Well done.

I think there is a mark. There are timestamps too, but those cannot tell whether the related memory refers to a true event at that time or to an imagination at that time. So, back to the mark:

Here's my hypothesis: When I'm saving a present event in my neuronal network, the stored event gets a timestamp and a "true event"-mark. Now when I remember this event, say, a year later, I also remember that associated "true event"-mark. It could be that I remember just 90 % of the event and subconsciously fill the rest with fictitious details. This semi-true data mix will be resaved as a "true event" along with the original "true event"-mark. The mark remains the same but the resaved details of the event may get inaccurate. From time to time I recall-and-resave, recall-and-resave, etc. Each time I do this, more inaccurate data may be added or the entire data package might even get smaller. But the "true event"-mark remains attached.

We know that the data in our brain is fragmented across the entire neuronal network. The event is not stored in "one little box"; the event is fragmented and scattered. There are paths from one location in the brain to another. And when we're sleeping, the paths restructure themselves to become more efficient: Important stuff will be optimized, and irrelevant data will be deleted. In fact there must be a lot of marks to bring all these fragmented parts together when they are needed to restore a certain memory. Without those marks we would be sort of demented, I think.

Maybe there are certain qualia that accompany such marks. When I remember my name there is a certain self-quale that tells me that's really me without doubt. The quale makes the self-detection automatic and phenomenal, just like a yellow-quale tells me that this banana is yellow rather than blue. Similarly, the remembered event is true rather than imagined. It's a different phenomenal experience, just like a yellow-experience is different to a blue-experience.

That's my hypothesis. I may be completely wrong.

P.S.: Can I tell a true event from an imagination at the current time? Yes, I can. The experience of a true event is often more intensive.

On the one hand: Yes, the memory is independent of the prompt. But if I don't have the prompt, how will I access the memory? — BC

Yes, and even more concerning: if the prompt is a photograph, will I come to substitute the face that is pictured for my memory of the beloved's actual face?

Fortunately, the memory is of the imagining, not an actual kidnapping. — Patterner

I was moved by your story, and appreciate your telling it to us. Beyond that, you raise a point that is often overlooked about memory. What makes something memorable -- indeed, what is really the point or subject of the memory -- may be what we thought or felt about X, not X itself. In your case, the image of the blond-haired boy was quite unimportant, quite unmemorable. But you vividly recall the chain of imaginings and associations that came with that image, so it's become indelible. My guess is that, in some rough categorization of memories, you'd file this under "Time I had a horrible bout of fearful imagining" rather than "Time I saw a blond-haired boy in van."

for all the Americans, Happy Memorial Day! — Fire Ologist

I've known happier, but thank you. Our new Dear Leader is planning a YUGE military parade on his upcoming birthday, the largest for more than 40 years. That's the sort of memorial we're meant to celebrate now, God help us.

My guess is that, in some rough categorization of memories, you'd file this under "Time I had a horrible bout of fearful imagining" rather than "Time I saw a blond-haired boy in van." — J

Well, the former is certainly the more powerful and important of the two. But I wouldn't have had the experience, and subsequent memory, of the imaginings if not for the boy, and I wouldn't remember the boy at all if not for the imaginings he inspired. Different aspects of one, big, complex memory.

It is a good idea to remember our evolutionary history. The capacity to experience, commit to memory, and recall was developed way before our arrival on the scene. What do (other) animals use memory for?

a) to remember where they put their food (some mammals and some birds have excellent location memory)
b) to remember who their mate is (in species where that's important) -- which goose is mine?
c) to remember where home is
d) to remember what is dangerous, and what it looks/sounds/smells like
e) to remember who is in my group, and what their and my rank is

and so on. Luckily, animals don't have to remember when taxes are due, when the next dental hygiene appt is, where to vote, how much the post office now charges for a letter, what brands my partner insists on, did I ever read a book by Nietzsche, or which lies did tell whom and for what purpose? But memory can reliably handle all that, excepts when it slips up.

