Memory Is Fiction

Today we are talking about the capabilities and limitations of our Memory and how it can be affected by a number of different external and internal influences. 

During the episode we explain how and why our brain creates false memories, how memory-emotion links are formed, the difference between memory and recall, and we explain how to create accurate memories and correct memory distortions so you can use your own experiences for predictive analysis. 

Thank you so much for tuning in, we hope you enjoy the episode and if you want more you can check out our Patreon channel where we have a lot more content as well as subscriber only episodes of the show. If you enjoy the podcast, I would kindly ask that you leave us a review and more importantly, please share it with a friend. Thank you for your time and don’t forget that Training Changes Behavior!

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Transcript

All right, Greg, we'll go ahead and get started here today. We're going to be talking about memory and how it influences, well, how it gets influenced and how it influences us and our recall and then our behavior. and how we interpret events, especially. So for this one, I want to kind of use one of the lessons learned that you'd written before. And there's a lot in there. And it reminded to the folks that you can check that out if you're a Patreon subscriber and read the entire thing. But there's a bunch of topics within memory and the problems in our memory that I want to talk about. today you know so we're going to get into things like recall and and the different external influences on our memory and false memories and fundamental attribution errors and memory emotion links all these things because uh what and the point of this discussion in a sense or some of the takeaways are you know I want to how do I create more accurate memories and and can i you know, fix memory, what we'll call memory distortions, right? Things that are wrong, like the corrupt file folders. Because we all have those different things where, oh, I remember it this way. And then you come in and you're like, hey, what about this? And it's like, oh, I remember it this way, or I thought it happened that way. And there's a lot that we'll get into that influences it. But the reason, too, is it's really good if I can, one, obviously create accurate memories from which to draw from, and then uh fix sort of those distortions for a clearer picture right it allows me to actually get better at reading and sensing and understanding my environment and then recalling smaller details that that can be very important that don't seem important at the time because that kind of kind of makes sense uh what I mean there but I want to at least start greg with with uh again you you wrote um You wrote a lessons learned kind of specifically talking about memory, and then you get some great examples throughout here that I know we'll use a couple, but you should definitely read it if you're a Patreon subscriber, because we've all had these different things before where our recall was incorrect. And even over time and even with quotes and what famous people do and say gets misattributed all the time. So it's just a fascinating way of how our memory really, really influences things. and how that can be distorted but I think we'll we'll start with you greg on on uh reading uh part of that and then we'll kind of jump into the topics if that works That sounds great. And we're going to be reading from Lesson Learned Volume 23 today. A lot of great photos as well for the Patreon subscribers. And you can read the whole thing. And I'll just start with making lasting memories or making memories last. Distortions of memory are so common as to be the rule rather than the exception. And you should challenge every eyeball witness that testifies against you and confront any friend who reminds you of an incident you recall differently. There's a good chance one of you are mistaken. I got myself into hot water plenty of times when I inserted Shelly into a happy memory that occurred BS or before Shelly. Certainly you've made a similar mistake. Confirmation bias allows you to swap your current significant other for the other person you're trying to forget. And soon a new memory replaces the old. Inside your head, the modified memory becomes your new reality. Your brain impacts the fidelity of a memory by incorporating emotion, perspective, and bias. Without proper training, that impact can be adverse. Whether you consciously or unconsciously distort a memory, the replacement memory will be the one that you recall. Memories are designed to be self-serving, not an accurate historical record of your life. That's an important standard. Each time you access that memory, it becomes vulnerable to new external influences. When you're done with that memory, those influences have modified that original memory file folder. Electrochemical neurotransmitters at the synaptic cleft act like a librarian, accepting this new improved memory and then coding it for relevance awaiting future recall. Memories also help us free up essential operating space in the brain by clustering similar information. Memories that have memory and emotion links allow us to use the theory of close enough, equating information that's relevant to the current or future operations rather than us having to relive every life experience as if the incident was new or