The Memory of an Elephant

Ossorio: "Putting aside biological considerations, are there any Descriptive notions that can account for why some people remember events in their lives very clearly, while others remember poorly?"

Just think about that. How would you explain that? If somebody just asked you, "Why do some people remember things in their lives and other people can hardly remember any?" what kinds of answers could you possibly give?

Audience: It seems like two things. One is that it’s important enough for them to remember. And the other is that they were attending to them at the time.

Ossorio: Okay.

Audience: Or that some people have good memories and some people don’t.

Ossorio: There you go. This is one of the things that some people are better at than others. That’s where you start. You know that that’s true and you can bring that explanation to bear here.

But here again, it all depends. Some cases, once you say that, you’ve answered it. Other cases you say that and you’ve still got questions. And so, what else can you do? Well, things like "For this person the events were more important", is a possibility. There are various auxiliary explanations, so it all depends. But you can easily think of a range of possible explanations and say "It just depends on the particular case. What kinds of facts are at issue?"

Contents | Next
© 2000 Peter G. Ossorio