I don't think we know, yet, precisely how a memory is stored, and where in the brain it rests, nor how we find it 15 years later. But we, geese, crows, squirrels, dogs, and elephants remember what we need to remember. We know what losing the capacity to recall or remember looks like in dementia. Alzheimers demonstrates how critical memory is to being whatever we are.

.

I've known happier, but thank you. — J

Me as well. But I’ve known worse times. I’m sort of a cup by is half full rather than half empty kind of person, even if it seems like it’s a quarter full.

Here's my hypothesis: When I'm saving a present event in my neuronal network, the stored event gets a timestamp and a "true event"-mark. — Quk

Maybe there are certain qualia that accompany such marks. — Quk

That's a good filling-out of my "feature" idea. I wish I could identify the qualia, though. The problem is that I know what I'm talking about when I refer to a "yellow quale" (controversial though this may be), but I really don't know what the "self-quale" is. Do you have any idea?

I'm fascinated, and rather appalled, by what it must be like to be an aphantasiac. Is it a bit like being asked to translate something into a language you don't speak? — J

For most of my life I thought "mind's eye" stuff was some sort of metaphor. I was in my fourties when I first heard about aphantasia and by extension learned that other people can have visual experiences in various degrees of vividness (up to "hyperphantasia"). I have "visual concepts"; I know what my mum looks like when she's not there, but I can't summon an image. I can sometimes conjur "microflashes"; very short images, like the flash of a camera. It's not worth the effort.

In terms of visual experience, a memory of something is very distinct from something I imagine. If I remember what something looks like I trigger a "visual concept". It's non-linguistic; it just sits there in the mind - something once seen, but unavailable to anything vision-like. When I imagine something, and you ask me for details, I make them up on the spot, one after another. In retrospect, I know realise how those meditation techniques where they have you lie down in darkness and someone narrates something are supposed to work. I always thought it was strange that I was supposed to relax and they made me work. I thought I was just slow. It never occured to me that others might just have visual experience to go along with the narration.

***

After reading this thread, I'm wondering if we're not seeing memories too much in terms of... computers? Something stored; something retrieved. Or the metaphor of storage to begin with: the warehouse of the mind. I think memories are more integrated than that in the daily praxis. A memore of an event that's no accurate is still a memory: it's continuous with how you see things, and you'll have to deal with an error to go on. Sometimes people my deliberately not check up on a memory, so they can go on the way things are. But where do these misrememberings come from; if you remember a detail wrong, is that some sort of imagination? What if the problem was your perception in that moment: that is it's not your memory that's wrong - as it's accurate to what you've experienced - but it's your experience that wasn't accurate to the moment. I think you peel back the layers you might end up with "elementary particles" that inform everything you do. I'm too confused right now to think further down that lane, as there would be no memory without imagination, and no imagination without memory - but it feels like I'm transgressing "tiers" here, and I can't quite make it out.

- You deleted the best post in the thread. :razz:

I really don't know what the "self-quale" is. — J

It's the experience of what it's like to be the owner of this leg or that arm etc. that is attached to my body. It's a specific phenomenal quality that is different to watching that table, for instance, which is not part of my body. I think nobody can describe qualia. I can only hope that you see what I mean. Also, nobody can describe the phenomenal quality of yellow, for example. We just trust that everyone experiences the same quality that we call "yellow". (Someone may experience blue instead. Who knows?)

Oh I don't think so. There have been several interesting points raised (by you, @Dawnstorm, et al).

No, my post was really just about methodology, because here's the thing: as posed, the question is about psychology. @J wanted to get away from that, but then you should really be asking different questions.

And that would be worth doing, because memory is a very deep thing, it is the substrate of our mental lives, the medium within which thoughts grow, the object and enabler of perception and imagination, ... There's obviously a lot for psychology to say about all that.

But what I find particularly interesting is the way memory can suddenly rise up and take control of the whole show, shouldering aside perception and imagination, all the mental work of keeping you alive. Memory refuses to stay in its place as the dependable foot soldier of thought. When the conditions are right (temperature and so on), a certain sort of breeze can throw me right back to my childhood.

