Weekly Blog Post #5

Thursday, September 12th, 2013.

Attention, Interests and Memory

I was talking with friends earlier in the day. And some of them began talking about different movies. After a while, when I came home and thought about this conversation again, I realized that I did not remember many, if not any, of the movie titles they had been talking about. I had been present throughout the entire conversation, and I had listened and paid attention to everything they had said. But, for some reason, my mind did not deem it important to retain this portion of the conversation. This made me think about memory. I am able to retain many, many, many things, from important to irrelevant details. But it seemed that my mind memorized and remembered only the things that I wanted it to, or that it unconsciously classified as noteworthy or important. Our knowledge is always tinted by our interests. We wouldn't acknowledge ourselves in things that we do not like or think essential to remember. This also made me think about, again, how our knowledge cannot be free of bias. The things we say, the things we know, cannot be freed of our interests, as even the things our mind remember are selected.