{"id":37,"date":"2005-02-07T06:45:38","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T10:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/c-and-m\/"},"modified":"2005-02-07T06:45:38","modified_gmt":"2005-02-07T10:45:38","slug":"c-and-m","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/c-and-m\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication and Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s easy to discuss communication as though it were an external
\n<\/span>service, provided by tools and channels outside ourselves.  But
\nmost communication successes and failures depend on memory,
\nself-control, rhetorical skill, confidence… all traits which, though they
\nproject through different media with different fidelities<\/span>, begin with the mind.<\/p>\n

For now, let me take a stab at memory<\/span>.  Those of you with  perfect or near-perfect recall,
\npitch, or face-name association, help me out when I falter.  <\/p>\n

Memory acts in bizarre ways.  It is wholly unreliable at times,
\nyet we depend on it for safety<\/span>, continuity<\/span>, and sanity<\/span>. 
\n(Well, sometimes
\nI am certain that we depend on the combination of memory with some
\nexternal feedback loop with the rest of the world.)  At times it
\nis not there on demand, and at other times it comes to you unbidden.<\/p>\n

When I was a toddler, my parents once asked me what I wanted to drink,
\nand I replied “a martini<\/span>“.  This amused them for months.  They rarely drank, hated martinis, and couldn’t imagine where I
\nhad heard the word.  I can’t imagine either, but I bet I
\nheard it exactly once (while my father was communing over his daily
\ncrossword puzzle, perhaps?) and part of my mind happened to think of it
\nthen.  What I am <\/span>pretty sure of, is that the word popped naturally to mind.  And I’d also bet I had hundreds of
\nopportunities to answer similar questions, before such a question and
\nsuch a random memory came together.<\/p>\n

Tonight, while minding my own business in the kitchen, that same part
\nof my mind said, butting into a quiet train of thought about what to do
\nwith my noodles, “parenchyma<\/font>“. 
\nHmm, I thought, what a funny thought to have.  But there it was,
\nlingering in my mind’s rear-view mirror; fifteen seconds later I could
\nremember the syllables distinctly.  “<\/font>parenchyma<\/font>“<\/font>. 
\nI couldn’t exactly remember what it meant, though it sounded medical in
\nnature.  Random thoughts like
\nthat — a snippet of melody, a name, a face (or, more often, one
\nparticular feature) — often push their way into my thoughts, but usually I can
\nrationalize some association between that memory and some recent trigger.
\n 
\n
\nI felt quite sure I knew its spelling and pronunciation
\n(despite having forgotten its meaning), but couldn’t recall ever having
\nseen or used the word… Did I learn it when competing in my last
\nspelling bee, in 5th grade,
\nwhere I was knocked out early on at the city level for misspelling
\n“obedience”?  [oh, the shame]  Or when preparing vocabulary
\nlists in high school English class?  I let it go.  <\/p>\n

Looking it up now, I realize
\nI learned it in high school biology under Ida Medlen<\/span>, one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever known.  I can recall a lot about that class and each grueling lab practicum<\/span>, including the feel of the squid beak from my first complex dissection, <\/span>but nothing remotely like the sights and smells of my kitchen. <\/p>\n

What else does our mind tell us, or hide from us?  And to what
\ndegree is our control over our minds limited by the depth of the tools
\nwe have to supplement it?  Thoughts of the mental gymnast who
\nbuilt a room-sized kaleidoscope to help his memories, and the CBC?
\nguide begun as an aging Physics laureate’s struggle with gradually
\nslowing faculties, are left for another day<\/span>.  Now it is lightening in
\nthe east, turning every quadrant of sky magnificent hues, reminding me
\nto get on with my work here on our ball of mud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s easy to discuss communication as though it were an external service, provided by tools and channels outside ourselves.  But most communication successes and failures depend on memory, self-control, rhetorical skill, confidence… all traits which, though they project through different media with different fidelities, begin with the mind. For now, let me take a stab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-37","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}