Skip to main content

The Gift of Forgetting

There are many attributes of human behaviour that are considered "deformed". One of them is poor memory retention. But as this story cited in by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger (in Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age) illustrates the ability to forget things is a gift from God. 
Researchers have recently published the case of AJ, a 41-year-old woman in California, who does not have the biological gift of forgetting. Since she was 11, she remembers practically every day—not in the sense of a day that passed, but in astonishing, agonizing detail. She remembers what exactly she had for breakfast three decades ago; she recalls who called her and when, and what happened in each episode of the television shows she watched—in the 1980s. She does not have to think hard. Remembering is easy for her—her memory is “uncontrollable, and automatic” like a movie “that never stops.” Instead of bestowing AJ with a superb facility, her memory repeatedly restricts her ability to decide, and to move on. It seems that those that have the capacity to store and recall unusual amounts of what they experience, feel and think, would like to be able to turn off their capacity to remember—at least temporarily. They feel shackled by their constantly present past, so much so that it constrains their daily lives, limits their decision-making ability, as well as their capacity to forge close ties with those who remember less..
In a world where there's no forgetting, human relations would be fractured. Life would be boring. Many experiences would not be exciting. The list of disadvantages is endless. Of course this does raise the question - is forgetting a product of the fall of man or was it there from the beginning? If, as I suspect that forgetfulness is part of the original pre-fallen state of man, there's no reason to assume there's anything deformed about forgetting. It is not a form of imperfection of man per se. But all of this is mere logical conjecture. But I mention it because of other related questions natural creep in mind - can and does God will himself to forget? And, if so, how is that consistent with his divine omniscience? Crucially, what is really divine omniscience and how does that relate to the nature of reality? Questions all worth pondering and some we shall return to in due course, if I don't forget! 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years.  After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother.  The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woman (Hilary

What is the best preparation for preaching?

The best preparation is not to be too anxious about it. Anxious care hinders liveliness and efficacy. It leads to too little dependence on the Spirit. Be not didactic. Aim at the conscience as soldiers aim at the faces. Consider I may be preaching my last sermon. This leads to setting forth Christ as The Way, the Truth and the Life . .. Make Christ the prominent figure…Pay less attention to dear self. JOHN NEWTON

White Fragility, A Review

Robin DiAngelo has a sermon to preach. It is in form of a short popular book called White Fragilit y. Straight off the bat she tells us not to expect balanced analysis but a forceful argument “unapologetically rooted in identity politics”.  She understands identity politics as “the [political] focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality”. The group she wants to save is black people, whom she blankets under “people of colour”.  So what is White Fragility about?  DiAngelo is sick and tired of white racism in the western world, and specifically the USA. She believes every white person, including babies, are guilty of racism by virtue of being white. So she wants to use her “insider status” as a white American woman to challenge this white racism by getting her fellow “white progressives” to force forward her thesis. In her words, “I am white...and I am mainly writing to a white audience”. I was immediately tempted to put down the book because being black Afri