It is noteworthy how unbeholden to time our mental lives can be.

All true. And this kind of discussion really does help to make the border between psychology and phenomenology a little less fuzzy. Ideally, I'd want any description I gave of what it's like to identify a mental item as a purported memory to be consistent with several psychological theories about how memories are formed, stored, etc. The description itself is meant to be "bracketed" in the classical sense. Just examine the phenomena: here I am, here comes the mental item, here's me identifying it (seemingly instantly) as a purported memory. What has happened, or what have I caused to happen, to me? (Not so much "What has happened to cause this mental event?"). What must be the case about experience in order for me to do this?

Our new Dear Leader is planning a YUGE military parade on his upcoming birthday, the largest for more than 40 years. — J

I wonder if he'll have the massed missile launchers and tanks, like his comrade, Putin.

ON the OP, the only thing I have to add, is that when an aged relative was in her dotage and suffering dementia, one of the things I noticed is that she lost all sense of when memories had occurred. She would refer to people or events that we knew had happened decades previously as though they had just happened. ('Where is Lynne? She said she would call' - Lynne having died decades previously.) The metaphor I thought of was the index on a hard drive being corrupted so that random pieces of memory were floating to the surface of her conscious awareness without any reference to her current experience (which was, of course, very sad to see, although she did not appeared distressed by it.)

The other general point I've noticed in my own life is the deceptiveness of memory. One can have an apparently crystal-clear recollection of an episode or a scene in your life from years previously (now I'm older I notice this) but then find out that you weren't in that place at that time, or some other aspect of the memory is fictitious.

here I am, here comes the mental item, here's me identifying it (seemingly instantly) as a purported memory. — J

Convince me that's either (a) not already a theory about how mental life works, or (b) it's a good theory, a reasonable theory.

What has happened, or what have I caused to happen, to me? (Not so much "What has happened to cause this mental event?") — J

Yes, yes, but you seem to have the idea that the "mental item" might have causes, and those fall within the purview of psychology, but your identifying the mental item as a memory (or a fancy or a perception) does not, is not itself another sort of mental item, and does not fall within the purview of psychology. I can't imagine why you would think that. Surely identifying a thought as a memory is as much a psychological event as the thought so identified.

Very good. You're right to press me on this. Let me see if I can respond.

here I am, here comes the mental item, here's me identifying it (seemingly instantly) as a purported memory.
— J

Convince me that's either (a) not already a theory about how mental life works, or (b) it's a good theory, a reasonable theory. — Srap Tasmaner

My question here would be: If this is already a theory, could there ever be a phenomenological reduction? What would you propose in its place, granting phenomenology?

you seem to have the idea that the "mental item" might have causes, and those fall within the purview of psychology, but your identifying the mental item as a memory (or a fancy or a perception) does not, is not itself another sort of mental item, and does not fall within the purview of psychology. I can't imagine why you would think that. Surely identifying a thought as a memory is as much a psychological event as the thought so identified. — Srap Tasmaner

A subtle point. Yes, the act of identifying a thought as a memory is a mental item, a psychological event; it occurs at T1 and is presumably caused, as much as any other mental event is caused. But we're in the habit of making a discrimination here. "Here comes the mental item" is meant to appeal to a cause understood as not within my conscious control. (Again, a reminder that this whole example refers to unbidden images coming to mind.) When we ask for a cause or an explanation, we need to invoke psychology, at least to some degree: Why are memories formed? How and why do they emerge into consciousness? What reliability must they possess? What correlations with brain activity are important? etc.

But the "Why?" of "Why do I identify an image as a (purported) memory?" is different -- unless we are thoroughgoing physicalists. We believe, generally, that an explanation here is going to involve some reference to reasons, to conscious activity. We aren't dealing with a brute fact about neuronal activity, though arguably the reasons must supervene on such activity. Here we're asking, "How is it the case that my experience is what it is?" No doubt there will always be a psychological, causal story that can also be told about this, but it doesn't answer the same question.

