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Scientists Have Discovered How To 'Delete' Unwanted Memories (telegraph.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind dept.

A new documentary from PBS reveals how cutting edge science enables us to 'edit' memories and create new ones from scratch. "For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays it intact," say the film's makers. "But now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others. We are discovering the precise mechanisms that can explain and even control our memories."

7 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Before We Go All "This is Great!"... by sehlat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1: Does it require the subject's cooperation to erase the memories? 2: Can they be retrieved by some means later, if necessary?

    If the answer to these questions is "No." Consider the following scenarios:

    1. An accused criminal gets the key witnesses in the case wiped before the trial.

    2. Cops "forcefully interrogate" a suspect, and when the suspect turns out to be innocent, wipe the victim's memories of their treatment.

    And those are just Abuse 101.

    1. Re:Before We Go All "This is Great!"... by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More to the point, I'm wondering if there's any actual science here. A Torygraph news article referencing a PBS documentary doesn't exactly scream "science" to me. We're basically hearing it from a tertiary source.

      So does anyone have a link to the actual research and the primary source behind this?

    2. Re:Before We Go All "This is Great!"... by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Informative

      So I watched the documentary...

      1: Does it require the subject's cooperation to erase the memories?

      Yes. Fundamentally, when you recall a memory (including phobias), the act of recalling it leaves the memory in a chemically vulnerable state as it has to be "re-written" when you're done. It's not like computer storage where you can read the same data over and over without fear of tampering with the original content. In the brain, all memories being recalled get modified at some level.

      Basically, the phobia is recalled by the subject. He or she takes a pill that will block the re-writing of the memory process. After several sessions, the phobia is severally diminished if not outright eliminated. I would imagine this technique could condition the perfect soldier to not fear the battlefield. A true "disposable hero".

      2: Can they be retrieved by some means later, if necessary?

      I don't think so. Once the memory has been modified, that's it. I doubt there (but do not know) equivalent of shadow copies of pathways like a hard drive has a shadow copy of data per the filesystem.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  2. Finally! by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please test it on goatse

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Faithfully? by Knuckles · · Score: 5, Informative

    "For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays it intact,"

    Um, no. It has been well known that memory is unreliable.

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    1. Re:Faithfully? by janimal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Mod this up. Any lawyer will have had this in their first class on witnesses. Memories are known to be very unreliable.

      Years ago, I taught myself hypnosis, based on reading a book about it. One thing that struck me in that book was the statement that on a subconscious level, our brain cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy. It is only our consciousness (the linear reasoning part) that filters the fantasy bits and supplies appropriate metadata. As any beginner hyptnotist will learn, consciousness is off much more often than we realize.

      From my own experiments, erasing someones memory of something while they are under is one of the best working mechanisms that become available to the hypnotist. When I told folks to forget my name and planted a different name in its place, the information persisted even past the session. I had to show my ID to convince the person that their memory of my name has been manipulated.

      The ethical implications of this mechanism are obvious. In fact, I haven't been able to proceed in my "studies" of the phenomenon precisely because I wasn't able to deal with using the mechanism without the subject's knowledge.

  4. Let me guess.... by dohzer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does the method involve alcohol?