Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘But if memories are malleable, what are the implications for how we understand our “true” selves?… Your question gets to a major purpose of memory, which is to give us an illusion of stability in a world that is always changing. Because if we look for memories, we’ll reshape them into our beliefs of what’s happening right now. We’ll be biased in terms of how we sample the past. We have these illusions of stability, but we are always changing. And depending on what memories we draw upon, those life narratives can change.

Tell me more about what you mean when you say “illusion.” I probably overstated it with the word “illusion,” but there is an illusionary component. I think we have this illusion that much of the world is cause and effect. But the reason, in my opinion, that we have that illusion is that our brain is constantly trying to find the patterns. One thing that makes the human brain so sophisticated is that we have a longer timeline in which we can integrate information than many other species. That gives us the ability to say: “Hey, I’m walking up and giving money to the cashier at the cafe. The barista is going to hand me a cup of coffee in about a minute or two.” This is everyday fortune telling that we do. There’s nothing that says that the barista won’t throw this coffee at me. There is this illusion that we know exactly what’s going to happen, but the fact is we don’t. Memory can overdo it: Somebody lied to us once, so they are a liar; somebody shoplifted once, they are a thief. If people have a vivid memory of something that sticks out, that will overshadow all their knowledge about the way things work. So there’s kind of an illusion there.’ (from the New York Times)

I would say that the world is cause and effect, and it’s the notions that get solidified by conceptual distinctions that make us believe the illusions referred to here.