This is really a version of my response to your first objection. If there is such a thing as phenomenology, then it must be separated from psychology in some meaningful way. Perhaps there is not. In which case all mental items are indeed on a par, and we shouldn't try to find alternate descriptions of them beyond the physical.

Is this a complete response to the points you raise? I don't think so. But tell me where you see the weaknesses.

I wonder if he'll have the massed missile launchers and tanks, like his comrade, Putin. — Wayfarer

He unquestionably will. And I'll bet good money that he'll have the parade route lined with large portraits of himself (held by "private individuals," of course). They are already up on walls, four stories high, and in front of public buildings, in Washington DC, paid for by . . .? https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/05/22/trump-lincoln-national-mall-usda/

the deceptiveness of memory — Wayfarer

Yes. This is part of why I find the OP question interesting. It would be one thing if memories were 100% reliable, such that to recognize one was to recognize its accuracy as a memory. But since that's not the case, I'm left wondering what it is that allows the "purported memory" identification. As I wrote, the only thing I can liken it to is our ability to utter a sentence without asserting it. We can recognize that sentence as a truth-apt utterance without claiming that it is true.

Unfortunately, I doubt there's a whole heck of a lot of philosophy involved in such; more of series of neural synapses making connections that invoke a sense of recollection in intelligent beings which benefits the organism due to utility of avoiding danger and/or finding safety, shelter, or other tangible resource. But who knows. :confused:

I thought I was just slow. It never occured to me that others might just have visual experience to go along with the narration. — Dawnstorm

Wow. You describe this very well. If you don't mind my asking into it some more: Has this created problems for you in your interactions with people, or does your brain come up with workarounds that facilitate communication?

What if the problem was your perception in that moment: that is, it's not your memory that's wrong - as it's accurate to what you've experienced - but it's your experience that wasn't accurate to the moment. — Dawnstorm

Yes. It's like the puzzle about what happens when our taste in coffee changes. (I think this is attributable to Dennett?). We used to like Folgers, now we like Bustello and find Folgers bitter. So . . . remembering how Folgers used to taste to us, are we remembering accurately? Or was Folgers a bitter-tasting coffee even then, only we misperceived it?

a sense of recollection — Outlander

OK. If there is a "sense" of recollection, though, the philosophical/phenomenological part would be: What is it? What does this actually mean, experientially?

Fair enough. The difference I'm seeing between "yellow," on the one hand, and "self" or "past" or "true event" may not be genuine. But shouldn't the fact that "yellow" results from a direct sensual perception/interaction make it different from the others, which do not, but rather rely on constructs of some sort? (Maybe not "self" -- or maybe so!)

If there is a "sense" of recollection — J

If? Memory is real, hence your reference to it and the fact this entire thread is devoted to it, so, that's already been laid out. That is, essentially, if not word for word, the definition of what the majority of persons (and the entirety of professionals, I believe) would say defines "memory."

What is it? — J

Well, as stated, I would argue (or rather numerous scientific texts would argue for me):

[a] series of neural synapses making connections that invoke a sense of recollection in intelligent beings which benefits the organism due to utility of avoiding danger and/or finding safety, shelter, or other tangible resource. — Outlander

What does this actually mean, experientially? — J

Naturally, each man's experience is uniquely his own. So, that would be up to the "experiencer." Part of the joy and mystery of life, I guess. :smile:

If you don't mind my asking into it some more: Has this created problems for you in your interactions with people, or does your brain come up with workarounds that facilitate communication? — J

I've never had problems with this, other than minor stuff (like the meditation technique I mentioned not working on me; also creative writing exercises... nothing that I couldn't interpret in terms of other failures). I mean, I grew up for 40 to 45 years without realising there was this difference. Even now I'm not completely sure (fairly sure, but not completely) that I actually have aphantasia. It's just that I see myself so much in diagnosed people's accounts, and a lot of little stuff makes sense.

