Episode 37 - Down Memory Lane

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd

today we're taking a trip down memory

lane

i have absolutely no idea what this is

all about this

is this is not a trick this is not one

of these deals where it's a

stump the shepherd right out of the gate

but i've been told we're gonna take a

trip down memory lane

so let's let's go down memory lane

originally i was going to call this

podcast

chemical memory but after a little bit

of research

i kind of figured that that was very

precise in terms of what we really

wanted to cover and we wanted to cover

memory as a whole oh okay so the wh

oh okay all right so we're talking about

memories memory okay no not memories

just memory the function of

memory please press between the pages

yeah and and we're we're definitely not

talking about

the musical cats where they have that

memory song oh that's a lion page

no i sang that song yeah but i do

not want to talk about cats you know

that gets me all bent out of shape

and then i get all angry and i start

throwing things and everything so let's

please not talk about cats we are going

to uh on one podcast

talk about cats so maybe that's going to

be one of those periods

that we yeah you're going to have to do

that by yourself i i can't talk about

cats

you know how upset it's cats cats and

canadians

that's that's what gets me bent out of

shape yeah i'm gonna do a zoom call with

squibbles the cat from michigan

oh let's not do that yeah let's not do

that so

on on the topic of memory it's

one of those topics where there's a lot

of gray areas because

it doesn't matter how many websites you

click on

from reputable sources as such

there is a lot of variation in the

approach to

i guess once you get outside of the

basic

um agreed upon principles of what

memory is and how it happens that

it go flies off into a lot of different

directions where

people can't agree upon it because it's

you know like with anything with the

brain and the way it works

you know once it goes into different

branches you know with biology and

psychology etc you get it crosses so

many different disciplines that people

can't necessarily agree

almost like our podcasts where we go

down

different rabbit holes all the time even

though we try

not to do that but we fail horribly with

it well i mean this was actually one of

the one of the first podcasts we've done

where after doing some research i feel i

actually

understand less about it than before i

did it but that was partly because of

ignorance but also some of the stuff i

got

thrown in front of me because okay got

so many different views on it

where it just wasn't agreeing stuff i

thought was kind of true before i'm now

kind of questioning whether it is true

and whether i just

took it from the wrong source originally

probably right yeah you probably did

yeah

so let's be honest you probably i

probably did yeah

i've got to get out of this you know

just read the first 10 results on google

and just take that

are you down to 10 now it used to be

like five or six

because you didn't want to scroll down

now are you scrolling down

are are you actually kind of

getting out there and saying i'm gonna

go ahead and roll that scroll wheel down

on my mouse and see what's

down past what's on my screen

no i actually set my text to smaller so

now i can see all the in

the headings better and so now i just

click on the one which sounds well looks

most interesting

okay well that makes more logical sense

so anyway i wanted to give a basic

background of what memory is and

it's and it's actually not that

complicated in terms of

what's agreed upon like i said it's just

once we get outside of that

what's agreed upon that

you know it goes into areas which does

it matter really if we do know or don't

know about that there seem to be certain

things

regarding memory where okay i have an

understanding of what constitutes memory

but once you start

kind of branching out is it important to

know those things to have a conversation

possibly not right and of course we're

not talking about the kids game where

you have the little pictures

on the cards and you lay them out on the

carpet and you try to match

you know a turtle for a turtle or a star

for a star we're not

talking about that game we might be at

some point okay

so anyway basically um you know to

create a memory the first step

is encoding okay and that begins with

a perception because not everybody

remembers the same event or situation

the same

it isn't that where the whole eyewitness

account comes from

where they talk about uh you know the

cops or whatever and they have

eyewitness accounts and they always say

you know you can have

multiple eyewitness accounts and they

see the

the same event but they describe them

differently well that comes from that

saying you know perception is reality

it's not it's your reality

and even that can change right once you

start remembering extra facts or you

take away

bias and stuff your memory can almost be

reprogrammed that

you know whatever confirmation bias you

had at the time

might have affected you the recall of

that memory

and so and so like i said encoding is

that first step in creating a memory

so and that you know starts with that

perception so maybe a good example if

you're thinking about it let's think

uh if you say you're falling in love for

the first time right

okay and i don't i mean with you know

please stop looking at me that way

like a lady let's not do this well i

thought we were gonna start talking

about potato chips or pizza with a lady

if you're falling in love with a lady

all right all right fair enough right um

your visual system first kind of

registers things you like like physical

features all right like

eye color hair and stuff and that's the

thing and that's something you can

experience at a distance

right so maybe 30 feet or if your

eyesight's really good you know 50 feet

across the room you could room you can

see somebody who actually looks

attractive to you makes sense right yeah

um and actually i'm going to go off on a

little bit of tangent here there's

something in england called the afghan

hand principle right you know what

afghan hound is no it's the british

yeah yeah that's what it is yeah um i

don't want to get any more trouble with

afghanistan than we're already in at the

moment to be honest

yeah but the afghan hound um it's like a

greyhound with a big

kind of lady gaga wig on it right

and the afghan hound principle

is that if you're in a car with your

friends

and you're following another car and you

see what looks like a

beautiful blonde in the back seat

and you just see these flowing locks of

blonde hair

as time passes you actually begin to

convince yourself oh my goodness

i bet she's really pretty and you know

she's got a great figure and this and

this

and there comes to a point where you

pull up next to that car and you look in

the back seat and it turns out to be an

afghan hound

so your perception base and you know

combined with your

um confirmation bias has actually

led you to believe something or convince

you of something which was never a

reality in the first place and so that

perception

is something which can become very very

muddied

and it's different to every single

person experiencing a certain situation

which is why that encoding is very very

important

the big question is in the car that

you're in

are you in an uber and the afghan hound

is driving the car

