Jorge Luis Borges Funes, His Memory

Meno’s paradox states that is impossible to gain new knowledge using inquiry. In this essay I will explain Meno’s paradox, and then I will analyse ‘the theory of recollection’, the solution to it given by Plato.

Many individuals have theorized about the connection between self and society and some concluded that language is the link, which embodies our feelings, sensations, and impulses to experience our conduct in relationships to others. However, language alone does not necessarily provide a mutual understanding among the individuals without shared values and meanings. In “Hunger for Memory: Education of Richard Rodriguez”, Rodriquez argues that language takes two forms: private and public. What Richard labels as private is the language of the home, whereas public language is the discourse of public society. Growing up, Richard’s private language was not like the public language, which set Richard apart from his parents. Therefore, Richard explores his acculturated self-identity by analyzing his educational experiences of opposing bilingual education and being "labeled a minority student" through the lens of private and public languages.

Moreover, writing about memory which is the groundwork of the traditional autobiographical genre is a problematic endeavor, since it is a project of conflating memory, imagination, and sometimes a conscious misrepresentation of the past. Likewise, it is a way to inscribe the discursive selves that they envision as “true” representations of their selfhoods.

Jacob Bronowski’s 1966 speech, “The Reach of Imagination,” provides an early theory that humans are the only beings capable of imagination. This theory relies on the cognitive function of visual images; while it is suggestive, Bronowski does not give an in depth representation of the memory that explains how and why it works. However, Daniel Schacter provides an updated theory, closely related to Bronowski, of how the brain can form and retrieve memories. Schacter adds on to Bronowski’s theory and shows exactly how people remember and interpret things differently. Though Bronowski’s claim is aged, it is still supported by Daniel Schacter’s theory behind the human brain and how memories are retrieved in fragments.

Descartes’ argue that mind is better known than body by first claiming humans as fundamentally rational, meaning “a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling,” ( Descartes, 19) he therefore argues that humans have the ability to know their proper minds clearly and distinctly. He proposes the conception of the mind where the imagination and the senses are also inherent capabilities of the body (faculties), specifically powers of the mind.

The subject of Steven Pinker’s book on how the mind works is the human brain. Steven Pinker studies the work of the human mind that have previously been not intensively studied by scientists in this manner. He has explained some of these functions in terms, which can prove to be life-changing for humans. Pinker does so by drawing on the evolutionary psychology of John Tooby and Leda Cosmides who are the pioneers of the discipline and worked to explore it. In this regard, he studies the mind concerning the neo Darwinist / adaptationist and the computational theory of mind. In his book on the working of the mind, Pinker talks about human emotions, visions, the meaning of life and even feminism.

Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory The universal "growing pains" that all children experience in one form or another are easily recognized in Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical excerpt from Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez’s childhood was particularly unique given the fact that while he was born and raised in the United States, he was strongly influenced in

Jacob Bronowski’s speech, “The Reach of Imagination,” provides a theory that humans are the only beings capable of imagination and memory. This theory relies on the cognitive function of visual images; while it is suggestive, Bronowski does not give an in depth representation of the memory that explains how and why it works. Daniel Schacter provides an updated theory, closely related to Bronowski, of how the brain can form and retrieve memories. These memories are retrieved as fragments; Schacter adds on to Bronowski’s theory with a psychological factor and shows exactly how people remember and interpret things differently. Though Bronowski’s theory of imagination and memory is simplistic and aged, it is still supported by Daniel Schacter’s updated theory behind the human brain and how memories are retrieved in fragments.

By juxtaposing Hladik’s reality and the play he has constructed in his mind, Borges introduces the overarching idea of how the mind constitutes for a different realm in which the dreamers and thinkers can shape, share, and confide in.

