Memories

And I’m not talking about CATS!  But do try to remember 4728193. 

I can still remember things from my deep past, not just significant things in my career and life, but trivial matters such as my first day arriving at a public school kindergarten, housed in a plain building in Philadelphia.  Seeing the 8th graders graduate several years later, and making a big deal about getting that far in school.  Getting in a fight in the schoolyard with a new kid, who had been thrown out of two other schools. 

Yes, there were some significant professional memories:  Being fired from a big law firm and being “asked” to leave another.  Being told by a prospective client in my solo practice that she was pregnant and had never had sex.  Having a client thrown in jail for following my instructions to plead the Fifth Amendment snd arguing cases before the US and Missouri Supreme Court as well as beating the FBI and US Attorney which falsely accused a client of a bank robbery.

And personal ones like seeing two of my raft mates fall out of a raft going through a rapid in the Grand Canyon.  Waiting in line at the junior high school cafeteria.  My mom taking us boys shopping for clothes.  My parents taking us downtown by subway to see the Mummers Parade. 

I’m not surprised that I remember the significant events because they were more intense.  But I don’t understand why 40-60 years later, I can remember more mundane things.  I say that especially because like most of you, I forget where I put the remote on a daily basis and leave my phone somewhere at least once a week.  

When I forget a password and get the code to reset it, I often can’t remember the 7-digit code long enough to reset, just like most of you now can’t remember the 7 digits I wrote at the beginning of this post! 

I’ve done some research and learned the brain apparently works in mysterious ways.  We have a long-term memory, which stores things from way back, good and bad. 

We also have a working memory, which apparently stores the software (my term) for our information processing. 

Then we have the short-term memory.  One reason why it’s hard to remember dreams is that "dream data" go into short-term memory and aren't always processed by the working memory. 

I don’t believe in life after death or an all-powerful creator, although I'm open to suggestions as to how life started, and realize it may be impossible to know what existed before The Big Bang.  But I wonder if one day scientists will be able to perfect the Brain Cap (described in Arthur C. Clark's 3001: The Final Odyssey) to download a person’s stored long-term memory and working memory so that perhaps a person's consciousness could be preserved in a still-to-be-developed quantum computer. 

Such a computer, equipped with the experiences and information of a physicist and humanist like Richard Feynman, would allow his genius to exist long after death.

Even without a Brain Cap I’m amazed about the things that pop into my head after 10, 20 or even 60 years and will continue writing about them!