no it's not a tesla the one car in front

of you

okay i just want to make sure although

the afghan hound can afford a tesla

maybe

she's probably maybe she's worth dating

anyway i don't know

ah yeah yeah very well man yeah yeah

we're not um

we're not anti-species daily no this

podcast oh absolutely

yeah we we don't want to get that

hashtag chemical culture

yeah yeah yeah last thing we want the

shepherd won't fall in love with a dog

so we're cancelling him no

not at all so um cats are evil though

cats are evil

yeah we're gonna we will go on record of

saying that yeah in canadians

so um like i said you know when your

visual system registers those

things like the physical features those

can change

with more exposure you know and

environments so say if somebody looks

attractive from 30 yards away when they

get closer they might look less

attractive because

you notice more certain features like

their skin might be really terrible or

their hair looks

right terrible or whatever so but again

that's that initial

you know perception through your eyes

now when the other senses come into play

say like again we're using the whole

fall in love scenario

um you know your auditory system picks

up maybe the way they talk or laugh

sure and that can you know add to it and

you can give

some kind of padding or a free pass to

certain other senses

if say something like the you know

perception overrules it so say what

looks like a really hot girl

you can let go if she's got an annoying

laugh for a while

but not the other way around somebody

with a pretty laugh but you're not

attracted to her physically the laughs

not necessarily

going to change your mind that oh that's

a really pretty person just because they

have a nice laugh or a nice sounding

voice sure it

and it kind of goes back to trying to

sell a car

i always heard the term of a 30-foot car

right

you look at a car today in a picture on

the internet

and you say that's a good looking car it

doesn't look bad paint looks good

whatever and 30 foot away that car

looks good but then the closer you get

you pop the hood you realize

hey there there's some problems with

this car

when you take that deeper dive you

realize

there's some problems with what i'm

trying to buy

yeah yeah and those like i said those

extra sensory

perceptions can uh bring in a completely

different

you know additional subtraction to your

initial perceptions

and so you know even something like

again coming into the fallen in love

thing you know maybe the smell of that

person or if you know you

uh shook their hand whatever you might

remember

or encodes you know things such as the

shake of the hand you know the touch of

their skin the smell of them their

perfume and stuff and so

you know all of those sensory inputs

they actually travel

um to the part of your brain called the

hippocampus

um hippopotamus hippopotamus well it's

like yeah

hippocampus well you know if you've got

you know a hippo who goes to college

where does he live

he lives on campus hippocampus yeah but

how many hippos can they fit in the dorm

well it depends how big the campus is

fair enough you know somewhere like unt

i mean probably a lot somewhere where i

went to school tcu

not so many hippos well yeah because the

hippos can't write a check to get into

tcu

right yeah they'd have to be pretty

smart to get a scholarship there as well

mm-hmm

and hey listen keep the moment yourself

you keep telling yourself that the

reason we're joking about this is

because

it's going to ingrain it in your mind

now you're going to remember hippocampus

oh yeah oh look how tricky you're being

oh so that means that that's that super

expensive

education

yeah i get it i got a full scholarship

yeah yeah

so um so all those different sensory

perceptions

um they integrate into a single

experience

and the hippocampus along with the

frontal cortex actually analyze all of

that crap and basically decide pretty

much

without your conscious permission that

they consider it worth remembering and

so memory

so i mean a joke about this is um when i

say about without your permission

you know there are certain things you

remember and you don't understand why on

earth did i remember that

okay and you know i saw a meme about

somebody

laying on a memory foam mattress and

then and they were trying to get sleep

and the memory

foam was speaking to them going hey you

remember that time you pissed yourself

in fifth grade

you know something it does become like

of those sensory things and that well

remember when you went hogging

yeah what you did to this

mattress that that was terrible yeah in

in the

the whole memory foam mattress is

screaming saying please don't do this to

me again

please don't do this to me again but

it's uh

like i said it can almost bypass the

sensory experiences can bypass your

conscious

decision whether something is worth

memorizing because you don't on the spot

sure a lot and in those situations be

like i need to remember this i need to

remember this about this

but your brain kind of decides for you

at least the hippocampus and the frontal

cortex

um decide that this is a memory that is

worth holding on to but it also holds on

like i said to a bunch of crap where

you're kind of like why on earth do i

remember this when i was five years old

when really

i can't see it has any significance you

know you might remember

you know a specific drawing around a

specific animal in class and i remember

in pre-k

drawing around you know some dinosaurs

in class and there's no reason for me to

have that memory

it wasn't like the you know classroom

was on fire and it's like oh i know what

i was doing you know back in the great

fire of whenever

there's no reason for me to remember

that but there's other stuff which i

wish i could remember which

had a lot more significance and you know

it had it at the time

and it probably still has it now but i

can't remember that many details about

it

so your brain's not always kind of well

rather your subconscious brain is not

really always kind of uh writing it down

in hand with the conscious

thing so i mean yes i mean if we go back

to the whole encoding

bit right um the memory is stored

you know kind of using electricity and

chemicals and that's why i originally

was going to call this podcast

you know chemical memory because that's

the basic function

sure you know recording memory i guess

right but

it doesn't actually work very well if

you're not paying attention

ah in terms of certain details will slip

away

so you know like you use the example of

say if somebody's at a crime scene and

you've got a witness to who

did the crime if you weren't necessarily

paying attention

you don't really kind of recollect too

many details oh they were so tall you

know they were between four foot one and

seven foot nine

you know that it could have been an

african-american or a

chinese you know right dissident or

yeah maybe maybe it was a squirrel i

don't know sure but if you're not paying

attention

then there's reason to believe that

nobody can write this down properly

right you know it's kind of like taking

notes in college if if you're not paying

attention

you're not going to take good notes

right but if you're paying attention

to what's going on you're writing the

notes down you're saying okay

these are important points or whatever

so you're taking notes so most the time

we're just skipping along through life

you know going from place to place

with going to the drive-through getting

