Discussion question of the day: memory

[another_normal_anomaly]

 Would you rather have a perfect semantic memory (the ability to recall any fact you've ever learned) or a perfect episodic memory (the ability to recall what you were doing at any past moment)? I realize your answer is likely to depend on implementation details, so feel free to make up some that make sense to you.

Comments

[sigmaleph]

(crossposting what i said on tumblr here because hey why not)

semantic!

like yeah my episodic memory is bad and that moderately annoys me but learning things feels a lot closer to being part of my Self

and it frustrates me a lot to put in the effort to learn something once and find it gone from my brain later because i didn't reinforce it enough or whatever

[s0ph1a]

semantic. My excellent episodic memory is just a funny parlor trick, but, i've forgotten so much stuff i learned and could be so much more Efficient if i hadn't!

[thirqual]

Semantic, for reasons similar to soph1a, although you could understand episodic to encompass semantic.

[paradigm_adrift]

Based on the other comments and some wishy-washy logic, I suspect that rationalists will be more likely to answer "semantic" because that is more useful and rationalists are more likely to believe that the world is on fire. More mainstream folks probably think of the world less as something to be saved or conquered or whatever, and more of something to enjoy or exploit, so they seem like they'd favor episodic memory to better remember happy moments with loved ones.

In the Glorious Transhumanist Future, I'd go with episodic memory because I care a lot about nostalgia and history and personal data hoarding. But as things are, anything that gives me even a small advantage towards making that future happen at all is way more important, so semantic it is.

[wingedcatgirl]

I feel like having perfect episodic memory would inherently mean improving semantic memory, because you'd be able to revisit your lessons at will.

And I'd like to be able to remember where I heard things, because "I know this but can't figure out how to cite it" is a recurring problem in my life.

[existentialterror]

Semantic. It'd make research so much easier. I've been imagining having perfect episodic memory and it sounds delightful - remembering all of my childhood, every detail of a good date, past conversations - but my work is, alas, probably more important.

Neither (without some forgetfullness)

[frobisherw]

I'll speak up in favor of forgetfullness -- more obviously in the case of episodic (do you really want EVERY bad experience to remain just as vivid as when it happened for the entire rest of your life?), but also for semantic. If you can't forget semantic memories, it's much harder to correct errors -- you will always remember the error just as clearly and distinctly as the correction.

Now, if the question was changed to: Would you rather have total conscious control over (the contents of) your semantic or episodic memory? ... That would also be hard to decide, but for different reasons, which I'll go into in a separate comment.

Re: Neither (without some forgetfullness)

[sonata_green]

That's a really interesting point. I was going to say that you can hack your way to both by taking episodic and then remembering the moment of learning the fact (e.g. if you read something in a book, you can remember what the page looked like and "reread"), or if you figure something out on your own then you could just say it out loud or write it down or something.

Anyway, I'm persuaded in favor of forgetfulness. If I have to pick one, I'd take semantic. If I get control, I'd take episodic.

[brin_bellway]

I'm going to assume I get the required secondary powers: particularly something like "resistance to intrusive thoughts", something that will keep painful memories from bubbling up except when I specifically request them. (And preferably to the extent that I request them: I would, for example, like to know about times when I was triggered without re-exposing myself to the hazardous input. At the very least, I should get a vague sense of dread when considering accessing particular timestamps that acts as an "are you sure you want to continue?" prompt.)

If so, episodic. Even though my ability to remember when things happened is pretty bad, giving me a relatively poor ability to hack episodic into providing semantic benefits, I'd still rather have it. I think I'm the opposite of sigmaleph: I like facts, facts are great, but it's forgetting experiences that really pains me deep in my soul.

(I think it was someone on Weird Sun Twitter who once said "death is problematic because it erases lived experiences, i.e. memories")

And for that matter, maybe I'd get better at keeping track of the timeline of events if I knew that was all I had to expend effort on memory-wise, that the rest would take care of itself. Not just the top priority but the only priority.

(or maybe: keep a written guide of which timestamps I'm likely to need for information-consulting, glance at it every night at midnight? but again, that's a bonus, I'd take episodic even without much loophole abuse)