Should we all have a spotless mind?
While we often rue our difficulty remembering things, the ability to let memories fade is a feature of our brains, not a bug. Memories of emotionally traumatic events can be debilitating. So it's of great interest to researchers how our brains actually go about forgetting the nasty details of difficult memories.
Two recent papers suggest that effective therapeutic memory suppression may very well be possible. In the first paper, researchers at McGill demonstrated that giving the beta blocker propranolol to people after they recall a years-old traumatic memory can help those people moderate their response to that memory. (There was already evidence that propranolol can work this way, but it was for memories of events that had occurred within hours, not years.) And in the other paper, researchers at Colorado used an fMRI scanner to identify regions of the brain that seem to be actively involved in suppressing memories (some of the scans are above). Their research suggests that, with practice, people can actually learn how to forget traumatic events. The suppression process may even be open to pharmaceutical manipulation.
There's still a lot of research on this topic ahead, but this is definitely good news. Millions of people suffer from traumatic memories and better therapies could literally be a life saver.
That all acknowledged, let's look at this research a little differently (because isn't that what we do here?). If our ability to suppress memories advances enough, it could become awfully tempting to start treating memories that are not exactly what we'd consider traumatic. They might just be uncomfortable. If convenient forgetfulness came in a pill, would that be a good thing? (Even if it's not "technically brain damage.") Or to put the question a little bit differently, are there some things we shouldn't be allowed to forget?
-Greg Dahlmann
fMRI image courtesy of Science
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It is a fascinating question Greg.
Of course as with many of these "human enhancement" style questions there are contemporary analogues, such as suppressing or simply forgetting the bad memory. And we shouldn't forget that self editing of memories seems to be rather common even now. However there does seem something awfully inauthentic about a society where this is common place. There are shades of Nozick's experience machine here.
My broad attitude is reasonably permissive, I doubt I would be keen on these being available over the counter, but I am happy enough with them being available. I'm reasonably confident that there is enough diversity of opinions and values in society that most people will not opt to take the blue pill.
Personally I don't think I would aim to increase my forgetfulness... I have enough difficulty with it as it is.
- by David Hunter on Jul 14, 2007 at 1:05 PM | link