our food and doing whatever

then an event happens and we're not

really paying attention to that event

and all of a sudden we're told that we

need to recall

details of that event and we realized

well

i wasn't really paying attention i was

also

in a state of possibly fear

possibly you know stress whatever

so i can bastardize those details

and try to fill in the blanks yeah but

that that comes again down to those kind

of

sensory perceptions but also

physiological

and psychological inputs so you know i

mean again

humans through chemical memory have you

know a fight or flight

you know thing sure and you know

anything which

causes you know through

you know your perception say a

physiological response

you're more likely to remember that

incident but if it doesn't elicit

any type of physiological response it

doesn't make your heart pound doesn't

make you feel worried or anything

again you're less likely to pay

attention to it or less likely to

remember it so

you know what what went into your

short-term memory doesn't necessarily

you know go through to your long-term

memory because it's not considered

important

but again you know going back to some of

the stuff i do remember

i struggled to remember why on earth

that would have been important

right i can't remember being that

excited

at drawing around a tyrannosaurus rex

when i was four years old that i can

still

remember doing that in that class right

there there was something

sub consciously that made you remember

that

and you can't yeah yeah

yeah but it could have been i mean it

might have been events surrounding that

and that's the only thing i necessarily

you know remember which timestamps

that and yeah i mean it's a tricky kind

of thing because we can't work it out

ourselves without additional information

and now if somebody came back

you know some time traveler went back

and bought us

you know into the future you know that

class and however long it lasted there

might have been things that happened in

that class which

maybe have been significant which i've

forgotten but the only thing i could

timestamp in my conscious memory that i

can recall

is that drawing around a dinosaur i

don't know it get it gets tricky and

that's where you get you know the whole

process itself is known as neurobiology

and that's you know comes down to again

the chemistry of memory which is why

like i said i wanted to call it you know

chemical memory but

um your memory rna it's like lower case

m and

you know rna which is like right nucleic

acid as opposed to dna dinucleic acid

um that actually encodes the proteins

that are responsible for shaping

or like i guess structuring the cells

and the

neurons and that again is how all these

memories are formed

and everything so i mean that that's

pretty much the basics which

you know maybe even if you've studied

the topic

that is pretty much what everybody

agrees on okay it's once we get

past that you know once you get past

basic neuroscience

that's where it all starts getting a

little bit gray and

a little bit people people with you know

crossing disciplines

decide that some of these things are

done with far more influencing factors

than rather it just being chemistry sure

you know that environment

pressure causes you to remember events

you know say like if you've got people

around you and you've got peer pressure

you can believe

just because of other people's

perception well maybe i

you know didn't read that properly you

know maybe i didn't see this properly

and you start convincing yourself what

you saw wasn't what you saw right

maybe i went and saw episode eight of

star wars and i

really liked it yeah no no that's not a

good example because i don't think

anybody's gonna agree with that well

somebody might

yeah once again sorry george you like

this but yeah maybe there's

three people out there that thought that

was a good movie so we're going to skip

from that immediately to the stump the

ship itself oh

okay here we go again and this is um

you know this is one where it covers

topics which

again i think people have a view on but

maybe have not been

that interested or that informed to

really know the answer but everybody

everybody's kind of heard of these type

of terms or

things but it's probably been

misconstrued through movies and just bad

literature and everything else or just

people

yeah like us have probably guessed on it

and yeah so so we're

we're here to clear all this up we're

going to explain to everybody

how to clear well as far as the first

page of google can clear up

yes anything yeah yeah right so first of

all how long

do you think short-term memory lasts at

least in definition of short term

oh okay short term memory i'm gonna go

with

uh 48 hours no you see you can hold

about

seven specific

images or

events or objects in your brain for

about

20 to 30 seconds once you get past that

you either forget the exact details

you'll forget

numbers off of that in terms of the

number of objects the color of an object

the size of an object

you know after 20 to 30 seconds

everything you saw

and everything which came in sensory you

tend to it starts dropping off so if you

take something like a phone number right

it's easier to break a phone number down

into sections

sure rather than it is just remembering

the individual numbers

they've always done that you know you

got the area code you've got the

exchange you got the last four

digits in in america you told me what

your phone number was over in england

years ago i'm like that doesn't even

look like a phone number

right what are you talking about and you

said well this is the way

phone numbers were over there and i said

well i couldn't memorize that phone

number because

it was always easy to memorize seven

digits

breaking it into three digits and four

digits over here before you had to

put the area code in front of it yeah

and then most of the time you're like

okay well

you know in north tarrant county

everybody had 817

so that was kind of easy to throw 817

in front of it but no that makes sense

that makes sense now the next the next

question

is um a bit of an unfair one

to ask unlike normally oh because again

because you're always

super fair with these questions yeah

because i ask questions which are a yes

or no but both answers are wrong

yeah yeah okay so um and this is one

where i actually

found you know even within a few

i guess uh respected

bodies uh there was quite a significant

difference to the answer

okay you know depending who was weighing

in what peer studies said reviewed

everything else

you know you really had to and this was

something which i actually had to

study a little bit further before i

understood why there was this kind of

differentiation

and it's um what the four main or kind

of basic different types of memory

the four yeah

basic basic types of memory there's four

basic and there's some subsets

but the four basic ones you're kidding

me right

yeah i mean we've already talked about

three of them but you can't remember

them i'm running oh it

apparently it it was more than 30

seconds ago so i can't remember

this so uh

i'm gonna go with e none of the above

uh not because

because i don't have a clue yeah of what

you're asking now you have um

sensory which no which is brief it lasts

for about three seconds oh

okay so this is the same we're going

okay let's remember it okay

now we talked about that first remember

about what starts with the encoding it's

the perception through sensory input

