In the midst of my crazy busy life, I’ve found solace in long walks lately. My companion on these long walks has been my iPod Touch, and the Radio Lab podcast.

I’ve been talking about Radio Lab a lot lately, to the point that my friends must be sick of it. I’m a recent convert, so I’ve latched onto it with a born-again kind of fervor, only instead of God, I’m rediscovering science. The show is aply described thus: “Radio Lab is a radio show that delves into big questions of science and philosophy, with a desire to make sense of the nonsensical, and an impulse to play around.” (link)

Today’s Radio Lab (from June 2007) was about memory and forgetting. There were some pretty astonishing revelations about how memory works, revelations that are still shocking to people. Like this one: memory is an act of creation.

Most of us think of memory as this sort of file cabinet in our brains, which has information stored that we go an access. But that’s absolutely not true, according to scientists. In fact, it’s inherently unstable and unreliable. There is no “true” memory that exists underneath you current memory. The “true” memory is the original experience. Every time you remember that experience again, you create and relive the experience again, destroying the previous incarnation of that experience. Every time you remember it, it changes a little bit.

Here’s the kicker. Scientists have actually successfully removed individual memories not only from rats and mice, but from people with severe PTSD using chemical pills and injections that alter the brain in the process of experiencing the memory. It works because of how memory works, that process of re-creating the experience in the mind. If the experience can be interrupted in the process of creation, then it can be eliminated. Its traumatic effects can be minimized. This research is probably what inspired Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

This has tremendous implications for therapy, for helping people to get over difficult situations by re-membering the moment in time, constructing different perspectives. The knowledge that we do, in fact, have the power to change how past experiences affect us, to change the neural pathways of our own brains, is inspiring. Well, and probably a little terrifying to some. But this is how memory works, after all. Of course, it also has ominous implications for devious use of such things. I study religion, and the history of religion is typically a history fraught with peril, all linked to ideology.

In the show, they talk about experiments where researchers introduced false memories quite easily to human subjects, to the point where their subjects swore that it was a real and accurate memory. This brings me to the whole movement of “recovered” memories. I’m not saying that it’s all bunk, but given how suggestible the human brain is, given how it works, how the effective suggestion of an experience can create in the brain a “memory” of the experience itself, it’s an inherently untrustworthy process. It can cause no end of difficulties in families, communities, etc. I’m thinking of the excellent documentary Capturing the Friedmans. If you haven’t seen it, you should. But I also know families that have been torn apart over such things.

And of course, what history teaches us is that as much as we hope people will only use these powers for good, the power itself becomes pretty seductive. And this is pretty powerful stuff. When you can control memories, you can control people themselves. We often consider ourselves a product of our experiences, which is fueled by memories. The stories we tell ourselves about these memories can fundamentally alter our perception of reality. This is the basis of cognitive therapy, after all. And Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP.

This is also how movements get started, by the manipulation of perception, even the manipulation of memories. “Can you remember when xyz did abc to you? Do you remember how that made you feel? Aren’t you outraged?” or “Isn’t that wonderful?” or “Can you see how this person is the only one who tells you the truth?” or “Can you see how this person is a compulsive liar?” It’s used on both sides of any issue. We figure if we can trust nothing if not our memories. But our memories are not necessarily accurate representations of the truth, and certainly are not objective arbiters of past truths.

Anyway, I love listening to these podcasts, and contemplating the issues they arouse. They’re so well produced. And perfect for long walks.