dec 5th blog post

On finishing Bourtchouladze's book i thought about the research on CREB and the idea of pharmaceutical applications for the information she and others have discovered. To me, her final notes sounded rather pessimistic for what would happen in the near future as a greater understanding of genes and memory is cultivated. In a certain degree, it made me think over the semester and everything i had learned about memory and how people treat and value memory. From what people describe as the horror of Alzheimers disease and the pain of amnesia it seems probable that any drug that could boost memory would be coveted by normal/healthy people to the same extent if not more that by sick/amnesiac people. Bourtchouladze herself made an interesting comment that points to this on p162 "They can learn, and they can even keep in mind the learnt task for an hour or so. but check on their memory five or six hours later, or the next day, and you will be surprised by their stupidity - they have no clue about the task whatsoever." In her own words she describes the difficulty of remembering and the creatures ignorance, as "stupidity". For someone who has spent so much time researching memory to have this kind of outlook tells me that regular people would jump on any memory drug. In fact, things like ginkgo biloba and ginseng have a regular market in America today for the reason that they were supposed to help concentration and memory. I even remember my mother talking to me about it when it first became popular, the twinkle in her eye when she was looking for it in small asian stores and wanted to pick up a years supply. It seems to me memory is a controversial issue because so many people want more of it, whether they have a generally good memory, or an obviously bad one. It also seems like it does not matter what type of job they work either, so that a scientist and a painter are both likely to desire greater memories. It seems that part of what makes memory so seductive is that it is understood as being synonymous with knowledge or wisdom. So having a better memory is good for remembering lists but also for not making the same mistake twice, or not forgetting a spouses birthday etc. This seems flawed given what i have learned in the class. How i understand it, the ability to remember does increase someones ability to associate. So if a someone with an exceptional memory cannot recognize the same dog from different angles, then their uncanny memory is not likely going to give them the wisdom to see patterns self destructive patterns of behavior in themselves or a connection between the kind of people they are attracted to and spousal abuse. This could easily extend to something like chess, because even if you can remember every single move you and your opponent have made, does not mean that you can predict what their next move will be. It is simply not enough to have remembered the details, things need to be analyzed, scrutinize and deducted. It seems to me that if memory enhancing drugs are produced any time soon the mad dash of healthy people to buy them legally or illegally is inevitable, and unfortunately ignorant.