and that lasts for about three seconds

before you make up your mind just like

if you walk in a room

you'll make up your mind whether it's

hot or cold right you know you make up

your mind whether somebody's pretty or

so this goes to the the traditional five

senses right

yeah yeah well within that yeah i mean

so sensory memory and so that normally

lasts for about three seconds

before you start paying attention to it

because you've already made your mind up

what those things are according to your

senses right now

okay so so what about some kind of

memory

where you memorize a data set

it kind of like what we were talking

about with phone numbers

uh is that one of these that's more of a

subset

of one of these four main ones see

you're getting so difficult now

you you should this is what happens when

you can't find people who agree with

each other

yeah but but you're you're making sure

that you can stump me

and now the questions are getting so

hard that i feel like i'm on final

jeopardy right now yeah

which we have a great you'll never get

invited on yeah yeah

now short term now short term memory we

mentioned that one right yeah

they were saying for 20 to 30 seconds oh

okay so we so we have sensory memory we

have short term memory

so i'm going to go with long term right

wrong time oh

look at me go yeah look at that okay

okay as a participation trophy

yeah yeah there we go and the other one

is yeah and the other one the main one

is a working memory and that that

overlaps a little bit with short-term

memory

and that's what you need to remember to

perform a task so say if i asked you to

do something i said

you know take this out of the

refrigerator and then get this out of

here and then

you know maybe go put some butter from

the other refrigerator on

you know the bread and make the sandwich

then heat it up in the microwave and

bring it back to me

you know you remember the information to

perform that task so it's working memory

right but but is this the same problem

that we have whenever

you get something out of the freezer and

the

instructions of how to cook it on the

package and so you take everything out

you put it on the pan because it says

unwrap the package put it on a non-stick

pan

preheat the oven to 350 and

then you do all that you throw the

package away

and then you're looking at the pan you

preheated the oven to 350

you put everything in and you realize oh

what's next do do i need to do anything

in between here or do i just drag it out

and well

i'm kind of glad you brought that up

because it was a little bit about what

we were talking about before where other

factors come into play

okay so with your work in memory in

terms of having to remember a set of

instructions

depending upon the importance of say you

carrying out that task

your ability to be able to memorize

those things so like if say your boss

said to you

shepherd go do this you're more likely

because of what you perceive as the

importance of following those

instructions correctly

uh following it correctly even if

there's more steps in it than

like the example you gave of making

yourself something because if you mess

up you know all right i'll go re-read

the instructions and

you know i'm the only you know

reciprocator if something goes

wrong with it perhaps and so you know

the importance of being able to remember

something

psychologically in terms of peers and

everything else actually changes your

ability

to be able to remember something okay so

that's why i said it starts getting into

gray areas where you have

factors environmental peer pressure

all this other stuff coming in and

that's why these four main types of

memory

when they start splitting off into

different types of short-term memory

different types of sensory memory etc

that there seems to be a little bit of

conflict across

different disciplines as to which

correctly defines

what constitutes those subsets of those

four types of memory

so is that why i can walk into a room

and i can say i came into this room

to get something right and i

don't know why i'm in this room and what

i'm supposed to get

yeah i know i remember actually i can't

remember who the comedian is which is

great because we can give you so many

so many examples of stuff we can't

remember yeah and here we go

goes you remember those times when you

just walk into a room and

forget what you went in there for he

goes i wonder if that's how dogs spend

their entire lives

sure you know and a bit and again it

comes down to like well

you know there's not that much important

in a pet dog's life domesticated dog

that it really has to remember and so it

goes through most of its life

very reactionary and it only learns

certain things

based upon the reaction from remembering

or performing certain tasks like

reacting to keywords or whatever and

we'll get into that later

but you know if it had honestly been

that important to you

then you would not have walked into that

room and forgotten about it but then

again we say that

and you think of how many people who get

to an airport and they've forgotten the

passport and it's like what was the one

thing which is going to stop you from

flying it's not going to be because you

didn't

you know pack the shampoo and

conditioner or the almonds you like to

snack on late at night

why is it you forgot the one most

important thing

where without that everything else you

did was completely meaningless

right but what you're leaving out is the

distractions

so people get distracted yeah because

then

why they're trying to see not there yeah

but but they're trying to accomplish a

task right they

they go into that room they say you know

i got to go in here

i've got to get my wallet in my car keys

and my phone right and then they go in

and they grab their wallet

in their car keys and then their wife

says

hey did you take the trash out and you

say well no i didn't take the trash out

i'll go do this

then they go take the trash out they hop

in the car they leave they realize they

forgot their phone

because they were distracted because

they had step one two and three they

made it through one and two but then

they got distracted

they forgot to accomplish three because

there was some kind of distraction there

that alleviated them from the fact that

they had to grab their phone

i think that depends on the type of

person because i think

you know i mean talking about you know

myself i mean i actually prioritize not

necessarily consciously

what i need and along each step

the importance of that to my overall

goal and so you know the bottom part of

the list

might be things where if i didn't

remember to do them it wouldn't affect

my overall goal it might

diminish away from the experience or

stop me being able to do certain things

but i would know that you know not

taking my passport not having the car

keys not having my phone would lead to

such a detrimental effect

that you know those type of things i

never tend to forget but you get some

people's

brains to absolutely not prioritize

anything else and like i said they'll

remember shampoo but not their passport

you know they'll remember to bring a

packet of tissues but not the keys to

get into the you know holiday home

they're going to visit

right and so you know i mean that's a

those type of brains and why people

think like that again goes off into a

whole different realm of psychology

which isn't specifically down to i mean

obviously it is about memory but why

