(April 24, 2015 at 6:42 am)robvalue Wrote: Yes, I think I've heard that idea before. That's very interesting.
What the brain doesn't seem to do is record how much the memory changes or give you any kind of accurate confidence value. You're left to estimate it based on how long ago the original memory occurred, I suppose.
This is sort of related:
I find it fascinating how I can "see" images and "hear" sounds in my brain, purely from memory while I'm still seeing and hearing things actually happening around me. It's like I have an internal mini TV and stereo system. Trying to figure out "where" these images and sounds are is boggling. I suppose what you say does make sense of it though! If it is actually replaying the memory and feeding the result right back into your brain, you are sort of experiencing it. But the distinct nature of the input coming through your senses compared to the internal playback is really weird. I struggle to find language to adequately describe it. I can only describe it as some sort of "dual screen".
Are the images you pseudo-see and sounds you pseudo-hear as vivid as what you really see and hear? Some people can imagine things that vividly, but for me that 'pseudo-sensing' is very subtle. It's still high fidelity - I can replay a scene from TV and pseudo-hear everyone's accents and stuff - but it just doesn't 'shout out' like real hearing. I always thought I was doing self-hynosis etc wrong because I couldn't imagine such vivid impressions in my mind, but now I've accepted that it doesn't need to be vivid in that way because it is high fidelity even though it's 'quiet'. That said, sometimes when I'm coming out of a train of thought, I see colours fade for a second, so that makes me think that if you get deep enough lost in thought you will experience vivid qualia, but you can never catch yourself at it when you're in the objective state of mind. It's very annoying