novel. template matches occur when the memory is exact like a one-to-one photograph of identical items a prototypical match occurs when the information presented illustrates the typical qualities of the original item or impression and correcting false memories when you're archiving information for potential future use you distill the incident into usable chunks These bits of information are tucked away in a series of common or prototype file folders so that you can retrieve them faster. The information will be more accurate when you link them to emotion like fear, hate, anger, or a smell, touch, taste, sound. Each time they're accessed, your memories undergo an update. where your brain chooses to purge duplicitous or irrelevant information. In my memory, I had replaced someone else with Shelly because I wanted Shelly to have been the one with me during all those beautiful and happy occurrences. And let's talk about, finally, fundamental attribution errors. The reality of a flawed memory and imperfect first impression leading to distorted recall are more easily understood if you take attribution errors into account. our egos and personalities, they act as filters applied when making judgments about folks we meet. Humans tend to overly value our own personality-based explanations for the behavior of others that we encounter. And we undervalue the potential external factors that likely account for the observed behavioral traits. Assuming what is occurring by basing it on your personal experiences rather than investigating the actual reason someone behaves in a certain manner doesn't automatically serve a purpose to your brain. your working memory, your long-term memory. This alone is an essential reason to adopt the baseline plus anomaly equal decision architecture. When you don't have a comparison for behavior and you fail to measure that behavior against the baseline of known or suspected behaviors in a similar incident, then you've created a situation ripe for memory distortion or misapplication. So that's the kind of intro to everything that you kind of then dove into on that lessons learned. But just within that, I wanted to share that with everyone because there's so much that we can pull apart in there. And I like the way some of, you know, you sum this up in some of these examples, especially the inserting the Shelly into a memory that didn't happen. I've done that before with McKaylee where it's like, you know, Oh man. Yeah. I love this place. Remember when we went here and, you know, we had that great meal and she's like, yeah, I've never been here before. That wasn't me. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess, I guess dinner's not going to be very good tonight. My bad. You know, but we've done that. And remember it was actually comical. We won't say who we were working with, but when we were over in, in Ireland. And I think we hadn't been either while I'd grown my hair out and you kept calling me, you know, Will instead of Brian, because it was a throwback to teach. And it was like, you know, it was just clearly once you did it, it was like in your loop and you couldn't do it in the middle of the moment you were teaching. And so you kept calling me Will. And then, you know, guys are coming up to me doing the, I was like, they're like, you know, you're trying to say, Hey, his name's really Brian. It's not Will. I'm sorry. I keep calling it. And they did that. Yeah, sure. It is. I'm sure his name is really Brian. We're hiding something. And I'm like, this isn't going well, but yeah. But I'm always fascinated with memory and with recall and, you know, how we draw conclusions because it's obviously so heavily influenced by our memory and what we know. And you even got into, which is why I love this, just this intro part, because you talked about memory, emotional links and prototypical matches. And this is how it is. Like you said, your brain doesn't want to. relearn every experience and every novel situation. It wants to just draw on what it knows. But the problem is what we know is never a clear picture. You know, it's never something that has all of the detail. Like the brain wants the major muscle movements. Give me the takeaways. Give me the highlights. I just want to read the abstract and I got it from there. I mean, that's really how it is because the details don't matter as much when it comes to survival because our brain is survival based. It matters in court testimony on someone going to jail. But the problem is we're not good at that part. We're not good at those details and certainly not as well or certainly not as good as that we think we are. And so one of the things you said in here, memories are designed to be self serving, not an accurate historical record of your life. Can you kind of clarify that or go into detail on what you mean by that? Yeah. And thanks for picking that out. You went into like five different places that we got to touch very briefly before we do that. The first thing is you talk about the operating brain. In other words, the brain that I'm using when I'm moving around through my environment. But then we have cognition, the dynamic exchange of that information from our environment bouncing off the file folders in our brain. What's that for? That's to prevent my operating brain from getting us into trouble. So now we got operating brain and then cognition. Okay. After that, we have memory. And after that, we have recall. So