some people

fail to remember things which are

important whereas others

you know subconsciously can actually

make that list

again there's there's lots of different

theories with that i mean makes sense

so um and this is a question i'm gonna

ask you and the reason i'm asking you

this one is because i know you've heard

of it

but we're presented with this purely

through i guess

um media through movies and stuff and so

we believe this is something

which is definitely a thing but we

probably

don't realize it's not so much of a

thing as we think it is so um

right i'm going to ask you this is

photographic memory a real thing

no yes no

it's not it's yes and no it doesn't mean

well it doesn't mean you remember

everything

right because i i i just think i should

pay attention to

right and i've went through this because

i

when i want to i have a very good memory

you know yes about me

but i i always thought i had a

photographic memory until i

kind of looked into that and realized

that doesn't

really truly exist you have a different

way of remembering

things well some people have something

called it's uh

an identic memory yeah and that's kind

of like

photographic memory and things they

actually pay attention to

they can pretty much remember every

exact detail to a point where even

if regular people stood there and

studied it for hours would still not

be able to recollect well and so

photographic memory

is a easy way to describe

that identic memory yeah i know and it's

actually like between

two and ten percent of people have some

form of either memory sure

and you know it just means that that

encoding as we started off talking about

that occurs in the things you pay

attention to but it's kind of

just on a higher level you know and for

whatever reason now if you'd have said

like

naught point naught two percent of

people have identic imagery

you know that kind of photographic

memory as you wanna call it then you'd

think

okay then i can kind of believe that but

up to ten percent you that's when it

starts being all right well maybe i

don't believe in photographic memory

that much because actually one in ten

people is too

high of a percentage for people who are

not that good at remembering

but you have people like you and i and

we have pretty good memories when we

decide that we're

actually gonna right care about it or

focus on it and say hey i i want to

learn something here

i actually want to tune everything out i

want to say

hey this is something i want to learn

something about right

and you read it you watch it

you study it or whatever we'll remember

it

yeah but i know there's a lot of people

that

they have that same feeling right they

they

want to read it they want to study it

they want to learn it

and they got to read it over and over

and over again to try to ingrain it

in their head and that

that kind of sucks for those people that

that really

want to get in there and study it and

learn it

yeah versus somebody like me or you

who we can say yeah here's something i

actually

want to learn about and so we just kind

of

blink our eyes and we say okay i'm going

to learn this right now and then we

learn it yeah and we remember it

but that's also again comes back to

for whatever reason people can't encode

stuff even if they do care about it

because other factors come into play of

the importance

of not remembering that and the stress

and it adds

stress or depending in the environment

they're in when

they're trying to memorize it again

there's a lot of things which come in

which is why people don't

always remember things the same way even

if they don't have an eidetic memory

that some people can remember things

better than others just because the

environment they're in or the importance

to remembering it

no i i think it's more the importance of

remembering it

it's the same reason why i can remember

a lot of stuff a lot of random facts

that are just stored in my brain

that are never gonna go away

but my wife can tell me

what she's gonna do tomorrow and i won't

remember it right

we went to uh orange beach alabama

here this is i don't know two or three

months ago

the passcode for the

uh what do you call it the uh

condo or whatever is 68 68

109 4 pound right

i still remember that yeah i don't know

what i'm gonna do with this information

right but but it's stored in my head

i realized that i needed to go ahead and

memorize that code because i didn't want

to look in my phone

to know what the little keypad was

to get into the room because we didn't

have a swipe card like you have at a

normal hotel right

but i'm pretty sure tonight

my wife probably told me i need to stop

by the store and get something

and i couldn't tell you what i'm

supposed to go to the store and get yeah

i mean i can still remember i mean i

don't

think you know i mean i can't

tell you how many years it's been since

i learned the cosine rule but

i still remember a squared plus b

squared equals 2bc

sorry a squared plus b minus 2bc cosine

a

yeah or what what was that quadratic

equation

it's kind of the same thing yeah i don't

know why i mean i've never used it

it's not like negative and i've tried to

clear that out of my head yeah but

i i memorized that yeah and you memorize

these

bizarre things and a lot of people they

struggle with it

they truly struggle with trying to

memorize some of this stuff

and and they say well you know what why

can't i

learn this sure i've been blessed

that i can learn that stuff when i

want to know something and i i write it

down in my head i've always said

i have this like spiral notebook in my

head

that i just make these notes on and i

can refer back to this spiral notebook

rotary card system yeah you know it's

old school analog right

and i can just refer back to that and i

can

not think about it for years and then

somebody asked me a question about

something that i know i've written down

in that spiral notebook and i just go

ah and flip the pages back i'm like oh

here it all is and and i've got it yeah

and and not to sound you know bigger

than anybody because that's not

what i'm trying to do here but some

people are blessed with that

yeah they really are but at the same

respect

i can honestly tell you right now

looking at you right now

i don't remember what i had for dinner

last night right

because i didn't write it down in the

spiral note but because

i just i don't care right

and maybe there is some of that you just

don't care about

certain things you just forget about it

you say it this is an important

information

and unfortunately with that

look in memory

you choose what's important sure you you

choose that hey this is something

important this is what i want to

remember

this is happening i don't see any

importance here

i'm not going to remember right now do

you think it's easier to remember good

or bad experiences bad yeah because

absolutely yeah because actually

remembering bad times becomes more

natural

and it's actually got quite a bit to do

with evolution and we recall them easier

because of the effect

the bad experience they had and that

whole cause and effect thing and we

learned to

try and avoid that it's hard to

sometimes replicate

good situations because sometimes it was

you know this magical alignment of

everything

and it just turned out good and it is

enjoyable and it's

sometimes harder to replicate that and

also you find that when you try and

repeat that

it's maybe not as good as the first time

yeah but you know in terms of bad