Lewis Thomas, an American essayist, conveys the importance of preserving the mystery of one’s mind in his essay, “The Attic of the Brain.” According to Thomas, humans produce internal conflicts because they overanalyze their choices. Internal conflicts are not only caused by overanalyzing, but also from the feeling of guilt which “repeats the same transgressive behavior in the future.” Guilt is an emotional experience humans constantly face after they realize they disrupted their standards of conduct, until they rectify their mistakes. Even though the punitive feeling of guilt brings forth a feeling of worriedness, Thomas mentions that overanalyzing a choice to discard “unidentifiable articles” in the attic or to preserve memories overwhelms the human mind. He uses the analogy of the multitude of “unidentifiable articles” in the attic to compare to the flood of ideas in the human brain. The commodities stored in the cramped attic are “an old chair, [and] trunkful of old letters” which serve as a purpose of remembrance, as the human brain is filled with crucial information that enables people to think, feel, and store memories (75). However, he argues that people frequently clash with their thoughts, since they clutter their brain with excessive information. People do not have the ability to control their own brain; as a matter of fact, the human brain, the most complex part of the body, controls itself. From his analysis of the human brain, it can be concluded that humans have “unconscious minds” that automatically process different thoughts and memories resulting in a limitless supply of creativity. People “discover new things” by learning from previous ideas and applying their creativity to their practical use. Overall, humans cannot operate their brain, but should allow the extraordinary mind to be free.

Do you consider yourself to have a great memory or do you consider yourself to have a bad memory? Can you remember more than four phone numbers and more than three immediate family members birthdays without using any technology? If you cannot answer those simple questions than maybe you should reconsider on working on your memorization side of your brain. Joshua Foer, the author of The End of Remembering, and Paulo Freire, author of The “Banking” Concept of Education, both write about how important memory is in the world today. In Foer’s passage he states that before paper, books, and modern technology people were expected to remember any piece of information that was given to them. Now people rely on anything that could record information so they would not have to remember it or worry about forgetting. He believes that technology is running our memory. However in Freire’s passage he states that memorizing decontextualizes and is unrelated to present conditions, but memory can concrete conditions of our daily lives. The importance of memory and its functions in the world today is that it lets a person find self-identity, prevents shallow base of knowledge, and sets values.

The human mind is a malleable and dishonest contraption. Perceptions of past events can be easily damaged and changed into completely new memories, whether on purpose or by fault of recollection. Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” asks whether this flawed system of neurotransmitters could be used as an advantage for the human race by mapping and implementing false memories. This way, people of Earth can experience anything they put their mind to (pun intended) even if such an experience would be impossible for them for any reason. This futuristic premise, while first asking whether the mind is as malleable as this prediction suggests, also begs the question of what truly counts as an experience. If one completely believes a memory is true, has physical evidence, and believes the event is not only possible but has been achieved, the line between a false and true memory blurs into subjectivity.

This paper will take a look at Salvador Dali’s painting, The Persistence of Memory, painted in 1931. As the viewer can tell, this is a story of time and life. The memories start in the background where all is well and things are straight and calm. Moving on to the cliff, the observer possibly sees a well-behaved teenager. There is nothing horrible here that leads the spectator to gasp, and the viewer knows this person made it through that time in their life. Then the picture moves on to the age of about twenty, the memories are fond but in the distant past. The memories are protected by a white blanket so that they do not just fall into the background. Then something happened where the person had some

Memory is a powerful concept. Often when an individual undergoes a traumatic situation, the ramifications of these actions seep into an individualfs psyche unknowingly. In effect this passes through memory and becomes sub-consciously buried within a personfs behavioural patterns generally. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink explores the concept of a young mans subconscious desire for a woman whom he gcanft remember to forgeth (1Memento) as she is so deeply inlaid within his soul.

There are many facts that are unknown about the mind. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand how it works. We have learned that the mind has a number of different levels of processing. Before Sigmund Freud “nearly all the previous research and theorizing of psychologists had dealt with conscious, such as perception, memory, judgment, and learning“ (Hunt185). Freud brought forth a number of theories that dealt with “the unconscious and its crucial role in human behavior”(Hunt 185). The unconscious is a storage area for information that is not being used. It is also the home of “powerful primitive drives and forbidden wishes that constantly generated pressure on the conscious mind”(Hunt