Suppose one fine day Mnemosyne, a Greek goddess decided to do some housekeeping and accidentally wiped out all memories of all existing mortals on Earth in an instant. You may wish to discount certain species of jellyfish since they are biologically immortal but never mind that as they don't have memory. My question is after all animals have their past memories forgotten forever, all long and short term memories including faces, vocabularies, pronunciations, identity, everything since birth are gone, can human restore the world back to normal? How? Have I unknowingly create another apocalypse scenario if so please help me to amend my tag?
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2$\begingroup$ If you take away people's ability to communicate, it's game over for civilization. $\endgroup$– ErikCommented Jun 23, 2015 at 6:16
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$\begingroup$ @Erik actually not me its her and not just humanity but every animals from legless to millipede! $\endgroup$– user6760Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 6:40
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2$\begingroup$ It's more of a general comment. Any situation that involves people losing the ability to communicate is an apocalypse scenario, regardless of the cause. $\endgroup$– ErikCommented Jun 23, 2015 at 6:42
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$\begingroup$ @Erik i'm thinking if our base IQ is intact maybe... or maybe not since this becomes a chicken and egg problem words form thought or is it the other way around? anyway I guess we've crossed into an extremely treacherous territory of the border of conciousness and this isn't part of my question lucky me. $\endgroup$– user6760Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:35
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$\begingroup$ That would effectively eliminate all extelligence. That would reduce humans to non-communicating animals. Given their physical weaknesses as compared to other animals, that would mean reducing mankind to food. Byebye mankind! $\endgroup$– BurkiCommented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:03
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1 Answer
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First of all, I'm assuming we're speaking of a period of time around ancient Greece. With a mildly modern civilization complex infrastructures, such as nuclear power plants and dams, would begin collapsing due to lack of maintenance. You'd need to play around with your initial premise a lot to make it work.
And even with an ancient civilization, odds are against them. Every memory, short and long term? All civilizations collapse. Removing every moment since birth means humans don't know how to walk, what to eat and don't understand the concept of death. We humans have evolved to use our knowledge to the advantage: we don't have any sort of natural defence, but opposable thumbs. Remove knowledge and we just die. Bodies would pile up, which will bring all sorts of diseases. The most simplest and resilient species, such as cockroaches, would take over the earth more sooner than later, as the more complex ones collapse one after the other. So yes, I fear you've created an apocalyptic scenario.
But we're speaking of a mythical cataclysm, caused by a deity, so we can tweak it a bit. I think that humanity could have a chance if the memories are still there, just not accessible, and every action they perform can trigger a flashback.
For example, if someone is hungry and begins munching soil. At that moment he recalls his parents yelling at him when he was a child to not eat dirt. He can't understand what they're saying, but evokes the feeling of doing something wrong. Thus, he looks for something else. He then sees some fruits hanging from a tree. Recalls liking their flavour, so he tries to reach them. In order to reach them, tries dragging something under the tree. The object is too heavy, but recalls being able to drag even heavier objects with the aid of four legged creatures. Thus, he approaches one he sees nearby, which happens to be a tiger.
There would still be plenty silly deaths at first, but some would survive.
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$\begingroup$ In other words you are suggesting human brain is like a computer reformating it hard drive leaving the bios intact render it useless, I always thought we are more than this... $\endgroup$– user6760Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 12:24
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$\begingroup$ More or less. It has to do with evolution and gestation: we've evolved to be born as relatively fragile, with very developed brains, which leads to big heads, but few instincts. Compare a human baby with a deer calf: the first can barely do anything but eat, poop, smile and cry, while the latter will be running around in a matter of minutes. The more developed a specie's brain is, the more "stupid" its members are born. A human baby can't survive on its own without help, and in your scenario all the population would turn into bigger than average babies, and no one would be left to guide them. $\endgroup$– luis_pmbCommented Jun 23, 2015 at 13:24
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$\begingroup$ It's also because you've said they loose their ability to speak. That means their implicit memory has been damaged. Implicit memory governs how to speak, walk, use tools... You have to either leave implicit memory intact, revert to a less drastic age (four years?) or use some sort of magic trick. I can edit my answer with this information if you like. $\endgroup$– luis_pmbCommented Jun 23, 2015 at 13:34