Statistics and you!

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa 3/30 near Recolle

Let me ask a question that is the reverse of one that, I believe Dave was asking before. Who has access to this site but has not seen any strange memories? A lot of people have mentioned the phenomenon of memories that have been recalled, but don't seem to fit with the rest of your life, or what you remember. I still love the term 'hallucinomemories.' But it can't be all of us, statistically. A related but different question, every time we talk about this, I have to bring up that I'm not an expert in memory. So do we have anybody on this site who is? Psychologists, researchers, somebody who worked in a memory lab during grad school? I'll take anything.

Comments

[notyourutopian]

Eleanor Lamb It's just you.

[Yes she might be trolling him a bit.]

[professahhh]

Did you know that a certain type of flatworm can retain memories, even if you chop its head off and let it regrow a new one?

[blooming_resonance]

In short: Yes and yes.

Though to be most precise, it is not me who specializes in psychology, but my family who owns a neurological practice here in town. Most of what I know is from growing up with it.

I wish I could say I have experienced any of these... hallucinations, however. Not a one has come to me, when it sounds like others have experienced dozens.

[standalonehuman]

[Togusa is firmly pointing his finger at his screen even though she can't see it. Principle.]

Hitori Togusa Numbers are on my side here. My count is off, but there aren't more than 160 of us. There's got to be more.

[standalonehuman]

[What do you even say in response to that?]

I did not know that.

I learned something today.

But it brings up so many more questions.

[standalonehuman]

[Aha! Take that, Eleanor!]

Hitori Tougsa Maybe not dozens. If you total everyone up, sure.
Hitori Togusa From what people have said, some have just been triggered thanks to normal conversation, while others just come to them without a stimulus. Seems a lot like normal memory, in that way, from what I understand of it.
Hitori Togusa They only stand out because what they're seeing doesn't mesh with everything else they know.

[notyourutopian]

Eleanor Lamb People who aren't on the network don't count.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Ouch. I'm wounded over here.
Hitori Togusa All right, I'll humor you. Say I am the statistical outlier, what do I do then?

[notyourutopian]

Eleanor Lamb No idea.
Eleanor Lamb What do statistical outliers normally do?

[professahhh]

Odd, isn't it? Even with all we know about the human brain today, even the smallest of organisms can present all kinds of mysteries.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Either the exception proves the rule, and they get examined closer as a potential case study. Or they get kicked out of the sample for messing up the pretty analysis.
Hitori Togusa I don't think I like either implication there.

[standalonehuman]

You're right. It's amazing that we still have so much to learn. It would be pretty boring if everybody knew everything.

...

But really, dont flatworms grow back both ways? So if you split it, do you get two? Would both the flatworms have the memories? Does that count as cloning? Like I said, so many more questions.

[professahhh]

Speaking of which, here's another one!

If applied to the human brain, magnetic pulses can have all kinds of effects! For example, they can render you unable to speak... or boost your memory.

[standalonehuman]

Hunh. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. One of the ways you can image the brain uses magnets. It's that same iron content in the blood that you can change if you use magnetic fields. Keep blood from going to one part of the brain, make it go to another part more. One part of the brain doesn't work now, another part is working overtime.

You wouldn't be able to keep that strong a magnetic field up for very long, but long enough to make somebody remember one thing they couldn't before?

[professahhh]

Well, I don't believe you're actually changing the flow of blood in the brain, really -- that sounds a bit dangerous. It works, or so they say, because the activity in your brain is made up of electrical impulses!

Magnetic fields affect those impulses, so depending on the part of the brain you stimulate, you can create different effects.

[standalonehuman]

Oh, right. Remembering from my bio classes now. That's how any activation in the brain works, a buildup of an electrical charge, and magnets are related to the positivity or negativity of that charge.

So not blood increase, but a temporary activation increase. Getting the neurons in that part of the brain to light up for a short while.

It would be a way to trigger memory recall, but you can't control what information is recalled. But that sounds just like what's happening to people.

[professahhh]

There is a way to trigger particular memories... but it doesn't seem likely that either method is really what's happening here.

[parodeity]

oh hey a namedrop ive hit the bigtime now
obviously i am not useful for this stats thing as a person with
a metric fuckton of hallucinomemories
but i feel like i should definitely swing by given the namedrop
you know
let my adoring public know i appreciate them
i appreciate you togusa

[standalonehuman]

Aww, I feel the love.

But that's right, you won one. Retrospec was offering out what seemed to be these memories as the prize in that pageant. We couldn't figure out how that was even possible.

Can you even tell if it kicked in or not?

[standalonehuman]

Still, your point is that there are more ways to trigger and affect memory that we don't know about, so don't feel limited to just what we know when thinking about what Retrospec is doing?

[professahhh]

I didn't particularly have any point in mind... it was just that you had me thinking about memory and science!

Now that you mention it, though, I haven't any explanation for all these memories that doesn't sound like conspiracy theory and claptrap.

[standalonehuman]

But have you gotten anything, yourself? People I've spoken to are still so certain that what they're seeing is real.

[blooming_resonance]

Yes, that's what they've told me, as well. I almost feel a little left out, not having any of these strange hallucinations. Maybe I'm like a control in the experiment?

Sad as it is to think this whole thing may be some kind of social experiment.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Oh, it's definitely a social experiment. Unquestionably.
Hitori Togusa But it's interesting to see someone else who might be in the control population.
Hitori Togusa But only 2 out of ~160? I would have thought they'd just compare us to the unaffected population.
Hitori Togusa But, I suppose, everyone who isn't on the app, they aren't collecting data from. Hunh.

[professahhh]

I've been remembering some things lately, but it's nothing like that lady with a girlfriend.