Communication isn't a problem. I don't think a workaround is even necessary: the most relevant topics would be visualisation related; we'd certainly not have been on the same page - but the problem is to figure that out, and that's hard when we end up in a "successful" social situation (such that both of us "get what we want"). I think (and thought so even before I heard of aphantasia) that successful communication is better understood in terms of situational compatibility of individual meanings than in terms of similarity of the individual meanings involved. So if a communicative situation ends satisfactorily, you're not going to realise in what way meanings the people involved hold are different - people are just going to assume similarity (I certainly did).

I'm sort of bad at spacial perception; in intelligence tests I was always tremendously slowed down during those "wheels-and-levers" tests. Not sure if this is related to aphantasia in some way. It's certainly not a necessary consequence, but I did hear that people with aphantasia have trouble rotating 3D objects in their mind, so maybe? I'm certainly bad at stuff like reading maps, and fitting in furniture (I need to measure when it's obivous to anyone else that stuff will fit or not).

I'm perfectly fine the way I am; I never felt anything was lacking. Come to think of it, back after leaving school there was a year where I had three instances of a sudden shift in perception. It went along with some sort of shock, but no re-orientation was necessary. Different but the same. It was weird and fascinating. Some neural anomaly, I suppose?

The first was rain, all of a sudden I saw it more in geometrical terms. The next instance was the face of a former teacher; this one was close to making a functional difference: I'm not sure I'd have recognised him if he'd looked like that to me in the first place - but it switched mid-situation. A sudden shock, a moment of confusion, but I adjusted quickly. The last was darkness in my own house (I'm light sensitive so I tend to not switch on the light if I know a place very well). This is the only one I have absolutely no concept for - I don't understand the difference in terms of anything.

It was just those three instances, and all within one year. I've never had anything like this before or since, and I still don't know what that was. But it served as a quite nice illustration for myself of what it is like to "see things differently". Literally, too.

But the "Why?" of "Why do I identify an image as a (purported) memory?" is different -- unless we are thoroughgoing physicalists. We believe, generally, that an explanation here is going to involve some reference to reasons, to conscious activity. — J

This is the main thing I find so puzzling about your approach. (You seem to think it's phenomenology, and I think it's rather the opposite.)

Remembering is much like breathing; we do it on purpose, some of the time, and automatically, almost all the time, and we never stop.

That's "remembering", not "becoming aware of a thought and labeling it a memory". If that happens at all, it's probably rare, unusual at least. A thought, if it's a memory, comes to us as a memory, period.

(And I think it must. Consider the alternative: what reasons could you muster to judge a thought to be a memory? What could you possibly rely upon as you worked out the inference that this indeed is a memory? It is the fundamental form of knowledge; you are already relying on memory when it occurs to you to do a bit of conscious reasoning. You've no hope of hauling memory before the tribunal of reason.

Of course an individual memory is open to criticism, as being inaccurate or incomplete, whatever. But not only is there an obvious difficulty in establishing that a given thought is a memory, any steps you take will be entirely reliant on memory, so memory as such simply must escape judgment.)

Now, if you want to ask, what's that like, for something to be present to the mind as a memory? Fine, and that's headed back toward phenomenology. (What we do, rather than how, as my deleted post had it.)

But what we can't do is go looking for criteria that we consciously use to identify memories or distinguish them from other thoughts. There had better not be such criteria, because we couldn't know it and never apply them without already allowing memory to have its way.

we do it on purpose, some of the time, and automatically, almost all the time, and we never stop. That's "remembering", not "becoming aware of a thought and labeling it a memory". If that happens at all, it's probably rare, unusual at least. A thought, if it's a memory, comes to us as a memory, period. — Srap Tasmaner

This is fascinating, because it's so contrary to my own experience. Yes, I'm familiar with the idea of a conscious "remembering" when we try to remember something, on purpose, or else it comes to us automatically because we're in a context where we expect a memory. I agree that presents a different, if overlapping, set of problems. But I am constantly being bombarded with unbidden mental images, randomly, and often triggered by things I'm barely aware of. Far from unusual, it's much more common for me than deliberately seeking out some memory, or expecting one.

