The Integrity of Memory and the Process of Reasoning

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Are our memory and reasoning processes reliable? To answer this, we must first discuss how people experience similar situations differently. Ironically, we are using our reasoning processing to write this paper and the reliability of these processes is in question. If only our minds were on videotape, then we could fast forward and rewind, but then memory would be pointless.

We're all living in the same physical world, but when it comes to knowing what's going on around us is a different story. Two people can sit through the same event and remember it differently. This may be due to fact one's mind works like a filter through which memory is formed. We all use our experiences from the past to relate to our new experiences. Whether we are using our emotions or our beliefs, we're bound to perceive the past differently. It's inevitable for this to occur; thus, I believe that memory is not necessarily wholly reliable. We've all experienced a time when we confused a dream with real life. When this occurs, something or someone usually reminds us that the events in question were a dream and not reality. This is further proof that memory is not completely reliable since one can sometimes not tell the difference between the dreaming world and the real world.

The only accurate way to test our memory is to carefully design an experiment and analyze its outcome. This should involve a cam-recorder, someone to explain how the event occurred in their mind, and a panel of reliable judges to determine whether or not the individual remembered it accordingly. My guess is that their answer would be very close to what actually happened, but the intricate details may be a little off.

We rely on our reasoning processes and awareness to determine, among other things, the difference between fantasies and reality. Obviously, reasoning processes are at least partially reliable since there are so many inventions and scientific breakthroughs which would never have been discovered if not for the ability to reason. In light of this fact, reasoning processes, though not infallible since created by humans, are probably a bit more reliable than memory since memory has so many internal variables which to consider.

All of this has me asking myself a bigger question.

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