November 19th 2023:The Mystery of Memory

Memory is indispensable for us to function in daily life, and central to our identity as persons. Yet how memory works remains a mystery. This talk will discuss how recent science illuminates how memory works, including making memories, recalling them, and distorting them, returning to why this is important to be mindful of in relationships with friends, family and colleagues, as well as with people we are just getting to know.
First Reading

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” 

― Virginia Woolf

Second Reading

“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.” 

― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Third Reading

Barbara Streisand's version of 'Memory' - Barbra Streisand - Memory (Official Video)