Topics Mind

Question Physically speaking, what is memory? What is a memory? If a memory is stored as a physical structure in the brain, is it possible that the human genome codes for the formation of one or more of these physical memory structures during brain development? In other words, could the genome, which we all share, include memories that are preloaded into the human brain during the brain's growth before birth? Could this be a physical manifestation of Jung's collective unconscious? EdHead

Accepted:
October 5, 2005

Comments

Most of these questions seem like empirical ones, and I'm not a neuro-scientist, so I'll skip them.

But let me ask a question back. Suppose Dr Jekyll performs an operation and, as a result, I seem to remember once sitting on a throne while some guy goes on about how, if I don't let his people go, there'll be plagues and pestilence and stuff. I don't see what that couldn't happen, as a matter of pure possibility. Would you want to say I remembered any of that? If all of us were born with that apparent memory, would it matter what we said to the previous question?