Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Social psych nerd heaven
Here I sit, in my comfy little hotel suite, watching none other than Star-Trek: The Next Generation. It's some bizarre episode where the Enterprise is scanned by an alien ship, causing a sort of "mass amnesia" of all crew members (including the android, Data). That is, they can not remember anything about their identities, but they are able to still operate equipment, intuitively knowing how it all works.
Back to the 21st century (that's this one), there is a famous case studied in psychology - often called "the most famous psych subject" - where a concert pianist lost certain memory functions due to a degenerative disease causing a special type of amnesia. Due to the amnesia, which he will have for life, the patient wakes up every day forgetting who he is and can not remember anything about his life history, but he can still sit down at the piano and play a beautiful concert piece!
His piano performances still improve with the amount of practice he does, yet he can not consciously remember having done any practice that day. If he meets his wife one day, he can not remember having met her before. If she leaves the room and returns, he can not remember her having been there moments before.
Back to the 24th century, the collective amnesia problem has had some intriguing - and humourous - implications. Data ended up becoming the bartender (rather than the chief tactical officer) for a short while. All the girls start coming on to 2nd-in-command Reiker, he must think he's quite the pimp. Security chief Wharf mistakenly thinks he is the captain at first, and the way to "prepare" the ship is to ensure that it is all armed for battle. "Strength is preparedness, we must be strong."
This is quite intriguing. What would we all do if we had our core competencies, but could not remember our identities?
On a happy note, HM does not live a miserable existence. His journals are littered with accounts of "this is the first moment I remember being alive, this is so beautiful, life is so beautiful, this first moment is such a wonderful experience, everything is so amazing..."
Back to the 21st century (that's this one), there is a famous case studied in psychology - often called "the most famous psych subject" - where a concert pianist lost certain memory functions due to a degenerative disease causing a special type of amnesia. Due to the amnesia, which he will have for life, the patient wakes up every day forgetting who he is and can not remember anything about his life history, but he can still sit down at the piano and play a beautiful concert piece!
His piano performances still improve with the amount of practice he does, yet he can not consciously remember having done any practice that day. If he meets his wife one day, he can not remember having met her before. If she leaves the room and returns, he can not remember her having been there moments before.
Back to the 24th century, the collective amnesia problem has had some intriguing - and humourous - implications. Data ended up becoming the bartender (rather than the chief tactical officer) for a short while. All the girls start coming on to 2nd-in-command Reiker, he must think he's quite the pimp. Security chief Wharf mistakenly thinks he is the captain at first, and the way to "prepare" the ship is to ensure that it is all armed for battle. "Strength is preparedness, we must be strong."
This is quite intriguing. What would we all do if we had our core competencies, but could not remember our identities?
On a happy note, HM does not live a miserable existence. His journals are littered with accounts of "this is the first moment I remember being alive, this is so beautiful, life is so beautiful, this first moment is such a wonderful experience, everything is so amazing..."
