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Comment by sammalloy | Hacker News Reader

About a decade or so ago, NPR produced and aired a segment on memory savants that was chilling in its implication. Apparently, there are a handful of notable savants who have an inability to forget. They remember everything that has ever happened to them, and in their own words, it's a heavy burden. Forgetting is not just necessary, it is essential.

> Lots of people know that marijuana makes us forget

I forget where I read about the original hypothesis behind this (Michael Pollan?), and I have no idea if it is still considered true, but it was once thought that the reason cannabis had evolved forgetful properties was because the plant needed to protect itself from being eaten with a chemical to make insects forget where the plant was located, so they couldn't go back to their hive and tell the others where to find it.

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Hah! That's a very interesting evolutionary theory. Personal experience, however, shows a mixture for me. While I was forgetful under the influence, I was also able to rediscover (if that's the correct description even) some older memories that I thought I had forgotten about. It seems to me that it also has the ability to piece back together memories that have been fragmented, in hard disk terms.

I think we are still not sure if they are old memories or being rendered live.

They may reencode on recall but there is a thread that is stored from an old memory. But sure, a memory degrades from the original on recall and replaced with bits of false memories.

I have an interesting anecdote on forgetting. My grandmother developed Alzheimer at around 83 and she'd ask me something then 2 minutes later she'd forgotten she asked me and ask me again. However, at some point she seemed to be deep thinking and at some point started humming a song and as she hummed more she started singing clearly a song from her kindergarten. It was even emotional to her, she had tears in her eyes but there was joy as well. Sadly she descended into complete memory loss that year and soon wasn't able to recognize anyone.

So even if we temporarily forget, some things are buried deep in there only to emerge at a later age.

Sorry to hear that.

Same happens to me. I was addicted to m. for about 10 years. It was addiction because I couldn't stop and I had no friends. It was in the beginning of the addiction that I discovered some unpleasant old memory of situation from my childhood that I repelled. That situation was so unpleasant that it changed the way I was treated by peers. It happened when I was 10 or 11. I remembered it when I was 20-22 smoking pot and doing occasional amphetamine. Here I am 40, 12 years after breaking my addiction and now I now that my memory is weak. I forgot a lot of things and it is hard for me to focus. The technology does not help, recently I learnt that keeping my brain constantly under dopamine flow (browsing the internet for cool things to read) degrades my ability to focus. Etc Etc. Life sometimes get you to the places you really want to go back and start again...

I’m obliged to share here “Funes, the memorious”, a short story by Borges that illustrates the implications of a perfect memory:

https://mhgaray.wordpress.com/2006/07/22/funes-the-memorious...

One of my favorites of his stories.

This hypothesis doesn’t hold up since THC is only effective when it’s heated up. You’d have to ingest a much bigger amount of raw material to achieve a high that makes you forgetful.

Perhaps insect metabolism differs (frankly I doubt they can metabolize it neurologically like we do)? Regardless, thrips and spider aphids certainly love to eat my weed plants.

Forgetting is an essential part in the evolution of an individual. We wouldn't be able evolve and transform without the ability to forget and 'overwrite' parts of ourselves.

> I forget where I read about the original hypothesis behind this (Michael Pollan?)

Perhaps in “The Botany of Desire”[1]. I might be misremembering, but I think I heard it (audiobook) there.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire

> I forget where I read about the original hypothesis behind this (Michael Pollan?), and I have no idea if it is still considered true, but it was once thought that the reason cannabis had evolved forgetful properties was because the plant needed to protect itself from being eaten with a chemical to make insects forget where the plant was located, so they couldn't go back to their hive and tell the others where to find it.

Pop science at its best!

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