Religions And Their Source/2. Revelations And Conversions/1. Memory Linking
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Memories[1] are synaptically linked to other memories, and these links can be made in several ways.
Transient links are made all the time. For instance, when preparing to take a holiday we typically think about where we are going, what the weather might be like, what clothes we should take, what money or documents we might need, etc. Our thoughts, in this example, might seem to be occurring more or less at random, jumping from weather to clothes to money, but they are not at all disconnected. If we really wanted, we could find the exact memory item that triggered the mental jump from weather to clothes, from clothes to money, and so on. There is always a path followed by our thoughts from one memory to the next; it creates what is often called a train of thought.
Sometimes, we make memory links in play. We build connections between memories in our thoughts and so make associations between events that may never have actually taken place. We do this, for example, when we daydream, or when we plan how we would spend the millions we might win in a lottery. Once chains of thought have been built in this way, they are often revisited.[2] Replaying any chain of thought strengthens it, which makes future recalls easier.[3]
A more definitive linkage, discussed in Chapter Two, occurs when we problem solve. Permanent links between previously unlinked memories are likely to form whenever significant relationships are found.
Memory chains can be short or lengthy. Many older folk, for example, can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first learned of President Kennedy’s assassination. This is likely to be a short sequence, robustly formed in association with strong emotions, but not often part of a longer sequence. On the other hand, a journey once taken, or detailed plans to build an elaborate addition to the house, for instance, might be stored as very lengthy chains of linked memories.
We all possess many useful, short and long, memory chains, assembled during daily living or taught to us by others. They form actual mental structures, just like the ones we have been calling the neural networks that store discrete memories, but longer and more complex. Whenever activated, they give rise to thoughts and actions that usually play out in succession.[4] As more-or-less permanent memory structures, they minimize the amount of thinking to be done (and therefore the amount of energy expended) when there is little novel to be considered in the triggering situation. Memory chains are important enough to deserve their own name: I term them constructs.
