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  • It doesn’t take much. A picture. A song. A scent.  A breeze at just the right temperature with just  

  • the right amount of force. Suddenly, memories  flash through our head. Clicked on by the  

  • cursor of these familiar experiences, old files  open. Often with an intense poignancy, longing,  

  • regret, delight, or whatever else, we watch them  play. People. Places. Things. Feelings. States  

  • of who wereat least who we believe we were. In many ways, we are our memories. If you were  

  • given the choice to either live for thousands of  years but every day, all of your memories would  

  • be erased, or live for fifty years and all of your  memories would remain fully intact and consistent,  

  • which would you choose? For most of us, I believethe choice is obvious. Fifty years with clear,  

  • consistent memories provides the richer, more  meaningful life. Perhaps, in this dichotomy,  

  • it provides the only rich, meaningful lifeBut what does this mean about what we derive  

  • value from? The meaning we form from ourselvesour  identityis, of course, not merely physical. It’s  

  • the ability of our mind to retain and provide  subjective continuity—a tracking of our past  

  • that we ceaselessly have access to in the present. What if an old image of yourself, of your friends,  

  • or the sensation of a familiar breeze with  the scent of a place youve been many times,  

  • didn’t open anything? No memoriesat least  no clear, consistent ones. The files and  

  • folders have been trashed with no backup. Not  only that, but no new memories can be formed  

  • either. Who would you be? What would this  mean? Would there be a you? For some of us,  

  • this isn’t a thought experiment or hypotheticalIt is or will become reality. Our memories will  

  • be lostdaily, momentarily, from our entire life. The term dementia refers to a group of symptoms  

  • that impair memory, thinking, and other general  functions. Typically, dementia is associated with  

  • memory loss. Dementia can be caused by many  diseases and conditions. The leading cause,  

  • however, is Alzheimer's disease. As many as  60-80% of cases of dementia are caused by  

  • Alzheimer's. It is also the seventh leading cause  of death in America, in general. According to the  

  • Alzheimer's Association, 10% of 65-year-olds  have Alzheimer's. That percentage continues to  

  • increase significantly with age. And due to the  increasing number of older people as a result of  

  • advancements in medicine and technology, cases  of Alzheimer’s are significantly increasing

  • The cause of Alzheimer’s is still mostly unknownThe main characteristic, however, is abnormal  

  • protein deposits in the brain. Two proteins called  amyloid and tau form plaques around and cause  

  • tangles within brain cells, eventually causing  them to die. As the cells die, the neurons and  

  • their network become disconnected, and parts of  the brain shrink. The correlated functions of the  

  • brain deteriorate alongside, and dementia sets in. There are seven stages of dementia. The first two  

  • go by mostly unnoticed. Minor forgetfulness  and occasional difficulty finding the right  

  • words. In the third and fourth stages, symptoms  become increasingly noticeable. Significant and  

  • interfering forgetfulness. Difficulty forming  and completing sentences. Decreasing ability  

  • to manage daily tasks and keep up with events. And  other general dysfunction. In stages five and six,  

  • severe cognitive decline takes place. The mind  begins to take the individual from themselves.  

  • Significant memory loss occurs. Confusion about  oneself and one’s environment. Major personality  

  • changes. Inability to accomplish basic tasksDelusions. And hallucinations. By stage seven,  

  • dementia essentially takes everything that is  left. The recognition of family members and  

  • oneself. Language skills. Bodily function. What  remains is total disorientation and dysfunction.  

  • At this point, the world has lost nearly  all symbolic meaning. The ability to label,  

  • define, recognize, and recall things is gone. And  these things, from the perspective of the mind,  

  • is all the world is. The individual is now  completely adrift in a shrinking sea of  

  • evaporating brain cells until, finally, the  sea dries up enough for no life to remain

  • Putting aside the gruesome, horrible details of  this very real experience for very real people,  

  • it is both deeply profound and deeply unsettling  to consider dementia’s implicationswhat it  

  • suggests about who we are and what it means  to exist and derive meaning from existence.  