we're constantly forming new memories of the memories that are around us and updating the information. So for future recall, we can use the newest version. And that's an important standard because you just, you know, you can't not make a memory. So memories can occur rather intentionally and deliberately where you're saying, Fuck that's important. Okay. Or they can occur naturally when you walk by something and go, Ooh, piece of candy. And then even idly when you're sitting around your home and the wind blows outside and creates a sound that maybe you haven't heard before, or you associate with UPS driver coming up a dirt road. whatever that is, this is constantly in motion. And so your brain, while decoding, is constantly using imagery, visual, sound, taste, smell, and it's examining it, comparing it, processing it, assimilating it into the existing file folders, or they coalesce to create a new file folder. Now, while you're sitting there, those file folders are comparing each other. Hey, I got a piece of candy here and the other guy goes no no pez isn't considered candy and another file folder is going hell yeah it is that's constantly going on inside your head now now brian your operating brain isn't considering that that's the the background motion of your file folders and your file cabinets making sure that the next member you need is ready and it's accurate does that make sense Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. I get what you're saying. It caches essential information and that's what- Exactly. It's just like on your computer. So I have a Mac and it uploads everything to the iCloud. And so what'll happen is if I don't go into a folder for a really long time, it automatically has uploaded that to save space on my physical hard drive and the operating system right for the computer. So I literally have to go, no, no, that's an old document. I haven't opened in two years, but I need to download that. And it takes us, I guess, to download it from the cloud, you know, but, but the idea is it's, it's kind of similar how your brain works. And since there's only so much, I heard a great example. I don't know where, where it came from, but it was like the college campus, you know, library example where, um, You go to a college campus, they always have massive libraries, there's historical texts in there, all kinds of different stuff. You can find almost every book imaginable, right? But because there's so many of the same classes that require the same books every single year, You could take 10% of it, put it right at the front, and that would be like 90% of the traffic in that library. You don't ever really go back deep into there unless you're going for something specific. It's the same thing. So it's like it caches everything up front for that recall. And then what you kind of broke it down as too is sort of like the operating brain versus the cognitive kind of side of things. And so I would look at it as that cache is sort of like that operating brain. What do I need right now? And then, you know what, when we have the time or I'm doing something specific, I can go deeper into those rows. I can go back into that far corner that, you know, I haven't been in the library before or haven't been in a really, really, really long time ago. Oh, yeah, there's some great stuff here. I haven't. We got to dust this off and use that. And so so when I look at it that way, it's kind of like. It helps me understand why things get sort of thrown at me where I get the solution or the answer. What I think is, you know, faster really than that cognitive brain can really work. And it's so survival based and contextually based. that because of the prototypical matches, it's going to throw in something there that isn't necessarily accurate or isn't necessarily relevant based on those needs. The other thing, because we talk about the fundamental attribution errors, which you brought up in there and the different corrupt file folders and imperfect memories is the issue with that is I will get an answer that's close enough, but it might not be the right answer. And I have more, I typically see people have more confidence in their memory than they really should, right? Where it's like, no, I know I was there. Whenever I see someone say like, I know what I saw. It's like, I'm not saying you're lying. You're not. You truly 100% believe that is what's happening. That's just not what actually happened. And that sort of dissonance there, that's difficult to comprehend and difficult to understand, especially since we, especially humans, we're so visually primed on how we experience the world that we don't like the fact that that color was different on the car that we saw or that wasn't that number. Like those little details don't matter to our brain, but it can matter in certain situations. So that's what makes it so difficult. And I think it's hard for people to kind of see that or understand that sometimes. So let's discuss FaceTime very briefly. When you were talking about walking back further into the library, that takes nanoseconds. So while you're embroiled in an argument and a conversation, all of a sudden your mouth says words you're not even thinking of. And another thing, in 1967, when you did, okay, what's happening is your operating brain is in the moment, but your file folders, okay, they're back there and your hippocampus is a hippo on campus. running through those file cabinets