The discovery that changed how scientists think about memory
54 points
2 days ago
| 2 comments
| ibm.com
| HN
bambax
2 hours ago
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> 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...

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Earw0rm
2 hours ago
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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.

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Roark66
1 hour ago
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Did you know human overies contain neurons? I suppose memories are not stored there :-) but still the fact is rather surprising.
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j45
1 hour ago
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The heart has neurons in it too.
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IsTom
2 hours ago
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At least spinal cord has a kind of memory related to movement, but that's something else than episodic memory obviously.
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boston_clone
2 hours ago
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I think the evidence is strong, here. Quite difficult to form new memories without a brain!
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Animats
3 hours ago
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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.

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project2501a
2 hours ago
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i'm sorry, I cannot agree that anything like that can create "originality".
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coldtea
4 minutes ago
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As opposed to what? Water and tissue?
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taneq
2 hours ago
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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.
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boston_clone
2 hours ago
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A massive chasm exists between good, creative ideas and ideas that aren’t nonsense.
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coldtea
3 minutes ago
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Not that massive.

A lot of good, creative ideas have been called out and derived as nonsense or crazy. Many still are.

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CrimsonRain
1 hour ago
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That's why most people are not creative, and tbqh, rather dumb
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