Questions tagged [memory]

For questions about the ability of an entity to retain information and later recall, process and/or act on that information, where the ability is either biological or technological in nature. May also refer to the specific biological or technological mechanism by which this is achieved.

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What would the 'why' and 'how' of a memory/emotion reading magic be? [closed]

The book I'm writing is set in a fantasy medieval world. In some aspects it's high fantasy (floating sky-islands and fantasy species) whilst in aspects such as magic casting, it is relatively low ...
BubbleQueen's user avatar
15 votes
14 answers
3k views

How can I penalize using accelerated time in Full Dive Virtual Reality?

Theoretically, if you engage in a so called Full Dive VR, you can — inside the simulation — experience things at an accelerated rate, meaning your subjective experience is many hours, while mere ...
Birth of Claritism's user avatar
7 votes
8 answers
1k views

How does a regenerator keep their memories?

Assuming that someone or something created a human with the ability to regenerate most organs, including their head and brain. What might be a way for this human to retain their memories even after ...
TheGoldenBoy2188 The Coolest G's user avatar
7 votes
9 answers
3k views

Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?

I am creating an alternate history world that leads to modern Earth having many different nations & cultures than it has in real life. One country is big on funding many extreme experiments to ...
Rhymehouse's user avatar
  • 3,563
-1 votes
1 answer
96 views

Inherited memories to rebuild a fallen civilisation

So, humans have achieved interstellar flight and colonised a distant planet. They have terraformed this world, and now they are beginning to build their first cities. However, a Neo-Luddite faction ...
user98816's user avatar
  • 8,573
2 votes
6 answers
3k views

Theoretically, how long could a brain "last" if the body it was in was biologically immortal?

I was watching a video on Black Holes and the speaker said that it would take a septenvigintillion years to completely evaporate. That's a 1 with 84 zeroes after it. Life extension technology will ...
Max's user avatar
  • 61
13 votes
2 answers
2k views

A person has composite memories from countless pasts - how would you detect this with modern medical equipment?

So in this scenario our character is just a regular man in his 30's. Multiverses exist, and our character exists in countless other universes, each variant of himself having different life experiences....
Dakacha's user avatar
  • 465
13 votes
8 answers
3k views

How could humans repeatedly lose their latest memories

My story requires a team of human explorers on a far-away planet to repeatedly lose their latest few months worth of memories through some natural phenomenon (or perhaps equipment malfunction) while ...
Scriddie's user avatar
  • 231
5 votes
2 answers
277 views

What would be different in the brain of a being that lives hundreds of years allowing it to have enough memory space?

So I’m trying to create a race of alien that lives for 600 years but I need them to have the memory space for all that time. The human brain can hold approximately 300 years worth of memory and that ...
Max's user avatar
  • 59
11 votes
3 answers
4k views

What is the likelihood of you remembering how to fight after your brain was pierced by a skull shattering projectile spear if it was regenerated?

The enemy boss just threw a spear at you, you tried animation cancelling to iframe and dodge the projectile spear but your finger slipped off the controller and now you've got a spear piercing your ...
user avatar
7 votes
5 answers
2k views

Why would a five dimensional creature need memories?

We human lives in a four dimensional universe: three spatial dimensions and one dimension for time. We feel the flow of time as experiential due to the fact that our brain saves past experiences into ...
user6760's user avatar
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-4 votes
1 answer
117 views

How to induce Mandela effect to the entire nation that machines are uprising?

Set in the 18th century C.E. somewhere in Europe with population of slightly more than 2 million, they are just starting to light up the streets using electricity and for the first time they gets to ...
user6760's user avatar
  • 47.8k
0 votes
1 answer
98 views

What would human society be like if we could clearly remember our time in the womb? [closed]

The Humans of planet Eros in my worldbuilding project have superior memory compared to real humans. This superior memory is advanced enough to allow Erosi Humans to naturally and clearly remember ...
JordanTheCynic's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
145 views

How could a character verify they aren't crazy after accidental time travel [closed]

A 40-year-old character from today (April 2020) with a good memory is unexpectedly transported back in time 30 years. One instant he is at work, the next he is back in grade school in his 10-year-old ...
kmort's user avatar
  • 131
51 votes
18 answers
10k views

How to Interrogate a Memory-Stealing Shapeshifter?

