beyond the suffering of his life on earth and reached for the hand of God, as God reaches for the hand of Adam in Michelangelo's vision of the creation.

Well, either the adagio movement of the 9th or the late piano sonatas, in particular, Opus 109, Opus 110, and Opus 111. To my ear, these late compositions are unsurpassed in depth and beauty.

In these and a few other compositions of the great composers we achieve a glimpse of what music is capable of.  Just as one will never appreciate the possibilities of genuine philosophy by reading hacks such as Ayn Rand or positivist philistines (philosophistines?) such as David Stove, one will never appreciate the possibilities of great music and its power of speaking to what is deepest in us if one listens only to contemporary popular music.

Witness deserves pride of place on every anti-commie bookshelf. Its literary merit is second only to its great historical value. It is essential reading if you would understand the communist mentality which is carried on in diluted but equally dangerous form in the contemporary Democrat Party in the USA.

A Mistake of Memory

One mistake we sometimes make is to confuse a memory of a decision to do something with a memory of having done it. "I thought I did that! No, my man, you merely thought of doing it." 

One morning I wasted time searching for an article I had printed out the day before. But I was searching for a nonexistent object. I hadn't printed it out; I had merely resolved to do so. I confused resolve with result.

Memory, then, is fallible. But it is via memory that we know this. The non-veridical memory of having printed the document is known to be non-veridical by comparison with the veridical memory of having intended to print it. So while fallible, memory is a source of knowledge, and generally reliable, although its powers vary from person to person. 

Veridical memory  of wholly past events gives the lie to presentism, the view that the present alone exists. For if the present alone exists, then the wholly past does not exist. But what does not exist cannot be known. Given that some memories are veridical, presentism is false. 

"So what are you saying, man? That the past is real?"

False Memory

Yesterday I intended to print a document, loaded the paper tray, and then got sidetracked by a phone call.  I forgot about the print job. This morning I falsely remembered having printed the document and then wasted time searching for it. 

What philosophical juice might one squeeze from this lemon?

1) Not all memories could be false. If all memories were false, then one could not know, using memory, that some memories are false. But I do know, by memory, the truth that some memories are false. Therefore, it is not possible that all memories be false. 

2) If presentism is the view that only temporally present events exist, and that wholly past and wholly future events do not exist, then the above example shows that presentism thus defined cannot be true. For I now veridically remember yesterday's intention to print the document, yesterday's loading of the tray, and yesterday's phone call. These events occurred, and I now know they occurred; hence they cannot now be nothing.

Memory and Existence: An Aporetic Tetrad

Try this  foursome on for size:

1) Memory is a source of knowledge.

2) Whatever is known, exists.

3) Memory includes memory of wholly past individuals and events.

4) Whatever exists, is temporally present.

The limbs of the tetrad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true.  To appreciate the logical inconsistency, note that 'exists' in (2) and in (4) have exactly the same sense, and that this is not the present-tensed sense.  It is the tense-neutral and time-independent sense. Something that exists in this sense simply exists: it is one of the things listed in the ontological inventory.  Hence talk in the literature of existence simpliciter.  In both of its occurrences above, 'exists' means: existence simpliciter.

The limbs are individually plausible. But they are not equally plausible. (4) is the least plausible, and thus the most rejectable, i.e., the most rejection-worthy. Rejecting it, we arrive at an argument against presentism given that (4) is a version of presentism, which it is.

1*) Some of what is remembered is known.

2*) All that is known, exists.

Therefore

2.5) Some of what is remembered exists.

3*) All of what is remembered is wholly past.

Therefore

3.5) Some of what exists is wholly past.

Therefore 

~4*) It is not the case that whatever exists, is temporally present. (Presentism is false.)

Boethius and the Second Death of Oblivion: Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent?

We die twice. We pass out of life, and then we pass out of memory, the encairnment in oblivion more final than the encairnment in rocks. Boethius puts the following words into the mouth of Philosophia near the end of Book Two of the Consolations of Philosophy.

Where are Fabricius's bones, that honourable man? What now is Brutus or unbending Cato? Their fame survives in this: it has no more than a few slight letters shewing forth an empty name. We see their noble names engraved, and only know thereby that they are brought to naught. Ye lie then all unknown, and fame can give no knowledge of you. But if you think that life can be prolonged by the breath of mortal fame, yet when the slow time robs you of this too, then there awaits you but a second death.

And why are these engraved names empty? Not just because their referents have ceased to exist, and not just because a time will come when no one remembers them, but because no so-called proper name is proper. All are common in that no name can capture the haecceity of its referent. So not only will we pass out of life and out of memory; even in life and in memory our much vaunted individuality is ineffable, and, some will conclude, nothing at all.

"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep." (Shakespeare, The Tempest.) 

Memory: Content and Affect

The trick is to retain the content so that one can rehearse it if one wishes, but without re-enacting the affect, unless one wishes.  Let me explain.

Suppose one recalls a long-past insult to oneself, and feels anger in the present as a result. The anger is followed by regret at not having responded in kind. (L'esprit de l'escalier.) And then perhaps there is disgust at oneself for having remained passive, for not having stood up to the aggressor and asserted oneself. This may be followed by annoyance with oneself for allowing these memorial affects  to arise one more time despite one's assiduous and protracted inner work. Finally, pessimism supervenes concerning the efficacy of attempts at self-improvement and mind control.  

Well, welcome to the human predicament.  Buck up, never give up. We are not here to slack off and have a good time. This world is preparatory and propadeutic if not penal. That is the right way to think of it. Live and strive. Leben und streben! Streben bis zum Sterben!  There is no guarantee that the "long, twilight struggle" will open out into  light.   For there are two twilights, one that leads to dawn, the other to dusk. But we live better if we believe in the advent of the first.

Judge your success not by how far you have to go, but how far you've come.

Inquire and aspire.  What Plato has Socrates say about inquiry (intellectual self-improvement) in response to Meno's Paradox is adaptable to aspiration (moral self-improvement).

And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about the impossibility of inquiry: for it will make us idle; and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and inquisitive. (Plato, Meno, 81a-81e)

Memory Anchors

Journal entries can serve to anchor memories. Memories anchored are less likely to be embellished or suppressed. 

"I couldn't have done that!"

"But it says right here that you did, and you wrote it!"