So, now that you think about it, it probably is all to do with storing traces in a memory.

So, you probably reject the premise. Ok. — bongo fury

I beg to differ. Your premise says nothing about storing traces or not storing traces.

If all organisms and even plants can learn, they can link past and present events, in the present. How do you explain that if no trace of the past is left in the organism?

Are you quite sure you are sticking with the premise?... — bongo fury

You obviously didn't understand the question. If its neither, then you haven't said anything useful. I'm asking what it is that is in our heads, not what is not in our heads.

And I asked about songs. How are songs different than apples. Unenlightened asserts there are no apples in our heads, but I'm sure that you've heard the expression of having a song in your head.

Do we have direct access to our mind or our brain? And what is the "we" that has this direct or indirect access? Personally, i think the use of the terms, "direct" and "indirect" are the cause of the problem. As usual, the problem is language use.

How apples look like is how they participate in person-sees-fruit events, which are illumination events, which we learn to differentiate among through practice: active participation in such events. — bongo fury

Sounds like you have person-sees-fruit events in your head which contradicts your assertion that it is "neither".

So, now that you think about it, it probably is all to do with storing traces in a memory.
So, you probably reject the premise. Ok.
— bongo fury

I beg to differ. Your premise says nothing about storing traces or not storing traces. — Olivier5

Well, it says no representations in the brain. Storable units corresponding to (representing) external events are excluded by implication. (Was my reasoning.)

If all organisms and even plants can learn, they can link past and present events, in the present. How do you explain that if no trace of the past is left in the organism? — Olivier5

The organism's ability to repeat and modify behaviours is a kind of a trace of the past. But explaining that doesn't seem to require us to infer the storing of traces or representations.

If it's neither, then you haven't said anything useful. — Harry Hindu

So you reject the premise that I said. Ok.

How are songs different than apples. — Harry Hindu

Songs are sound events. Having them "in your head" is practicing brain (and general neural and muscular) shivers that refine your readiness to engage with and participate in the sound events.

Personally, i think the use of the terms, "direct" and "indirect" are the cause of the problem. — Harry Hindu

To me, they do sometimes indicate a common commitment to internal representations. Hence my efforts here.

Sounds like you have person-sees-fruit events in your head — Harry Hindu

No, I experience, undergo, participate in them.

it says no representations in the brain. Storable units corresponding to (representing) external events are excluded by implication. (Was my reasoning.) — bongo fury

So how do you explain your own memories?

As brain shivers that reset my readiness to choose appropriate words and pictures.

As brain shivers — bongo fury

Meaning?

Neural events. But not words or pictures.

Because I meant memories in the sense of rememberings.

In the sense of the scenes remembered, I could have said either the scenery itself or the words or pictures readied for use, or both. (None of which are, as neural events are, in the head.)

Because I meant memories in the sense of rememberings. — bongo fury

That's what I meant too. If you can remember events from the past, you must have some way to record them.

If you can remember events from the past, you must have some way to record them. — Olivier5

That's one view, which people have widely held, even before the invention of the camera. (E.g. Hippocrates. Can't locate the source. "Soul receive images by day, recalls them by night", roughly.)

The opposite view is that "recalling a scene to mind" is a uniquely human skill of rehearsing and maintaining a narrative, ideally a highly flexible but consistent one. (E.g. Bartlett, Frankish.)

Having a narrative in the head is like having a song in the head. It's not literally there. (See above.)

The opposite view is that "recalling a scene to mind" is a uniquely human skill of practicing and maintaining a narrative, ideally a highly flexible but consistent one. (E.g. Bartlett.) — bongo fury

Tell that to the plants around you. Apparently they have some capacity to learn and yet none to maintain narratives.

The opposite view is that "recalling a scene to mind" is a uniquely human skill of rehearsing and maintaining a narrative, ideally a highly flexible but consistent one. (E.g. Bartlett.) — bongo fury

Interesting... Where? I'd like to read some more.

I did some stuff on narratives as corporate memory, long ago.

Ok, I may be exaggerating. Apparently it's only Bartlett and I that see the absurdity of the trace theories and memory-bank theories of memory. (Or google isn't my friend tonight.) [Edit: added Frankish link above.] But do share...

But is it reasonable to expect that any animals without language ever "recall a scene to mind"? Except whilst asleep and dreaming, of course...

But is it reasonable to expect that any animals without language ever "recall a scene to mind"? — bongo fury

I wouldn't be surprised if apes, elephants, whales/dolphins and some birds did it.

I doubt that we ourselves do it before we grasp the reference of words and pictures.

I'm open to persuasion though. Start with an ape? In what situation might it have the brain shivers that you would describe as having a mental image and I would describe as readying to select among pictures?

OK - but the basic idea that episodic memory is reconstructed rather than recalled seems uncontroversial.

But is it reasonable to expect that any animals without language ever "recall a scene to mind"? Except whilst asleep and dreaming, of course... — bongo fury

Far more reasonable than what you usually say. If they can dream, they can imagine and recall scenes.

As brain shivers — bongo fury

Sounds suspiciously like a zombie!

I doubt that we ourselves do it before we grasp the reference of words and pictures.

I'm open to persuasion though. — bongo fury

The persuasion is not the interesting thing here though, it's the doubt. What would possess you to have such a doubt?

