I always have problems remembering specific details, such as historical dates, phone numbers, etc... As a kid, I always knew I could never be a doctor or a pharmacist. I did poorly at Organic Chemistry. Mathematics is different; one only needs to start with the axioms and derives the rest. As the mathematician Leopold Kronecker once exaggerated,
"God created the integers. All the rest is the work of Man." Physics was similarly easy for me.
I had read stories about people who could recall exactly what they did on a specific date, the same as REWahoo's story. But, there are some people with the opposite problem, a real affliction. They have a perfectly normal reasoning faculty, but have no short-term memory. There is a man whose brain had been destroyed by the herpes virus. He often prepared and ate multiple breakfasts because he forgot that he had it earlier the same morning.
Here's an interview with that man, called EP in the following excerpt.
Even though Frascino has been to EP's home some 200 times, he always greets her as a stranger. Frascino sits down opposite EP at his dining room table and asks a series of questions that gauge his common sense. She quizzes him about what continent Brazil is on, the number of weeks in a year, the temperature water boils at. She wants to demonstrate what IQ tests have already proved: EP is no dummy. He patiently answers the questions—all correctly—with roughly the same sense of bemusement I imagine I would have if a total stranger walked into my house, sat down at my table, and very earnestly asked me if I knew the boiling point of water.
"What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, addressed, and has a stamp on it?" Frascino asks.
"Well, you'd put it in the mailbox. What else?" He chuckles and shoots me a sidelong and knowing glance, as if to say, Do these people think I'm an idiot? But sensing that the situation calls for politeness, he turns back to Frascino and adds, "But that's a really interesting question you've got there. Really interesting." He has no idea he's heard it many times before.
"Why do we cook food?"
"Because it's raw?" The word raw carries his voice clear across the tonal register, his bemusement giving way to incredulity.
"Why do we study history?"
"Well, we study history to know what happened in the past."
"But why do we want to know what happened in the past?"
"Because, it's just interesting, frankly."
EP wears a metal medical alert bracelet around his left wrist. Even though it's obvious what it's for, I ask him anyway. He turns his wrist over and casually reads it.
"Hmm. It says memory loss."
Details are here:
Memory - National Geographic Magazine
Note: Due to REWahoo's post, I recalled reading a similar story to his. Then, it took me a bit of reflection to recall that it was in National Geographic. A search of its Web site confirmed that I still have some memories after all.
My mind is a complete blank. Daughter would remember tho.
