Forgetting is kind of a filtering process that enables us to remember significant experiences and disregard insignificant ones.

according to a new review paper from Paul Frankland, a senior fellow in CIFAR's Child & Brain Development program, and Blake Richards, an associate fellow in the Learning in Machines & Brains program, our brains are actively working to forget. In fact, the two University of Toronto researchers propose that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time, but to guide and optimize intelligent decision making by only holding on to valuable information.

Where do forgotten things go? Or do the ideas simply cease to exist? Maybe forgotten ideas are are somehow reabsorbed into the fabric of information? - a bit like how dead things rot. Or maybe they never really existed in the first place?.....Is it really possible to ever truly forget something? Sometimes I seem to forget that I'm alive.

Anyway, where is the best place to start? We all seem caught up in the middle of something, trying to keep up with things, if you understand the question, you might still need more context.. — believenothing

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say, but some things came to mind as I read.

Where do forgotten things go? I'll speak in terms of my experience. Maybe StreetLightX can talk about neurology. As I've gotten older, I get the feeling that everything that has ever happened to me is still happening now. It's all happening at once. Things that happened to me 50 years ago are just as real as those that happened five minutes ago. The people are just as real. I care about them just as much. I'm not claiming some mystical experience, it's just an artifact of memory, one I enjoy very much. I'm also not saying that I remember the details of everything that happened, only that my life, past, lays out in an impressionistic tapestry. On the other hand, there are parts of my past I am cut off from where the tapestry is faint or cloudy.

Here's something else that came to mind, although I don't think this is what you were talking about. I always like a chance to quote from my favorite poem - The Black Cottage by Robert Frost:

Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans—

In fact, the two University of Toronto researchers propose that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time, but to guide and optimize intelligent decision making by only holding on to valuable information.

Sounds plausible. I think I wanted this thread to be a bit like a reject bin, I will come back to it..
I can't think of an example of an insignificant experience so I suppose you make sense in a way, I would like to learn how to control my mind and it seems difficult, perhaps impossible.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say, but some things came to mind as I read. — T Clark

Thanks T Clark, sounds to me like you are saying forgotten things go no-where?

On the other hand, there are parts of my past I am cut off from where the tapestry is faint or cloudy. — T Clark

I get the impression you have clearly understood my question and I'm glad you replied.

In fact, the two University of Toronto researchers propose that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time, but to guide and optimize intelligent decision making by only holding on to valuable information.

Sounds plausible. I think I wanted this thread to be a bit like a reject bin, I will come back to it..
I can't think of an example of an insignificant experience so I suppose you make sense in a way, I would like to learn how to control my mind and it seems difficult, perhaps impossible. — believenothing

Of course, there are people who, apparently, remember everything in detail.

kudos

I came back to make a comment but I don't remember what I was go to say.

I bet I remember as soon as I turn off the computer.

IF we are speaking in the broader context of culture, it would seem like somethings that are lost, are really and truly lost. Some things that are lost, however, have donated to the culture parts of themselves.

Take the Antikythera mechanism as an example. The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek analogue computer and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes. Measuring 340-millimetre (13 in) × 180-millimetre (7.1 in) × 90-millimetre (3.5 in) the mechanism employed 37 intermeshing bronze wheels; the largest--5.5 inches, had 223 teeth. It was lost in a shipwreck The function or purpose of the thoroughly encrusted object was not immediately obvious. By carefully clearing away some bits of corrosion, using advanced imaging techniques, and reconstruction, several pieces of lost information were found.

1. Greek craftsmen were able to cut precisely fine toothed gear wheels.
2. The various diameters of the wheels was precise.
3. the manually powered wheels could predict future eclipses, positions of stars, and so forth.
4. A lot of knowledge about astronomy was baked into the Antikythera mechanism.

The lost object did not deprive the Greeks of anything more than the object itself. Everything that went into the mechanism--knowledge and technique--remained in Greek culture--for a period of time, at least. By sinking to the bottom of the sea, the object was, however, lost to those immediate successors who might have benefitted from having it. Eventually the Technique was lost, and wouldn't be redeveloped for another 1500 years with clock mechanisms. The knowledge about the movement of the moon, sun, planets, and so forth was dissolved into succeeding cultures, and became quite degraded as the cultures themselves degraded.

How information and technique is lost is a more interesting story than a boat sinking and taking with it lots of interesting stuff.

The Antikythera mechanism

Where do forgotten things go? Or do the ideas simply cease to exist? Maybe forgotten ideas are are somehow reabsorbed into the fabric of information? - a bit like how dead things rot. Or maybe they never really existed in the first place? — believenothing

Now I remember.
This would seem to apply to many traditions and folkways. The cultures tend to keep them going without any memory of why they do it.

A portion of your reply has been posted on The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Congratulations and Thank you for your contribution.

Thank you.

Where do forgotten things go? Or do the ideas simply cease to exist? — believenothing

They go to new memories. The storage space gets a make-over.

They go to new memories. The storage space gets a make-over. — AngleWyrm

:)
nice way of seeing it.

They go to new memories. The storage space gets a make-over. — AngleWyrm

Belivenothing is right in that what you said is a lovely way of thinking about it.

Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans— — T Clark

What a delicious line.

What a delicious line. — Noble Dust

Yes. It's one of the poems that feel good to say out loud.

One of the poems I love to say out loud is called
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
"Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

This is obviously a philosophy of the mind question, so I hate to bring science into it, but I do remember reading that memories are more like reconstruction than retrieval. Over time, the more insignificant memories degrade in their reconstruction, as the neurons and synapses are repurposed for new memories. However, from what I understand, every memory still exists in the brain, just in more fragmented, harder to put together ways.

In terms of philosophy of the mind, I'd imagine a dualist would say something about memories disappearing into the non-physical world. A materialist might be closer to the scientific explanation.

You were right on the money about how they decompose to be repurposed.

Our ideas may be recycled whether we choose to share them or not.

Reminded of a very good movie. Should check it out.

Interestingly enough it's called "Re-Cycle". :)

Bit of horror but very well done where it's not even the focus. Stunning. Visually. And conceptually. Must see. Man I want to watch that now.

I left this forum forever.