So there we are. I suppose you've had this happen sometimes, at least? My question would then be, When it happens, are you instantaneously aware, as best you can tell, that the thought/image is a purported memory? And if so, how?

what reasons could you muster to judge a thought to be a memory? What could you possibly rely upon as you worked out the inference that this indeed is a memory? — Srap Tasmaner

Well, exactly. "Reasons" doesn't sound right, nor does "inference," and yet we make the identification. You want to say that this is a kind of reductio of the idea that we do anything when we recognize a memory: "It is the fundamental form of knowledge." And so it may turn out to be, but I'm not yet sure. Or are you perhaps wanting to say that when we recognize a sensual perception as such, it is also a fundamental form of knowledge?

Now, if you want to ask, what's that like, for something to be present to the mind as a memory? Fine, and that's headed back toward phenomenology. — Srap Tasmaner

I think phenomenology can also handle what I believe is a previous question, namely whether something occurs for us between the image and the identification. I'm asking, What's it like for something to be present to the mind before it is recognized as a purported memory? I hope you can agree that, at least sometimes -- rarely for you, frequently for me -- that is a thing that happens.

But what we can't do is go looking for criteria that we consciously use to identify memories or distinguish them from other thoughts. — Srap Tasmaner

This is quite possibly right. I rather doubt the process is conscious, which is part of why I raise the question in a phenomenological, "what's-it-like" context. We may decide it's like nothing at all.

Thanks for going into all this. You're a good writer and you make it vivid and understandable.

I think (and thought so even before I heard of aphantasia) that successful communication is better understood in terms of situational compatibility of individual meanings than in terms of similarity of the individual meanings involved — Dawnstorm

Yes, good observation.

But I am constantly being bombarded with unbidden mental images, randomly, and often triggered by things I'm barely aware of. Far from unusual, it's much more common for me than deliberately seeking out some memory, or expecting one. — J

This is difficult. I think there's a twofold meaning involved here: memory vs. imagination as a psychological function, and remembering vs. imagining as an action. You can't remember stuff without involving the psychological function of "imagination", and you can't imagine stuff without the psychological function of "remembering". For instance, if I tell you to imagine a starfish, you'll need to remember what one looks like, or you won't be successful. And if I tell you to remember a starfish, you need to be able to "imagine" a past situation (since it's not here right now). Now if what you're doing is "associating" (or something), situations might occur in which it becomes relevant whether the content of the association "really occured, was experienced, etc." or not. And it's going to be hard to figure this out precisely because the psychological functions of imagination and memory are both going to be involved to some degree or other. Embellished memory? Memory-inspired vision?

How you can tell will differ depending on why this distinction matters. If it doesn't matter situationally, you're likely dealing with some sort of reification or other, and the cunfusion's going to be chronic.

A common example would be a composer composing a piece of music and then finding out it sounds like something else. Accidental similarity? Unconscious plagiarism? Note that this distinction makes sense in a particular social context. A lot if the lawsuits I've heard about, for example, I find... silly. I hear the similarity, but in most cases being caught up in western music theory promotes certain similarities. For example, an organ run in Webber's Phantom of the Opera, and Rick Wakeman's instumental Ischariot sound very much the same; but they're basically just walking up and down a scale in half-steps. I imagine you could find similar movements earlier (Bruckner maybe?). Yet, if this goes to court a decision is forced. And to the extent that institution "court" is supposed to be meaningful, a decision should also be meaningful, and (partly) because of that the distinction between "memory" and "imagination" becomes relevant. And the composer might ask themselves, "did I get it from there?" So:

Is a sudden, unbidden image a memory or an imagination? It's probably to some degree both. Can you figure out a ratio? What's the expected certainty you can reach? And is the effort needed proportional to the situational importance of the distinction? The result will never amount to more than a provisional classification, though.

