Eternal Sunshine...here we come...

"WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) -- It sounds like science fiction, by scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely.


Now that my friends, is scary stuff.

Yeah, that is pretty freaky.

Its like Men In Black or the opposite of Total Recall...

Many cases of electroshock (patients or torture victims) have memory issues resulting from the 'therapy'. That's like getting hit with a club to the head. This is like the scalpel. Can you imagine the social ramifications? I don't even want to think about what the mob, crooked politicians, anyone with power for that matter with this type of power. To literally erase a memory.

zoebisch01 said:

Many cases of electroshock (patients or torture victims) have memory issues resulting from the 'therapy'. That's like getting hit with a club to the head. This is like the scalpel. Can you imagine the social ramifications? I don't even want to think about what the mob, crooked politicians, anyone with power for that matter with this type of power. To literally erase a memory.

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I agree, but the yin to the yang in this case would be erasing the memory of abused/traumatized children or even adults. There are plenty of people who would live "better" lives by not being able to remember certain negative experiences. Its just like teh intraweb, potentially great and potentially horrible...

True, but I'd prefer that we had a better society to begin with

zoebisch01 said:

True, but I'd prefer that we had a better society to begin with

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That'd definitely be nice, but think about how many pedophiles/child abusers are just perpetuating what happened to them. If less people remember being abused, maybe there will be less abusers in the world. Personally, I was in a bad car accident when I was younger and would love to forget about it. I don't know how it would change my life now, but I would expect it'd be for the better...

I NEED my unpleasant memories. I learned from them! I sure as hell don't want to wake up with a woman 30 years older than myself AGAIN!

eh, that could be pleasant... well... maybee

Laughing_Gnome said:

I NEED my unpleasant memories. I learned from them! I sure as hell don't want to wake up with a woman 30 years older than myself AGAIN!

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I guess it would depend on how old you were, if I woke up with a woman 30 years older than me, she would probably be...........a..........ur...........dead !!

Laughing_Gnome said:

I NEED my unpleasant memories. I learned from them!

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Gotta agree with this one. Once the pain of the initial exposure is over, the rest is what builds your character. It's what defines a person and motivates their behavior. I wouldn't erase any of my drunken escapades or youthful indiscretions. Every year I become a little less of an ******* because of those 'morning after' memories.

"I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" - James T. Kirk.




TL

TexLaw said:

"I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" - James T. Kirk.




TL

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Hehe.

You know I agree that we are the sum total of all our experiences both good and bad. It's not what life deals you but the choices you make. In the case where someone is essentially an emotional cripple I can see this being helpful with great caution. The technology itself scares the crap out of me. The film title I presented, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was eerie as all get-out when I watched it. I could easily see this technology being prescribed like the loosely prescribed meds these days.

That's really neat, although mouse memory is much simpler than human memory. Those furry little bastards don't have language, so they rely on implicit associative learning much more than we do. It's impressive as hell that these scientists can knock that out in mice, but a human memory is so much more complex, and so much more interlinked to other explicit and conscious experiences that we've had that I can't see how on earth you could possibly remove a single memory from a human mind. Or rather, I don't see how you could do it without also f**king up lots of other stuff. If you were in a traumatic car accident and your memory of it was removed, would you also have to remove the memory of spending two weeks in hospital? And if so, how would you account for the big and freaky two-week period of amnesia, or the serious injuries you were recovering from? And how would you explain how you met the cool other people in the rehab center, or why you no longer have a car? And as other people have said, if you happened to be a crap driver, it's surely in your best interest to remember that so you do something about it. Like not drive.

Really cool story though.

It's only a matter of time Danek (as to the progress). People can control mouse pointer movements with their brain implants, and the initial work on thought reading has been done. That was probably 5 to 10 years ago.