The following thoughts arose after close observation of the effects of dementia.




Who we are? (ii) - (not a poem)

Can we make decisions without recourse to our memories?

 

I feel the answer is no, with a caveat. The caveat being we are driven to make a decision, any decision. The most basic being fight or flight. The quality of the decision however is based on our memory of prior information.

 

If so, it would resolve a burning question for me. Why do we hold so fast to opinions? Maybe because the mind abhors to rewrite memories and or throw them aside. Especially memories which have been consolidated over a long period of time.





Words by Rik The PoetBay support member heart!
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Written on 2016-08-25 at 10:34

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Kathy Lockhart
If we have no memory, we are as a new born baby--an infant. An infant cannot make a decision. Infants have only instinct--rooting, suckling for nourishment. This is based, not on any high educational training, but on giving birth to 3 children and nursing each of them and on watching the same behaviors of the many, many nieces and nephews I have and on mammal behaviors to a lesser extent. This is nature!

Without memory, we have no data. Without data, we have no comparison or statistics, observations, or compilations of any learned input to gather an educated guess. Therefore, no decision can be made regarding anything. Only the basic drive for sustenance is born in us and even that can be dulled through dementia.
2016-08-25