experiences

we also subconsciously act

to avoid those situations whereas to

have good experiences we consciously try

and recreate those situations

right and the subconscious you know has

a greater power of kind of the things it

keeps and how it affects you without you

having to consciously

go through that information and so

that's why you know bad

bad situations you know tend to be more

memorable but it's also possible to

suppress

bad situations if they cause that much

stress

that much physiological effect whether

through um

learning yourself how to suppress it or

just because again

you subconsciously suppress it you know

you can actually

almost eliminate certain bad experiences

you know out of i guess what your brain

is deciding is necessity because it's

bad for you to remember those things

yeah but sure think about history i mean

we always

joke about history is always written by

the winners

right but if you read history of

anything there's a lot of bad stuff in

history there's

wars that were fought whether they were

won or lost

lots of bad stuff in there and we always

remember

a lot of the bad stuff in history no

matter if it's the winner that

wrote the bad stuff because it seems

always easier to remember the bad things

so much easier right yeah and

you know i wanted to switch actually

because i know i kind of brought up that

comedian joke about the dog earlier

about memory that we can't remember by

the way

i can't remember the exact well no oh

who's the kid he was a nobody no who's

the comedian he was a nobody yeah

actually actually you know i don't

probably don't even know his name

because i think i actually just read the

quote

oh not just as in just now but i

actually

read the quote over many years ago i'm

not even sure of it said the comedians

yeah

so literally irrelevant listen to you it

could be a woman right

it could be women

cancel culture that's what it said on

the internet oh yeah okay

i didn't write that i'm just repeating

what i read yeah um

so um if we get into the whole thing in

memory and animals

it's uh it really changes from animal to

animal in terms of

what type of memories they keep

whether it's short-term long-term

whether it starts bridging into

chemotropic reactions and so it's not

really necessary conscious or even

subconscious memory or something they

just

kind of do in a reaction to stimuli but

um

you know there's a lot of animals like

mice squirrels dogs elephants and

one of my least favorite animals i think

i said on

cats no chimpanzees i told you i want to

punch chimpanzees

i know i i would like to see a cat and a

chimpanzee get in a fight

and see which ones we're gonna bet on

well we know the chimpanzee is gonna win

that unless we get a knife

oh i don't know about that no

i don't know about that but you know

that that

we need to find somebody in some foreign

country

some third world country that might set

that fight up

let me like mexico maybe

but the thing is i could let's let's

make a note of this and not

follow up on it like we do everywhere

you see the thing is i couldn't

organize it because i dislike

chimpanzees so much i'd probably drug it

so it would never win a fight even

against a moth or something

and then i'd be like yeah the cat's

obviously the most superior

and then i if i'm responsible for

bringing the cats

i just won't bring in the cat because

i'm just going to let them off

on the side of the road they're running

free why is this cat drunk

yeah never clear exactly yeah but um

anyway so like those

that section of animals as well as you

know most birds

not all birds are smart by the way um

they're capable of ducks

yeah they're capable of a conscious

learning of the world around them which

is called um

semantic memory okay so you know all the

stimuli

from their senses play up i guess

most of the impact and the memory and

what they learn

you know they don't reason something you

know cause and effect is very

subconscious they're not like

writing notes with their non-opposable

thumbs in their imaginary notebook or

rotary system in their head

you know they use this semantic memory

but there's actually no evidence that

they can remember the past or planned

for the future

so the cause and effect thing they learn

is almost entirely chemical memory

there's no reason of like oh yeah the

last time you know i put my head in that

refrigerator

my nose got cold and it started aching

or the last time i ate too many ice

cubes i've got brain freeze

right you know it's it almost that

causes an effect almost immediately goes

into that chemical memory whereby

it's never a conscious thing whereas we

recollect

you know okay well the last time i did

this you know it hurt

yeah and that's why we remember it you

know it's not necessarily

for the most part an instant you know

reaction to something

a lot most time we kind of react to it

through a little bit of reasoning of

sharing what happened and the same thing

when we're planning for something like

you know the dog couldn't get into

something and it wanted to get to say

some food it will use

methods of trial and error and then

what works because old school life yeah

it becomes the chemical memory whereas

we might actually reason

that okay because you could watch a dog

try and get into something and if you

were watching it you'd be like

yeah i know that's not going to work but

the dog will just keep going on you know

control and error till it finds

something which works whereas we

would actually think well i know that's

not going to work if i try that because

that's going to be a worse

attempt than the first thing i did well

that's a bold statement because i think

there's a lot of humans that

probably wouldn't go through yeah yeah

i'm sure but

this um you know i mean dogs dogs

will actually react to trigger words you

know which is why dogs do the whole sit

blah blah blah but we have to train them

or most of the time they're trained

through the reward system of being

petted or given a treat

pavlov did the whole study with the bell

you know when the bell rang the dogs

knew that they were going to get fed

so that's always based on yeah you

actually want to look a little bit

deeper into that whole thing there's

actually a bit of a nefarious story

behind that involving a metronome don't

spoil it

physiological effects stop

i i just pictured this nice german

shepherd

that you know that the bell rings and

pavlov says oh

i rang the bell you get some food

i mean the basic lesson from that story

the pavlovian effect

most people know but actually some of

the deeper studies behind that kind of

get into again some of the psychological

stuff and other ways you can affect the

way that animals react to things like i

said it went a little bit of a nefarious

route a bit like a kind of a

nazi experimentation camp at some point

down there it's not

necessarily a rabbit hole to get down

sounds like revisionist history

and we are not going to do that here

right

but you know i mean dogs i mean they can

learn patterns of behavior

um you know again through loose kind of

cause and effect scenarios but

you know they're mainly stimulated by i

guess what you'd want to call like

chemically inherent memories such as

fight flight hunger

or whether they want something like they

want well in and they always want

rewards i remember when i was in high

school

the drug dogs at high school

somebody found out

that the reward for a drug dog was a

tennis ball

[Music]