Musical interlude. Yellow shines best in the dark.

Songs are sound events. Having them "in your head" is practicing brain (and general neural and muscular) shivers that refine your readiness to engage with and participate in the sound events. — bongo fury

Then its brain shiver events all the way down? If not, then the brain shivers represent events that are not brain shivers. If not, then how are brain shiver events about events that are not just other brain shivers?

OK - but the basic idea that episodic memory is reconstructed rather than recalled seems uncontroversial. — Banno

Yes, until one dares to drop the re from reconstructed, and thus challenge the near-universal presumption of an original recording, and hence even of recall of smaller fragments merely subject to rearrangement.

What is corporate memory? Anything to do with Dennett's multiple drafts? Which I may have had in mind when claiming there is an "opposite view" (to that which assumes a recording).

Far more reasonable than what you usually say. If they can dream, they can imagine and recall scenes. — Olivier5

off-line thoughts [dreams] don't (whereas at least some of the on-line ones do) have to be "about" the ongoing scenery and the organism's path through it. On the other hand, nothing is to stop them from replicating (if only partially and incoherently) previous on-line thoughts of that kind. The question is whether this, if it is roughly what happens, implicates mental images, as we tend to assume it does... — bongo fury

Sounds suspiciously like a zombie! — Marchesk

If I'm wrong, and the appropriately confused machine might still be unconscious, I need alerting towards features of my own conscious thoughts that I am leaving out of consideration. — bongo fury

But is it reasonable to expect that any animals without language ever "recall a scene to mind"?
— bongo fury

What would possess you to have such a doubt? — Isaac

Anthropomorphic assumptions, possibly. Like, that recalling a particular scene (e.g. the mouse nearly caught half and hour ago) involves recognising a time and place within a narrative (however primitive) of the day's events. Without that narrative, you only have a dream, possibly a day dream. Less plausibly recall of a scene. The neuro-muscular shiver relates no more specifically to the scene in question than does the shiver that happens more visibly when the cat claws at a toy.

Or, as I say, persuade me otherwise, by better describing a typical occasion on which an animal recalls a scene to mind.

@Olivier5 I speculate that human recall is based on such non-specific shivers, connected into a narrative; not on a recording, however distorted or fragmented.

how are brain shiver events about events — Harry Hindu

Thoughts are "about" things in that they are the brain so shivering its neurons as to adjust its readiness to act on those things. Conscious thoughts, in particular, adjust its readiness to select among symbols for pointing at those things. This kind of thought is thus (whether online or off) thought "in" symbols, and consequently prone to making us think (mistakenly, though often harmlessly) that the symbols are in our heads. — bongo fury

the basic idea that episodic memory is reconstructed rather than recalled seems uncontroversial. — Banno

The question is: reconstructed based on what? Surely not some image bank like in a computer; I agree with Fury and you on this, because it's hard to recall a mental image of anything or anyone, or even imagine a face as clear as a picture in one's mind. Dreams (which includes characters and some background) are very vague and impermanent. Memories like dreams and imagined things, are often vague, and impermanent though they last longer than dreams.

So, memories are reconstructed alright, but based on what? There must be some physical trace left somewhere.

Or, as I say, persuade me otherwise, by better describing a typical occasion on which an animal recalls a scene to mind. — bongo fury

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29754898/

But I wasn't so much interested in persuading you, that seems a Sisyphean task (not you personally, just in general), I was just interested in why you would hold such a presumption in the absence of any evidence either way. People's assumptions intrigue me.

Ok, anthropomorphic assumptions, apparently. Thanks for the link. With it's shockingly anthropomorphic illustration! I shall study.

... Haha, point taken. Links to fascinating studies answering this too:

Start with an ape? In what situation might it have the brain shivers that you would describe as having a mental image and I would describe as readying to select among pictures? — bongo fury

Still, the mental images (whatever we call them or construe them as) aren't traces, or recordings.

What is corporate memory? — bongo fury

Oh, no, nothing so profound, but perhaps more useful. I wrote a short thesis on methods for corporate bodies - educational institutions were my examples - advocating narratives as a way of tracking corporate history.

Are we doing memory now?

We ought take some care as to what we are referring to. There's short term and long term memory, of course. he concern here is more with long term. Then there is episodic, autobiographic and semantic memory. I'm not too convinced about autobiographical memory as a distinct thing, but the difference between episodic and semantic memory seems pretty straight forward.

A cat can remember it was fed, but it cannot remember that it was fed last Tuesday. So semantic memory might not be available to animals that do not have language.

Semantic memory is not vague, in the way episodic memory might be.

As for the 'physical trace', I'm happy to leave that to science. There's a growing body of evidence on the topic...@Isaac?

Thoughts are "about" things in that they are the brain so shivering its neurons as to adjust its readiness to act on those things. Conscious thoughts, in particular, adjust its readiness to select among symbols for pointing at those things. This kind of thought is thus (whether online or off) thought "in" symbols, and consequently prone to making us think (mistakenly, though often harmlessly) that the symbols are in our heads. — bongo fury

But isn't our brain in our heads? Your brain shivers are meaningless. Where are the scribbles you are reading now - in your head, in your brain, on the screen? Where is the scribbles' meaning - in your head, in your brain or on the screen?