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Paycheck-Style Memory Erasure: How Close Are We?
Quirk writes "Scientific American takes a look at the movie Paycheck, based on Philip K. Dick's work of the same name. In the movie ...'a crack reverse engineer helps companies steal and improve upon the technology of their rivals, then has his memory of the time he spent working for them erased.' '...the main character gets several months' worth of his memories erased by having individual neurons zapped. Is that possible?'"
Can I erase reading that message?
Slashdot editors have had this happen to them! That is why they we have repeat stories, sometimes one right after the other!
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
No.
It happens to me all the time. An aquantance walks up to me an my brain selectively forgets their name.
But do I ever forget something useless like the theme song to Gilligan's Island? NOOOOOooooooOOOO!
I don't remember, you insensitive clod.
But if you found out that you'd had your memory erased, they'd just erase it again!
Username taken, please choose another one.
I could have sworn I knew the answer to that question prior to my last job...
I'd just like to erase them [it]...
Watching american sitcoms works pretty well too.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
who studies learning and memory, to explain what kinds of memory erasure are currently possible
What about the good old whack behind the head?
...winning a Nobel Prize than science is to understanding memory, let alone erasing it.
Procrastinators cramming for exams and late term papers may have the right idea.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Sure it's possible, it just turned out to be a really really bad thing so we erased our memories of how to do it.
Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky has a rather horrifying subplot that revolves around exactly that idea. The Evil Thugs don't want to kill a certain Good Guy, and in fact they want to keep her nice, so whenever she finds out that the Evil Thugs are actually Evil, they stick her in the magic MRI and erase the memory.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I would!
Wow, I sure could use a cold frothy Coca Cola and a nice soothing RIAA approved album right now. I think I'll put my Nike's on and drive down to Wal-Mart in my Ford Explorer.
...for sticking in the most obvious, cheesy, cliched line you can have whenever you're doing a man-on-the-run, stolen-identity story.
"YOU WIPED MY MEMORY!"
I can't help but laugh at Ben Affleck delivering this. "Tell us what happened." "I can't. You wiped my memory!"
Ben's voice echoes in my mind amidst maniacal laughter at the copiousness of its cheese. "YOU WIPED MY MEMORY!"
Do I blame myself? When I first heard the premise of yet another bastardized Phillip K. Dick movie and saw that Ben Affleck was in it, and heard that it was about his memory being erased (gee, that's never been done before), why did I immediately expect that exact line to be inserted somewhere in the trailer? "YOU WIPED MY MEMORY!" It's like I wanted it to be there, like touching a sore tooth.
Anyone else remember, "He's got a bomb in his RIBCAGE!" That other Phillip Dick movie and its cheesy line repeated over and over in all the trailers actually became a running gag over at Ain't-It-Cool talkbacks. "HE'S GOT A BOMB IN HIS RIBCAGE!"
Now I have "HE'S GOT A BOMB IN HIS RIBCAGE!" and "YOU WIPED MY MEMORY!" battling each other surrounded by torrents of laughter in my mind.
Help me. "YOU WIPED MY MEMORY!"
"Sufferin' succotash."
someone would wipe the memory of that movie from my mind.
Does this mean that a RAID5 array will start making up data off the top of its processor? If so, I think I know how SCO's legal team plans to prove their case...
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Heck, I was doing that in my early twenties with Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboys, orange microdots and Black Beauties.
Why do you think there are so many
rehashed stories here on slashdot everyday
that have been told before right here
in the same exact place and format
before.
It's called the American Media.
Paycheck-Style Memory Erasure: How Close Are We?
For me, we are already there:
1) Get Paycheck
2) Cash Paycheck at Bar
3) Drink Paycheck (figuratively, of course)
4) Voila! Memory Erased.
"Fractal Memory". Reminds me of "Robot Dreams", by Isaac Asimov.
In this short story someone designs a robot's brain in a kind of fractal pattern, making it dream like a human being. Don't want to spoil it, it's quite an amazing story, also a short read (about 6 pages).
I HAVEN'T OWNED A TELEVISION SINCE 1967 AND ONLY WATCH MOVIES ABOUT LEFT-HANDED ALEUT LESBIAN PIPEWELDERS! FUCK HOLLYWOO