Memory as triage: Facing up to the Hard Question of memory

null, Nikola Andonovski

Abstract: The Hard Question of memory is the following: how are memory representations stored and organized so as to be made available for retrieval in the appropriate circumstances and format? In this essay, I argue that philosophical theories of memory should engage with the Hard Question directly and seriously. I propose that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially selected and stabilized, but also systematically modified and integrated into generalized, model-like representational structures. The account, I argue, points to a new kind of preservationist theory, on which the preservation of information in memory goes hand-in-hand with the maintenance of its relevance.

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