6 - Phenomenology of Memory in an Age of Big Data
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2022
Summary
Memory and Memoranda
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN to depend on machine-retrieval of past experiences rather than on personal recollection? How might changes in the phenomenology of memory affect archival practices and, by extension, reshape our collective memory of the past? In Phaedrus (written around 370 BCE), Plato famously dwelled on the claim that literature is injurious to memory, relating the discussion between Theuth, an Egyptian God, and Thamus, King of Egypt, about the invention of writing:
The story goes that Thamus said much to Theuth, both for and against each art, which it would take too long to repeat. But when they came to writing, Theuth said, “O King, here is something that, once learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memory; I have discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom.” Thamus, however, replied, “O most expert Theuth, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it; they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own.”
By the end of antiquity, the debate between Thamus and Theuth had been decisively resolved in favor of Theuth. While the written record may not have made us wise, this record and related forms of tangible media have vastly extended our cultural knowledge. As Abby Smith Rumsey remarks in When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future, Socrates's “prediction that external memory systems would hurt us as a species completely missed the mark. If we had not turned mind into matter, our biological memory would have been stuck forever in the present, small of scale and leaving little behind when we die.” The resolution of the argument also gave birth to the memory institutions of Western culture.
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- Collecting in the Twenty-First CenturyFrom Museums to the Web, pp. 106 - 119Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022