There are shapeshifters who can perfectly replicate a person, and eat their brains to absorb all their memories. These shapeshifters are cunning and predatory, and so humans form extremely close knit ...
user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
236 views

Why are people needed to create simulated experiences?

Let's say I have the ability to create a fully immersive VR experience a la The Matrix. The quality of this simulation is sufficient that a person "inside" cannot necessarily¹ tell the difference ...
Matthew's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
99 views

How to prevent a cursed artifact's guard from revealing its true nature? [closed]

I have cursed artifacts that can work together to kill people. It's logical for these cursed artifacts to have some kind of an anti-meme measure, so as to prevent their true nature from being revealed,...
Mephistopheles's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
118 views

Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories to the amnesiac person?

As the title says, Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories to the amnesiac person? This is based on this similar question; Is it possible ...
Li Jun's user avatar
  • 8,889
1 vote
2 answers
791 views

is there a scientific way to extract memory from a person brain into video?

Just as the title, is there a scientific or possible way to extract past memory from a person brain into some record such as video or visual player ? I know some theory say that it possible to ...
Li Jun's user avatar
  • 8,889
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

Read the Memories of a Dead Man's Head

Assuming you could "read" the memories of a once living person, how long after death could you read the memories stored in the human's head? How long does it take for the pathways (dendrite, axon, ...
Englishman Bob's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
514 views

How can you make someone forget that he has superpowers and lock his powers?

How can you make someone forget that he has superpowers and lock his powers? My question is inspired by the Sanskrit epic of ancient India, Ramayana. In the story of Ramayana, Hanuman is a well-...
V.Aggarwal's user avatar
  • 4,521
33 votes
7 answers
5k views

How could Nomadic scholars effectively memorize libraries worth of information

In my fantasy world there exists a nomadic people known as the Ròda. The Ròda believe in the collection of knowledge, lore, and more importantly spells. They practice their beliefs by travelling in ...
Celestial Dragon Emperor's user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
266 views

Logical explanation for why Brainbots would not retain their original identities memories

So, my setting is a post apocalyptic one, 197 years after WW3 kicked off and destroyed pretty much everything. The current date is 2259. Before WW3 started, the USA was experimenting heavily with ...
DT Cooper's user avatar
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10 votes
4 answers
2k views

Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories in someone else?

My question is based on the following excerpt from an article I read recently: Since the early neurological work of Karl Lashley and Wilder Penfield in the 1950s and 1960s, it has become clear that ...
Red Robin's user avatar
  • 630
6 votes
6 answers
320 views

Exploiting an ability to see into the past

A group of people from a particular family are born with an ability to see into the past. They would like to exploit this for money but there is no obvious way to do so. Details By closing their ...
chasly - supports Monica's user avatar
2 votes
8 answers
490 views

How to erase the cultural memory of post-apocalypse survivors

I'm writing a story that takes place after the decimation of almost all of humanity, and follows a group of survivors who, some time in the future, have formed new societies. Let's say the apocalyptic ...
JP90's user avatar
  • 115
37 votes
20 answers
8k views

How can changes in personality/values of a person who turned into a vampire be explained?

Vampires don't die from old age; They aren't born, and all vampires were humans at some point in their life. After being bitten, a human can turn into a vampire (although the chance is very low, ...
KarmaPeasant's user avatar
  • 1,958
0 votes
2 answers
367 views

What is the limit of an immortal being's memory? [closed]

-In my story, my main character comes across an immortal being, chained and isolated under a mountain for countless years; subsequently losing memories from her past over time, while still being ...
Nass King's user avatar
  • 1,051
10 votes
5 answers
2k views

Dragon shapeshifting and memory mechanism

Dragons are biologically immortal creatures that have evolved the most versatile sexual reproduction in existence, they can morph through a cocoon into any other species from the animal kingdom that ...
user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
457 views

How well would a society 35,000 years in the future remember today? [closed]

The story is set 35,000 years after the year 2024. In 2024, Donald Trump makes fun of Kim Jong Un's stupid hair, and long story short, the Earth gets nuked to the point where everything is covered in ...
The Weasel Sagas's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
108 views

Is there medication that has no effect while taking it, but causes amnesia after?

