The discovery that changed how scientists think about memory

Discussion (10 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

bambax•about 1 hour ago

> Every memory begins with tiny changes inside the brain

Maybe. But the brain is not the only place where memory is stored. Flat worms remember things (and skills!) after their head has been cut off and they regrew it:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-decapita...

Earw0rm•about 1 hour ago

Flatworms branched off our side of the animal tree of life very early on. They're on the same side as molluscs, some of whom (cephalopods) are famous for having a more distributed nervous system.

Granted though many/most organs are stateful and somewhat adaptive - in a sense they'll "remember" what happened. Even plants possess that to varying degrees.

Roark66•1 minute ago

Did you know human overies contain neurons? I suppose memories are not stored there :-) but still the fact is rather surprising.

IsTom•41 minutes ago

At least spinal cord has a kind of memory related to movement, but that's something else than episodic memory obviously.

boston_clone•41 minutes ago

I think the evidence is strong, here. Quite difficult to form new memories without a brain!

Animats•about 2 hours ago

Great result on the biochemistry of memory storage. Then they venture into philosophy: "They still struggle to explain the spark that transforms information into insight."

Go watch Stable Diffusion iteratively transform noise into originality.

project2501a•about 1 hour ago

i'm sorry, I cannot agree that anything like that can create "originality".

taneq•about 1 hour ago

Creativity can be thought of as a combination of two things: A random idea generator, and a nonsense filter. Generate new random results ideas, filter out the nonsense ones, and you’ve generated good ideas.

boston_clone•43 minutes ago

A massive chasm exists between good, creative ideas and ideas that aren’t nonsense.

The discovery that changed how scientists think about memory

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Discussion (10 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews