Memories Make Us Who We Are | Breakthrough

Steve believes our identities are built
on memory
you think about memory it is the thing
that threatened unifies our overall
sense of being so without it we become
stuck in time right and we lose our
identity
but how reliable is memory even in a
well-functioning brain we used to think
that memories were really stable that
you form one memory and it’s not
ever-changing it’s just stabilized in
your brain and that memory forever is so
now we know that for all intents and
purposes when you recall a memory you’re
constantly updating it with new
information every time you may visit a
memory becomes vulnerable it can be
changed
say for instance two people on a date
end up at a bar things go well later the
woman recalls the scene but each time
she remembers it small details may
change over time the details add up the
same thing is happening to her day each
time he revisits the memory it subtly
alters
until eventually he and she have very
different memories of what the bar
looked like that night how they were
dressed or even how they behaved the
changes in memory can be especially
dramatic if one person’s feelings about
the other have changed a good memory
can turn bad