## Metadata - Author: [[Kathryn Schulz]] - Full Title: Being Wrong - Category: #books ## Highlights - Most contemporary neuroscientists agree that memory is not a single function but multiple distinct processes: remembering people, facts, particular times and places, how to perform physical actions, and so on. Similarly, they agree that these tasks are not accomplished by a single structure—the wax tablet or Polaroid or PC in the brain—but rather by many different ones, whose responsibilities range from face recognition to emotional processing. Perhaps most tellingly, they also agree that a memory is not so much stored intact in one part of the brain as reassembled by all these different structures each time we call it to mind. ([Location 1211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JBHW08&location=1211)) - The neuroscientist William Hirst (one of the co-chairs of the 9/11 Memory Consortium) explained that some memories might strike us as convincing not because they are necessarily accurate but because of how often we call them to mind (i.e., reassemble them) and how easy it is do so. Hirst also suggests that some memories might feel particularly persuasive because of what he calls our “meta-theories about the kind of things we will or will not remember.” That is, some memories might feel “burned on our brain” because it is psychologically or culturally unacceptable to forget them. Think about all those “Never Forget” bumper stickers that appeared after 9/11. As Hirst points out, “sometimes, remembering becomes a moral imperative.” ([Location 1218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003JBHW08&location=1218))