Explain This #2: The Mandela Effect

[GrandizerII]

Here's the second "Explain This" challenge thread.

Basically, I ask a question or a set of questions in the OP, and you try to come up with your best answer to the question(s).

While each member is allowed just one attempt per thread, your answer can span more than one post. And you are free to edit your answer for as many times as you're allowed.

As part of the game, give a kudos to any post that you believe is a great answer to the question. You decide for yourself which posts deserve your kudos, but try not giving every single answer a kudos, unless they all happen to be great answers. Also, provide kudos based on the quality of the answer, not on the popularity or likability of the person who posted the answer. Even if the person is immensely intelligent, if their answer is not to your liking, do not kudos it.

A week or two from now, answers will be evaluated based on the number of kudos given to each post. The answer with the most kudos given will be declared the best answer. If the answer spans more than one post, kudos given by the same person more than once will only be counted once. In case of a tie, all the equally top answers will be declared best answers.

Not all attempts will be evaluated, however. I will use some judgement and discount any answer that is clearly not a serious answer or that is clearly not the member's work.

While the challenge is happening, please do not post comments or responses to other answers in this thread. If you wish to discuss some of the answers here, please do so in a separate thread. Call it "Peanut Gallery Thread for Explain This #2" or something.

The deadline for answers to this topic question is January 30, 23:59 UTC. There is no strict deadline for kudos. I will count all kudos I come across at the time of counting.

Now, for the topic question(s):

What is the Mandela Effect? Provide some examples related to this phenomenon. What do you think about the Mandela Effect? How would you explain why so many people purportedly [mis]remember Nelson Mandela as having died while still in prison back in the 80s? Pick one other example that is commonly used to support the Mandela Effect and address it.

Please attempt to address all these questions. Do as much research as you need to, but do not feel like you need to tire yourself with endless referencing. This is not academia, just a fun challenge.

So have fun.

[brewer]

False memories suggested or implanted (intentionally or not) by a media source.

[polymath257]

Memories are not static. Nor are they like playback of a recording. They are dynamic and partially reconstructed every time they are used.

Even short term memories are unreliable. It has been known for a long time that if 5 people see the same car accident, they will all make significantly different reports of what happened. this is due to things like and the brain 'filling in' unnoticed details.

Then, when we are asked about the accident again, we realize not all of our memories are clear and the brain confabulates: it literally makes stuff up to fill the gaps.Again, this is a known phenomenon.

Let's face it, how many times have you asked yourself is so-and-so is dead or not? I mean, surely Dick Van Dyke is dead, right? All you need for a memory of his death is someone falsely telling you he is dead (even if they are not sure of this). Voila! An alternate memory! You are now sure he is dead and will pass that information on to others.

So, in the long stretch that Mandela was in prison, it isn't surprising that *someone* guessed he was dead and passed that information on to others, giving them a false memory of his death. That doesn't get updated later when he leaves prison, except maybe that people are confused: 'I thought he was dead!'. Alternate memory!

Another example is the 52 states in the USA. When I was young, I was told there are 50 with the last 2 being Alaska and Hawaii. I can easily see how someone not paying attention (maybe because they are in Eur) would remember that as 50 states *plus* 2 additional ones, Alaska and Hawaii. Alternatively, Puerto Rico has been mentioned as a *possible* 51st state so many times, it isn't too surprising that some people think it actually happened. Repetition builds memories.

In other cases, an unusual construct (Berenstain bears instead of Berenstein bears) is likely to be misremembered because we seldom focus on the spelling, but instead on the sounds of words. We *assume* and never 'fix' the assumption. Alternate memory!

The point is that memory isn't all that reliable. It is a dynamic construct of the brain and changes over time. Many, many, many shave shown this, even to the point of placing false memories into subjects.

[Cyberman]

Glitches in the Matrix. Duh.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a term for collective unreliable memories or things thought to be collective unreliable memories.  A popular one is that Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, was black.  

He wasn't.  In this case it's based on a subtle pre-internet, pre "fake news media BIAS!" conflation, appearing in textbooks going back to the 80's.   Whitney was unlikely to have invented the apparatus himself..it's simply that those who would have understood the task well enough to tool it, by and large, were not able to hold patents, as they were slaves.  The historical acknowledgement that slave IP is likely to be the origin of the cottin gins apparatus, and the cotton gins proximity to the narrative of slavery further reenforces the misapprehension. 

We have good reason to be mistaken here, because it's what we were taught...sort of.

[Aegon]

Yeah, human memory actually kind of sucks ass. Things that we think we know FOR SURE can be wrong. Many innocent people have gone to prison because eyewitnesses were so sure about something they were misremembering.

[vulcanlogician]

While there is much psychological literature portraying memory as more constructive than we take it to be, belaboring this point does not explain the Mandela effect. The frailty and inaccuracy of human memory must be taken into account to properly understand the phenomenon, but this is only half of the equation.

The other half is bad logic... bad critical thinking. Let's examine a popular example of the Mandela effect: The Berenstain Bears. When one discovers that the spelling of the authors' name printed on books does not line up with the spelling that is remembered by himself and his friends, he finds himself looking for an explanation of why this is so. Here are two competing conclusions:

1. "Human memory is not a literal reproduction of the past, but instead relies on constructive processes that are sometimes prone to error and distortion." (quoted from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341652/). Therefore, in view of all the scientific data which have been gathered a plausible explanation would be that those who remember the "-stein" spelling of the Authors' name have misremembered.

or

2. Human memory is trustworthy. If there are incongruencies between human memories and the observable universe, the observable universe is wrong. In order to explain how the universe could be wrong, I have a theory about mass human traversal through different realities.

Occam's razor is a VERY handy tool. Using it, one can cut away one of these options with no effort whatsoever.

So what is the Mandela effect?

A lapse in logic.

[GrandizerII]

Challenge over. Best answer goes to polymath257, based on the number of kudos given. It was indeed a satisfying answer IMO. Well done, and thanks to all who participated.

[vulcanlogician]

You should bump the thread like 24 hours before the challenge is over. I was waiting to give my kudos until everyone posted-- it would've went to Polymath anyway, but jus' sayin'.

[GrandizerII]

You should bump the thread like 24 hours before the challenge is over. I was waiting to give my kudos until everyone posted-- it would've went to Polymath anyway, but jus' sayin'.

My bad. Next time then.