Basically, cognitive activity is always going to involve more than one cognitive function, and confusion may occur when we use the same word for the activity as for the function; such as memory in general, and "a memory", or "remembering". You can create an analytic category but should be careful not to reify it beyond it's situational occurance. If you do treat a sudden unbidden image as either an image or memory that treating it as such will become part of what constitutes its status - and it's a status which can be contested by others, and that being contested is something you can anticipate, and that anticipation can feed into your classification and further behaviour... If you treat something as a memory and it turns out things didn't happen like this in some detail or at all, what you'll have is a "false memory" - because of the way your treat it. All the while, it is what it is. You can always sidestep the issue and call unbidden images with a defined trigger an "association", and you might be happier for it. One can get trapped in dichotomies of ones own making.

When it happens, are you instantaneously aware, as best you can tell, that the thought/image is a purported memory? And if so, how? — J

The first question is, fundamentally, empirical ― not just about me, but in general: is this an experience people have? The second question is still empirical, because it falls squarely within the domain of (cognitive) psychology.

― ― If you want my take on the psychology, it's worth as much as you're paying for it: I would expect that thoughts are "categorized" on the fly, as needed, and only as much as needed, and that overwhelmingly this process of categorization is not something you do consciously. "At bottom" there's whatever makes it into your awareness, and that's just some bit of content, probably itself underspecified, and then there's what it gets taken as ― memory, fancy, perception, whatever. The content present might not get characterized to any particularly sharp degree, if it doesn't matter for the rest of what your mind is up to; if it matters, there might be some effort put into it. In short, I'd expect that the difference between memory and imagination is "constructed"; I'd say the same for perception, and I think there's reason to, but I suspect it's a slightly different process since there's enormous specialization for perception in the brain, which might make a difference. It is nevertheless true that people believe they see things that they are in fact imagining, and vice versa, so clearly the same applies here: the difference is negotiable, how something is categorized is not "what it is".

And that's what I am gesturing at when I say that we don't consciously decide whether the content in our awareness is remembered or imagined; in some sense, yes, there's a decision being made about what it is, very much so, but I think that "decision" is mostly made without your conscious involvement. Obviously there will be exceptions.

That's all just blather, though, my guesses based on my reading and that's all. ― ―

Roughly speaking, I think none of this is any of philosophy's business. In the 18th century, before we could do the sort of research we can do now, it may have been acceptable to speculate about how the mind works and how we distinguish perceptions from memories and so on, but it's rather foolish in the 21st century.

There are still some things for philosophy to talk about, I think, just not this, at least not in this way.

Your posts overlap nicely, and are both extremely interesting. I'll just select a few things to highlight.

Now if what you're doing is "associating" (or something), situations might occur in which it becomes relevant whether the content of the association "really occured, was experienced, etc." or not. And it's going to be hard to figure this out precisely because the psychological functions of imagination and memory are both going to be involved to some degree or other. Embellished memory? Memory-inspired vision? — Dawnstorm

Yes, and this is what you'd expect to be the rule rather than the exception. But this topic puzzles me because in fact we find the opposite, most of the time: If I suddenly get an image of my grandfather walking beside me in Manhattan, I know it's a purported memory. And if I get an image of a snark, I'm quite sure it isn't. At the risk of repeating myself, I ask again: How do I know these things? (And see below for some explication about what I mean by "how".) Of course we can make a mistake, and of course a purported memory may be inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree, but that's an outcome that's subsequent to the problem I'm raising: How am I even able to make the "mistake" in the first place? Or to put it differently: What is it about a purported memory that is, evidently, the same to us, regardless of whether the memory is accurate or not? Why does it get recognized as "purported memory" at all? We agree that its accuracy can't be the reason -- so what is it?

