Time, gaps, memory and emergencies LO21226

Terry Priebe (insight@de-sa.com)
Thu, 8 Apr 1999 10:27:42 -0400

Replying to LO21209 --

Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> wrote 4/7 in Time, gaps,
memory and emergencies LO21209:

"If life was constantly normal and regular, we were not able to memorize and no
knowledge and creativity will develop in our brains. Luckily, life is not
regular. The environment is changing and we react on that. And this will
thus generate memories and thoughts and knowledge."

Leo, good morning:

I really appreciated your illuminating contribution about memory. (I also
got a good laugh from your closing "I am expecting in a moment the next
emergency, so I stop.")

You also asked:

"...are the increasing number of shortly after each other
occurring emergencies finally reach a state of total and final order with
such an amount of internal complexity that it looks like chaos?"

Another related event may be occurring that increases this level of
complexity. That is the event of an observer coming upon an heretofore
unexperienced situation. No matter whether it's a "laminar" situation -
one that's been stable for some time and not demonstrating anomalies to
another long-term observer - or an easily recognized, once focused on,
very turbulent situation, the new observer is confronted with a novel
experience that will have some amount of impact on his/her memory.

Is part of our sense that time is moving faster, that the gaps between
events is getting shorter, caused by the fact that we are being bombarded
by an increasing amount of new information - new experiences - that, from
our point of view, deviate from the norm? Our memories may be becoming
taxed by all the new "stuff" that our work, our news, our civilization
makes so easily available to us. And it takes us some amount of time to
"process" this new information - again, whether its inherently turbulent
or laminar.

So it seems like we have a distinct challenge: helping ourselves to
remember those events that have relevant information content while
creating sustainable personal and community methodologies that permits us
to continually broaden our perspective about our environment made possible
through expanding information networks - and in a way that's compatible
with our internal capacity for time acquisition of memories and our
"anchorplaces for our thoughts".

I look forward to other's reflections. Thanks again, Leo, for taking this
Time.

Best Regards,

Terry Priebe
Decision Support Associates, Inc.

http://www.de-sa.com
mailto:insight@de-sa.com

-- 

"Terry Priebe" <insight@de-sa.com>

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