So I'm writing a novel, and I was wondering if there was a medication or some medical something where someone takes this medication, and after it wears off, they remember nothing of what they or ...
user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
305 views

Single medical condition that causes hallucinations and bursts of short term memory loss

X sees hallucinations of a person A who he does not recognize, the hallucinations are constant (A follows X around all day) Simultaneously, X has bursts of memory loss, where he cannot remember up to ...
Rumble down's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
1k views

How to prove amnesia

So basically, a guy (criminal, fraud, con artist and generally very untrustworhy person) is involved in an accident and suffers total memory loss. He remembers absolutely nothing about his previous ...
J. Joscak's user avatar
  • 329
1 vote
6 answers
572 views

How much time will it take the humanity to forget how to repair machinery after a nuclear apocalypse?

I am building a world where a nuclear apocalypse happened, forcing humanity to hide in bunkers or avoid the radioactive fallout. Because of this, humanity forgot how to build things: they could ...
BarbarianSSJ's user avatar
12 votes
12 answers
3k views

Technology that steals memories

There is a device in my story that »steals« memories from a person (I had some sort of transmitter in mind, but this can easily be modified, as long as it uses powerful long-range signals to achieve ...
JanT's user avatar
  • 299
1 vote
3 answers
241 views

What would be a viable explanation for "destroyable knowledge"?

In the game Warframe, we have blueprints which are "consumed" during the process of making a weapon / Warframe. In some Chinese fantasy Kung Fu movies, a person caught illegally learning martial arts,...
user avatar
6 votes
6 answers
1k views

How to explain truly emotional ghosts?

No, not like that!!! The Oxford Dictionary defines: Ghost as "an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image". Basically ...
EveryBitHelps's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
375 views

How much computer memory is needed to store a physical profile of all living people?

My story needs a computer program that has complete physical profiles for all 7 billion of us. By complete, I mean all basic vital signs/functions in real time. (I'm hand-waving how we'd monitor those ...
user32337's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
262 views

Do children have to pay for their parents’ crimes? [closed]

Question: Do children have to pay for their parents’ crimes? This is a follow up question to my previous question (Who owns genes?), but with some added stuff. In this world, they also have memory ...
shieldgenerator7's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
1k views

How long is the subjective experience of eternity? [closed]

I watched a movie that was inspired by the classic myth of Sisyphus. It’s a well-worn story element to have a character be cursed to repeat a task or relatively brief passage of events for eternity. ...
JDługosz's user avatar
  • 69.4k
8 votes
2 answers
480 views

How would childhood be affected by the fact that babies are born with the knowledge of an average adult?

My question is simple: In a world where babies are born with the knowledge of an average adult, what would happen to the childhood of the child? For example, how would this affect the learning of ...
user31515's user avatar
19 votes
6 answers
3k views

A World Where Everyone Forgets About You [closed]

I want to develop the lore of my world for a project. The main idea is: The protagonist has something (can be a curse, whatever, it will be decided later) that makes everyone forget about him when he ...
Myrium's user avatar
  • 309
12 votes
2 answers
1k views

How long would it take for someone to forget the most important things in their life? [closed]

Professor Y is trapped in a virtual reality. The VR is running on accelerated time to the point where he can live out millions of lifetimes in a real-life day, basically giving him immortality within ...
Sir Teatei Moonlight's user avatar
5 votes
6 answers
722 views

Can "photographic memory" evolve?

According to multiple reputable sources, the idea of "photographic memory" in humans is a myth. While some people may be unusually adept at certain things involving memory - like remembering the ...
Zxyrra's user avatar
  • 20.6k
1 vote
5 answers
546 views

A magic item capable of granting wishes and prone to being lost. What is the best way to go about reclaiming it once it slipped out of your hands? [closed]

The item grants wishes when a person holds it and says a phrase "I wish..." followed by their desire. The item also hates lack of variety and will actively bend odds of things happening so that it is ...
Sanuuu's user avatar
  • 147
7 votes
2 answers
498 views

Is our memory capable of repeating exactly a full day of memorized actions?

Major William die in a combat versus aliens. Now he have the capacity to wake up on the same point of time every time he dies. (Movie: Edge of tomorrow) He uses this power to win the war, but he has ...
Malkev's user avatar
  • 2,683
3 votes
2 answers
226 views

Could a species of humanoid creatures that can only remember what happened in the last day build an advanced civilization?

In my world, this species can only remember what has happened in the last 24 hours (let's assume that the 24 hour period goes from 12:00 AM to 12:00 PM.) For example, if one member of the species ...
fi12's user avatar
  • 5,046