Memories Lie

Memories lie, simple as that. Memories shape most of who we are, and what we know, but they can also lie to us. Memories are very subjective, being influenced by a person’s beliefs and even their desires, rather than objective, which is set in stone, a known fact. Because most memories are seen subjectively, our own memories lie to us in some way.
However, in the case of Douglas Bruce, he sees much of the world objectively. It is his first time seeing things, as far as he knows, so he sees them for what they are mainly. Children see the world in a much more subjective manner. With the mirror experiment, children saw another person in the mirror, or saw the ink on their nose as a problem with the mirror rather than themselves. Learning that the smudge is on themselves gives them experience in knowing how to use a mirror in the future.
Memory is the only way we gain experience. You know not to touch a hot plate because it will burn, because you’ve been told or gotten burnt before. Many things you don’t consciously remember learning about, but the knowledge is still somewhere that is recalled without trying to remember.
Memory is a flawed process, but it’s no more than a complex biological machine, and with any complex machine all parts have to work perfectly together to make it work. Due to the fact that it can’t work perfectly, and we see things subjectively, memory does a good job at lying to us, because a lot of the times we don’t have anyone to prove us wrong.


Drew Allison
English 289-005