I am in the middle of reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and it has so many ideas in it that I seem to be writing them all down. At the same time I am going over the very last revision of my novel and it got me thinking about memory and how we as humans think about thinking.
A great example is the mere exposure effect and the illusions of our memories. What clicked with me again while reading this is how our memories can be manipulated without us even being aware of it. Here are two passages from All That Keeps Us that touch on this idea.
ABIGAIL:
Maybe that’s why I kept going. Maybe not. In all likelihood she had never even said anything about a dog. That’s just what I thought she’d of said if I hadnt already stopped listening. Or maybe she said worse. Memory is the most corruptible thing in our nature. The most volatile and the easiest to violate.
CLOVIS:
The past will always be elusive. Even in photographs what we know of the past will be distorted. The events that happen before or after a photograph is taken are never recorded. The smell of perfume or the feel of the sun on the skin. Such things defy capture and so the world and its manifestations remain uncapturable for mankind.
If you are interested in Thinking Fast and Slow a quick place to preview the ideas can be found here at Derek Sivers site.
The book is absolutely worth a read to better understand how our minds work. And how they dont.