so what they did was they stacked a

locker

full of tennis balls put a little bit of

weed in there

the drug dog hit on that they opened the

locker up and all kinds of tennis balls

come

falling out of that locker drove the dog

nuts because he was only used to getting

one tennis ball

but he's thinking i smelled just a tiny

little bit of weed and now i've got a

hundred tennis balls

the dog went nuts we all laughed about

it yeah so there's

always ways around that reward system

now you think with certain drugs like i

don't know cocaine or something the

reward for the drug dog would actually

be sniffing the cocaine

possibly possibly possibly yeah the

reward the reward is finding it

in itself yeah yeah yeah exactly now

you know you you just look and you say

hey buster

come here you can have a little hit off

this you you can have a little sniff

you found it you get to share a little

bit yeah you know it

that's okay yeah you know let me roll

this joint up and let you

smoke a little bit of this you know good

dog

yeah i'm not sure that scenario

yeah that's my pretend world

now um you know with mammals

specifically i mean they

you know they don't follow i guess

that four main part of memories that

humans have

now once you get outside about what are

the four main parts of memory because

i've already forgot about them

sensory short term working and long term

oh okay

all right so thank you for that yeah now

many guys see

like most of our podcasts i'm not paying

that much attention so i've already

forgot about it it was past the 20 to 30

second limit

yeah um you know mammals

they kind of have the short term and the

long term

and they have something else called

specialized memory

now outside of mammals you know once you

get into insects again that's when

you're starting to get into chemotropics

and not really

a central nervous system that you know

allows for any type of

reason or lone behavior whatsoever

outside of it will keep trying doing

something and as long as the stimuli

doesn't kill it

um that it will continue doing the same

thing over and over again regardless of

how many times it's failed

just simply because of that chemical

memory it doesn't learn anything

by you know default no cause and effect

there's absolutely no rationale in there

whatsoever

right i mean you know mammals are such

you know they tend to have the short

term and the specialized memories

but they also have a limit on what type

of information they store

you know for specialized types of memory

but once they remember them

they tend to be stored in a longer term

so say um

you know if you teach your dog you know

to hate

you know everybody who

isn't wearing jeans it can be taught

that they're going to be aggressive

towards everybody who isn't wearing

jeans

eventually it's a very specialized type

of memory now it might take you a long

time

to teach what's the difference between

slacks and genes or whatever but

theoretically it can be taught that you

can get your dog to be aggressive to

everybody who doesn't wear jeans

sure but there could also be something

that is an

adverse reaction to that memory because

somebody that was wearing

jeans and comes on punches could have

done something bad to that dog

now all of a sudden everybody wearing

jeans

is mean to me so i i'm mad at everybody

that's wearing jeans but

that same person could have jeans on

walk up to the dog

the dog is growling whatever they walk

away

they go throw a pair of shorts on come

back up to the dog now the dog's happy

yeah i've seen this firsthand when i was

younger

had a just super friendly dog

loved everybody but i remember my

uncle who was now deceased wore

like this black pair of combat boots

almost kind of like a pair of doc

martens but

more combat bootish

and kicked my dog

when i was younger and so

me and my family i'm young me and my

family

go out of town we asked the neighbors

hey will you feed the dog

so the neighbor comes over and just

happens to have on a black pair of what

kind of looks like combat boots

and my dog who knows this person

is growling and snarling at them and

she woman by the way

she's trying to figure out why is the

dog

so upset what what am i doing different

takes off the boots and now my dog's

happy

yeah and he's totally fine with her

with without wearing the boots but

remembers

i got kicked by somebody wearing boots

that look just like that

so i don't want to get kicked again so

i'm being defensive

sure and that's you know again why

you know that there's not really much

much of any kind of logic going on

because at a very young age i mean

like infants learn the concept of object

permeance of like you know when you hide

something and it's

initially think oh it's disappeared and

one of the key kind of marks in a

child's development is that

realization of object permian so it

doesn't mean the objects disappeared it

just means it's a whole game of

peek-a-boo

where yeah whereas so you know like a

lot of mammals don't

you know grasp that concept they think

if they can't see it's like when you

pretend

throw the ball you know they think it's

thrown because they can't

comprehend or there is no comprehension

or attempted comprehension that this

that somebody would think something

would fake me out you know exactly

but um you know dolphins and elephants

are a bit of an exception to the rule in

terms of

how the memories work i mean in anything

that's because they're gray and slimy

well i mean an elephant can display you

know what we were talking about earlier

the kind of eidetic

you know photographic type memory and

but you have to think well how many

things does an elephant have to remember

you know the natural habitat you know

it's right it doesn't really have many

predators

most of its terrain is the same and so

you know how many things really does it

have to remember

you know um whereas with dolphins i mean

dolphins can recognize themselves in a

mirror which is a bit of a mystery to me

because i think they all look the same

yeah pretty much right oh they do but

they have but they also have an advanced

language system which will actually

develop they have different dialects

to that language and that if you know

one dolphin meets a dolphin from a

different school of dolphins

as such although that's not the right

word for a collection of dolphins is it

it's not probably not something else

like a

group of flippers or something like that

yeah but anyway

but now that that goes back to like when

i've got on to you before

when you've been around your british

friends and

you know they've come over to my house

and and you and one of your british

friends start talking

i can't understand a word y'all are

saying because you

get into that dialect you you have

certain words

that kind of go back and forth you're

speaking english

but can't understand a word you're

saying so

yeah same thing now i know we were

talking about

and we've mentioned actually multiple

times about forgetting certain things

what do you do did we say that because

i already forgot i remember looking it

up i can't remember well yeah no

we forgot we yeah i definitely forgot

now we talked about

are there four there are four types

memory because

i've already forgot about those again

even though you're reminding me

i've already forgot about those so um

you know there are methods

to bring back memories you've forgotten

depending on how

i guess important your brain and your

subconscious considered those are we

going to talk about hypnosis

uh well hypnotic regression because when

we talk about hypnosis you know you

might think about

you know going to see a hypnotism to try

and stop you from smoking or to

bark like a dog on a stage in front of

people but know hypnotic regression

um basically takes account of the fact

that the mind

you know filters out certain experiences

out of the normal memory

and it does it automatically again it's

like very difficult

to consciously suppress or forget

something in fact it almost has the

opposite effect

because you're thinking about what

you're trying to forget and it just

repeats so many times that you actually

end up remembering it more than

you wanted to and so um you know you can

suppress specific memories and

experiences

but you know with hypnotic regression a

lot of those memories can be accessed or

revisited

but again it comes in with some

controversy and i think we mentioned

on our previous podcast about you know

falsely implanting memories of

incidences that never occurred or

slightly changing the details of that so

that again

somebody you absolutely a hundred

percent convinced you saw a crime scene

you know a hypnotist could maybe throw

some doubt in there that perhaps that

person

you know wasn't as tall as you thought

they were you know drew the gun with the

left hand rather than the right hand

didn't have a gun at all

can actually adjust your recollections i

mean it's not without its controversy

because it can be manipulated

right you could have a let's say a

media machine get behind

memories and say there were

three movies that came out in the star

wars saga

made by disney in the skywalker saga

that were

good and make you try to believe they

were actually good

when they weren't that would take some

pretty deep hypnosis you see i think

what you're talking about is subliminal

programming in terms of

okay you know wherever message is

repeated or you know often enough

that you start believing it yeah and

these are good

yeah these are good movies these are

really good

but they're they're great movies but

again not only would they be great

if you don't like them there's something

wrong with you

these are great and so you need to get

behind these movies but that's also

something which

you know people actually misunderstand