  • Proportional to the degree in which dementia dims  the light of consciousness and selfhood within  

  • the affected, it illuminates the delicacy and  abstractness of these things for the unaffected

  • In 1995, American artist William Utermohlen was  diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 61. Following  

  • his diagnosis, over the subsequent five yearsinto and throughout the stages of his dementia,  

  • Utermohlen painted a now-famous series  of self-portraits. In these portraits,  

  • one can observe the internal effects of  dementia depicted visuallyhow the affected  

  • person’s self-perception, autonomy, and symbolic  understanding of the world changes and erodes  

  • overtime. The portraits start out with detail  and accuracy, but soon, they become abstract,  

  • containing unusual colors and shaping  until, finally, in the last portraits,  

  • they dip into nothing more than grungy, shaded  circles with what can maybe be made out to be  

  • the shadows of what was once a nose or a brow. At some point throughout the process, it can be  

  • assumed that Utermohlen loses comprehension of  the significance of the portraits. But to the  

  • outside observer, they reveal the fragility  and abstract underlying nature of self-hood,  

  • memories, and cognitive function. What are we  without our memories, without the ability to  

  • remember accurately, without the ability to form  memories, without certain aspects of our brain

  • In general, recalling a memory is, in some  sense, like watching a video. The video,  

  • though it was produced in the past, is and can  only be watched right now. Memories are always  

  • in the present. Remembering is always  a present act. Unlike a video, however,  

  • with memories, there is no consistent, distinctand tangible record of them. We can, of course,  

  • corroborate our memories with others, with  trackable events, or with external proof,  

  • but for most of life’s events in which there  are no witnesses who can provide a testimony,  

  • or there are conflicting testimonies, or there are  no clear facts or evidence, our past is accessible  

  • to us solely through our memories. But if our  memories can be this fragile, this susceptible,  

  • how much can we trust them in general? A common symptom of dementia is forming  

  • false memories. These are memories of events and  things that never happenedor didn’t happen in a  

  • way that one believes they did. But false memories  are not exclusive to those affected by dementia.  

  • They can and likely do occur in everyone. In a study in 1994 conducted by psychologist  

  • Elizabeth Loftus, participants were asked  to describe a specific event from their  

  • childhoodgetting lost in a shopping mallParticipants then proceeded to describe the  

  • event with great detail. The issue is that none  of the participants had actually ever gotten lost  

  • in a mall. It was merely suggested to them inquestion asked by the psychologist conducting the  

  • study. 25% of the participants, however, formed  entire confabulated memories of this event. There  

  • are many other studies like thisstudies that  demonstrate to statistical significance the  

  • phenomenon of false memory formation as  a result of things like suggestibility,  

  • mislabeling information, and the projection of  one’s current views or desires onto past events

  • How many of our memories are false  memories? Confabulations generated  

  • out of our desire for something other than  the truthout of jealousy, shame, hope,  

  • confidence, a changing in personal views and  values; out of ineptitude and credulousness;  

  • out of cognitive biases. There are so many  blind spots in the mind, the mind is more  

  • like one big blind spot with one tiny spotlightLike a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy,  

  • each instance of remembering a thing  also remembers the previous instance  

  • of remembering the thing (sometimes solely the  previous instance), each instance potentially  

  • losing detail and accuracyconnective tissue  to the real experience. We are all playing a  

  • lifelong games of telephone with ourselves about  ourselves. We are all demented in some sense

  • Alzheimer’s and dementia are so unsettling and  horrifying, not only because of the terrible,  

  • prospective firsthand experience but also  because of what it reveals about our existence  

  • in general. We are passengersto our bodiesour minds, the universe. We are inextricably  

  • contained inside the clump of jell-O-like  fat inside our skull, and our identities are  

  • fragile constructions made within this, out  of the imprecise shapes of memoriessynaptic  

  • connections vulnerable to being ripped apart. The kinds of questions one might ask who  

  • suffers from later stage dementia aren’t  so dissimilar from the kinds of questions  

  • one might ask broadly when considering the  implications of dementia, when considering  

  • the origins and prospects of existing insidemind. Where am I? What am I doing? What am I?

It doesn’t take much. A picture. A song. A scent.  A breeze at just the right temperature with just  

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One of the Most Unsettling Phenomena of the Human Brain

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2024 年 02 月 25 日
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