A common example would be a composer composing a piece of music and then finding out it sounds like something else. — Dawnstorm

I like this. As a musician myself, I know that subconscious stealing happens all the time. (And yes, if a court convicts you of using a chromatic scale that "belongs" to someone else, we're all in trouble!) I agree that, when a meretricious theft occurs, and assuming it isn't a deliberate rip-off, then something like a confusion of memory with imagination is taking place. Does this tell against my assertion that we almost always know the difference? It might, if the composer had genuinely attended to his musical phrase as he wrote it, and was still in the dark. But we know this isn't how composition works. It's much more rapid and subconscious, and then once it's done we grow attached to it. I'm afraid a certain degree of self-deception and wishful thinking is involved when a composer doesn't identify a musical "memory." The solution, of course, is to play it for somebody else who knows the repertoire.

we don't consciously decide whether the content in our awareness is remembered or imagined; in some sense, yes, there's a decision being made about what it is, very much so, but I think that "decision" is mostly made without your conscious involvement. Obviously there will be exceptions. — Srap Tasmaner

That might be true, so let's say it is. Would we want to also say that, because of the subconscious quality of the "decision," it has no phenomenological character at all? That isn't "isn't like anything"? (I don't mean to press a particular meaning of "phenomenological" on you. Whatever term you'd choose to describe attending to our conscious experiences is fine, and will be what I mean here.) I'm not disputing that, in fact I think it more and more likely. But I need to be convinced that we really have done our "bracketing" as carefully as we can, and really considered what the experience is -- or isn't! -- like, apart from what we think it must be like, based on some psychological theory.

Roughly speaking, I think none of this is any of philosophy's business. In the 18th century, before we could do the sort of research we can do now, it may have been acceptable to speculate about how the mind works and how we distinguish perceptions from memories and so on, but it's rather foolish in the 21st century — Srap Tasmaner

I'm sympathetic to curbing philosophy's enthusiasms, but I think this goes too far. Or perhaps I still haven't made clear what I mean. I'm really not interested at all in "how the mind works." (Not in this thread, that is.). Asking, "How do I know that a mental image is a purported memory?" is not a "how-the-mind-works" question. It's a question about my relation to, my experience of, how the mind works.

Now you'd suggested earlier that this is a false distinction -- that "my experience," even if up one level from the content of that experience, so to speak -- is still a question about how the mind works. And a hardcore believer in scientism can construe it that way. But I don't think you replied to my objection to that: Are you saying, then, that there is no question we can ask that separates phenomenology from psychology? Earlier, you talked about "what's that like, for something to be present to the mind as a memory? Fine, and that's headed back toward phenomenology. (What we do, rather than how)" -- so I assume you do think some distinction is valid. Indeed, when you say "what rather than how," that's very close to my own dubiety about "how". So why may I not draw the distinction as I do, leaving first-level "how" questions to psychology? Phenomenology has to start somewhere!

In any case, if my use of "how" has misled you, I'm sorry. I mean the "how" to translate as "by virtue of what experience".

How does this happen? What is this “presentation”? What occurs, when an alleged memory comes to mind, that allows me to identify it as an alleged memory? It seems as rock-bottom as identifying something as a physical perception. But can this be so? — J

But what we can't do is go looking for criteria that we consciously use to identify memories or distinguish them from other thoughts. There had better not be such criteria, because we couldn't know it and never apply them without already allowing memory to have its way. — Srap Tasmaner

From the perspective of the embodied and embedded mind, memory and recollection are not seen solely as private, internal processes occurring within the brain. Shaun Gallagher, for example, argues that memory is an active process arising from the dynamic interaction between individuals and their bodily and social environments.
Memory is not a single internal event but rather the culmination of the process of the lived experience, including bodily sensations, perceptual cues, and the practical context. For instance, seeing a particular place, handling an object, and participating in social activity can together form a complex, multi-relational enactment of memory. Although the act of remembering involves an implicit self-awareness that “this is something from my past,” any element within this process can take the lead and trigger recollection. What might appear to be a single mental snapshot actually represents a broader, interconnected complex.