when you talk about subliminal messaging

i mean sometimes it can be hidden in

plain sight and again i think this is

something we spoke about on a previous

podcast about

flash frames yeah the use of flash

frames and the use of product placement

right you know and even in the movies

the whole let's go out to the

movies yeah yeah they've got the coke

and they've got the

popcorn like i don't want a coke and a

popcorn but people assume that

subliminal is something hidden and it

just kind of builds up to give you a

message but like i said a lot of

subliminal messaging can actually be in

plain sight like i said like product

placement or like you said about

if it's repeated enough times oh yeah

these are the three best movies and you

know the star wars trilogies

you know there comes to a point now

depending on how much bias you have

subliminal messaging might not work

right

so because we hate the skywalker trilogy

so much

that's never yeah the the sequels yes

now with um george lucas or disney

you're listening to this

which i highly doubt if you want to pay

us money next episode we'll say is the

best trilogy ever written

absolutely we will sell out in an

innocent we just want you to know

that is a hundred percent correct so um

like i said it will sell out yeah so the

hypnotic regression thing like i said

it's a facet of hypnotism but you don't

want to confuse it with hypnotism

because it

again it branches off into very

different things i mean hypnotic

regression you know you can use that in

criminology and

you know there has been plenty of cases

in court

where the evidence given by hypnotic

regression has been very personal

and and by the way there's always been

cases where they've convinced people

that they've committed crimes

that they haven't done yeah yeah which

yeah might be a podcast

but uh we're going to forget about that

because i mean we're talking about

memory and

we're definitely going to forget about

why we should

actually talk about that now i did

actually want to end on how you can

improve your memory

okay oh no i want to be able to improve

that no we

we we should in this podcast try to

give some kind of service to our

listeners so how can we improve on our

memory

right now the most basic way actually

um is i already forgot what you said

it's living a healthier lifestyle so i

mean

things such as diet exercise better

quality

sleep i mean that will actually enable

your brain to work more effectively

so diet exercise better quality of sleep

yeah

so three things i need to look at so

yeah can't can't do any of those right

so

so help me out how can i do something

other than those

well i mean there's things which you

know obviously affect your memory such

as heavy drinking but

i mean that's not always a bad thing you

know i always say like i've never

i've never drank any alcohol except for

alien ale

that our buddy jason board from martian

margaritas brings to us

those are the only beers that you and i

have ever drank well i mean

i always have to the best of my

recollection

yeah which i have a terrible memory

apparently i always say to people that

you know if i said something offensive

or did something

you know when i drank some alcohol take

it up with me again when i get drunk

because i can't remember

hey take it up with drunk me i'm not

responsible right

sober me is not responsible for driving

you know not not to go off

into the music aspect but i remember the

song by evan essence

the it's you know call me when you're

sober

there's a good message behind that uh

same thing with uh the band lit uh

my own worst enemy all right yeah you

know it and there's a line in that song

uh i can't believe the things are saying

to call you that yeah it you know it's

the same thing i mean

look i am super guilty of that i i

may or may not have had some

beverages that caused me to say some

things that i

regret i think we all do it at a certain

point and

in those that don't have those beverages

and don't say that

you know what good on you but uh

sometimes

we we say things that we do

regret and we don't really mean them

well i can't actually remember if i

actually agreed to do this podcast you

told me i did

but i don't know if you made it up

that's a secret

um but anyway you asked i called you and

so that goes back to your bad memory

yeah you you asked um

well i might be drunk i can't remember

um but you did ask what other things you

can do obviously to improve your memory

now

mental exercises you know like word

games puzzles

any type of that stuff you know which

keeps your mental skills and memories

sharp

you know it's proven to delay or even

you know partially offset

alzheimer's is that why they have all

the puzzles in

like old folks homes yeah trying to get

them to do puzzles

yeah because you you've got like a

hundred piece puzzle and you can

put a bunch of old folks on there and

it's like

is that to improve their memory or is

that to give them something to do for a

week

well there's two things from this one

uh after doing a little bit of research

on alzheimer's i forgot i have spell

alzheimer's crown

but um also is it because you might have

early onset

alzheimer's i think so okay how would i

know well of course

i wouldn't know i wouldn't know yeah you

have it i might welcome it to an extent

i don't know

i am not a doctor but i am telling you

right now you have

early onset alongside you never have to

give that decision

it's just like that we're not experts

but but but um anyway with alzheimer's

it's interesting you actually brought

that up but do you know do you remember

what you just said

about what exactly you have alzheimer's

so go ahead there's um between 75

and 84 year olds uh 17

which is roughly about one sixth have

alzheimer's and once you get to 85

plus uh 32 or roughly a third of people

have alzheimer's so i mean it's

definitely something which affects

huge proportions so any of those type of

exercises they can do to either delay

or offset it is very very important yeah

certain traits of alzheimer's can

actually kick in even in the 40s and 50s

if you're somebody who does

a repetitive job where you can almost go

into

you know uh pilot mode you know you just

don't

really auto pilot pilot mode yeah you

don't kind of pay much attention to it

and your brain's not really being

challenged you always use comfort zones

you watch comfort tv shows where there's

so much imposition

there's no thought required to work out

the plot or who did it or whatever that

your brain can actually start declining

you lose that kind of i think it's

called uh neuroplasticity but we'll get

on to that on another podcast when i

want to talk about learning

different methods of learning yeah well

i'll never remember that

i will that one actually because i wrote

that down um so

yeah i mean it can actually but you

forgot where you wrote that down on the

piece of paper

oh no i put it in my phone i texted

myself um

well now that you have somebody that

actually said i've got that look so i've

got that little annoying number on my

text which has a one on it

and so you know until i hit that button

and

clear it i'm going to remember that i

need to right now let's

go yeah so anyway like i said it's

important for people to try and work on

improving their memory yes challenging

their brain because

no longer memory can occur way earlier

than most people think

right and and let's all kidding aside

i mean this is a serious problem i mean

it really is and it's kind of sad

when you you know you see people get

it in your examples even in 40s or 50s

and

and especially in the later stages of

life where

where the memory goes and you sit there

and kind of

going back to my example of you walk

into a room and you say

why did i come into this room yeah

that sucks yeah i mean it it really

sucks

and the people that suffer from this

they know it sucks they don't they're

proud

they they don't want to say that you

know their memory shot

and they're having problems

but it sucks it really sucks and

and not to put a downer on the end of

the podcast

but it does suck and and we hate to see

that

yeah happen with people but it does

yeah it really does on the plus side

though in this

age of covid oh that's right

see i forgot to mention i forgot

to mention that we are in the age of

cobits

so there there's one thing there are the

the stay at it it happens to the best of

us the the state home orders you know

continue or there's a lot of lockdowns

that you know the people with

alzheimer's

if they're having to do too much social

distancing when it comes to easter

they can at least hide their own eggs

yeah

yeah that's good that's the benefit of

alzheimer's during this yeah but

but even if you talk about that age of

coba

if you take away some of those

outside influences the ability for them

to go

and do things and interact or whatever

and you limit

everything to parking somebody

in their house then eventually

you got the tv and it's the same crap on

tv

all day long hell it's the same stuff

that we talk about on the podcast

most of the time i mean yeah we have

different topics but

we talk about a lot of the same stuff

and you park

somebody somewhere and they're trying to

get their faculties about them

trying to to figure out something to do

they're gonna go nuts they're gonna go

absolutely nuts

that's not a pc term by the way going

nuts oh

uh so write that down because

i'm gonna forget that i can't say that

somebody without slimers has gone nuts

yeah i don't know absolutely

and so with that said about going nuts

thanks for

tuning in to this episode of the wolf

and the shepherd apparently

i've gone nuts here and i probably

forgot about

everything that i've said so we'll catch

you on the next one