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

[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)