Memories

Damian Vicente

Professor Roukas

ENGL.108

April 25, 2014

Paper 5

Human Memory VS. Computer Memory

Ellen Ullman discusses in about human memory and the memory of machines. Both of us humans and machines were created by humans and we both have memory. The memory of machines and humans both have differences and similarities. Some are major differences and some are minor differences.

A memory in a machine is untouched memory. You can save a file of say photos or a paper you may have wrote and it will be stored away in the memory of the computer. Now that memory does not change at all it stays exactly the same as you have left it. Unlike the human memory where our thoughts and memory can be altered or even forgotten, in an earlier paper that we have read an author by the name of Barbara Lefcowitz, she wrote about the Photoshop of the mind. She explains this comparing it to the computer program Photoshop, which you can take a picture and either add things into the picture or even take them out. The human mind can Photoshop its memories, it does not stay “untouched” we can either add people or things into our memory. At the same time we can also take people or things out of the certain memory.

Ullman also mentions that computers and machines can aid the human memory which is completely true. Since computers can store away papers and photos, etc. and leave them untouched you can come across them and when you do they can spark or bring back a memory. For example, I scrolled through one of my old computers and came across all of my old word documents that held all of my old school assignments for English and Science, coming across these help spark a whole ton of memories of back in high school and being in certain classes and numerous people. With these memories that it brought back it brought back many emotions. Many were happy such as my one paper I came across that I had to present...