Our Memory Sucks
I should have known.
Our brains are notoriously terrible at remembering events precisely as they occurred. I’d like to believe that my own mind is that of a supercomputer, but quite frankly, I’ve begun to look at memories with a bit more apprehension.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases
Here is a list of how your memory might be failing you. Yea, I know, kinda scary. Our once perfect memory can be condensed to a list of misinformation.
So let’s play this out. You have come to recognize that your memory has bias tendencies which fail to relay an authentic representation of the truth. You share this spinning rock with about 7 billion other people with the same tendencies. News channels insidiously plant propaganda that neglects a holistic perspective. Social Media modifies its content to feed into our confirmation bias (our tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that confirms our beliefs.)
So, no matter where we turn, we are merely interacting with a distortion of the truth. Nice. It gets better, though.
According to the innocenceproject.org, 75% of wrongful convictions can be attributed to eyewitness testimony.
That’s right if you’re in a situation where you witness a crime, odds are you’ll wrongfully convict an innocent bystander.
“LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER!”
We’ve all probably uttered this quote at one point or another. The actual quote, “No, I am your father.”
This phenomenon is called the Mandela effect.
Ironically, as soon as I am done typing this, and you’re done reading this, only a couple hours should pass before our brains release irrelevant details. A couple of days, and we’ll even struggle to remember the context. A couple of weeks, and did this even happen?