and looking for relevant information. Now, sometimes it comes up on an empty file folder or a corrupt one, but it can't stop in time because it's throwing those up there. So your neocortex can take a look at it and go, well, that's a good argument. And remember, file folders store sense memories, but that's not their only function. They're not just storage facilities. What they're doing is constantly spread loading the information to the corticals, to related file folders, so you can make a match when it's not that obvious. And file folders interact with other file folders, creating these relationships that give us additional layers of meaning in a motion. Like, for example, you go to a restaurant. I remember a restaurant that... Kelly and I used to love because her parents turned me on to it a long time ago, maybe probably 40 years ago now. And I told Sean Clemens that he took his wife there and he goes, Oh, it's really great. And it's called Bruno's Brian. I hope we get to stop there when we're in Sterling Heights. Cause it's in Madison Heights in Michigan, right down the road. And when you first come in that hint of garlic and a live played piano, just set the ambience and you're right next to a freeway, but it's almost as if you've taken a time portal and, into this italian-esque bistro cafe that's right on the side of it's so relaxing right and you hear the glasses clink and bruno comes over and greets you personally brian you can't uh recreate like that what your brain does because what it does is it combines this new and incoming information to update or or clarify information in other file folders And then guess what? It creates new file folders for that experience. So you're exactly right. I got a letter. I think it was from LinkedIn. It's my only social media contact. So I think it was that or Dropbox, which we use sometimes to send big files. And I said, hey, by the way, the new standard is if we haven't used it, and ProtonMail does the same thing for those searching for relevance. It says, if you haven't touched this file in a year, we're going to destroy it. and all that information is going to be gone so make sure that you update that well your brain does that naturally okay because it needs that room and it also puts things together because they look alike or feel alike not to you but to your brain and so that's where that corrupt file folder starts okay one you intentionally or deliberately form a file folder And that can have corrupt edges, which turns into misapplication. Or your brain is trying to be very, very helpful. And it goes, oh, that's a smell. Let's put it in with the smell category. And you don't have editing rights. So what's going to come up in a moment with that operating brain is going to be what's going to come up. And you made an excellent argument. Can we create or fix file flows? Well, can we create them? Obviously. Can we fix them? Well, no. So let's start on it because that's a big thing I do want to get to. And I like how you said you don't have editing rights to it. Your brain gets full creative control on how things are stored and where they go. And it'll move and shift stuff around to fit the needs that it thinks you need in a sense. And that's all happening. That's unconsciously happening, you don't have too much control over that. So, so I would say the two things that I did want to get to, and we can bring in everything else we talked about, but the creating accurate memories and fixing memory distortions. So, so one, how do I create, we will say this, how do I create more accurate memories? How can I in a situation now I'm listening to this podcast, I'm driving into work or I'm doing something and I'm going to head out for the day and Like, what can I do to, in a sense, prime myself or get better at recalling that information and making it more clear, more accurate? How do I do that? Yep. So, uh, two words, Bruce Springsteen. So two more words, Thunder Road. I know every single word of Thunder Road and I could sing it right here in its entirety and not miss a beat. I have no idea why that happened. Okay. But I do know what happened. I also know that when I try to rehearse something that I'm going to say, for example, on a podcast or an upcoming training event or a webinar, uh, that I have to sit in a gosh, damn empty room and say it over and over and over. Like I'm practicing for that, uh, Presbyterian play in fourth grade. And, and still I got that line pleased. I got to yell out, right. For a little bit of assistance. Why? Because those memories, the ones that we're trying to catalog, uh, they're, they're, they're not sticky. What do I mean by they're not sticky? Because a memory and emotion, uh, become sticky. I can't not. The first time Nico got stitches, the first time I had to take Andrea to the hospital for an appendectomy, and it was an emergency appendectomy, we thought she was going to die. That horrific incident with Shelly in California, where I had to take her to the emergency room. Brian, those are etched in my memory, like a Flintstonian tablet. with that bird, you know, carving the word in there, and they're never going to go away. Now, they're easier to deal with now. Seeing Patsy a couple of months ago when she was really sick in the hospital in Detroit, and then seeing her now, okay, that revelation, that information becomes sticky, and I can recall it instantly because it's so memory-based. In other words, my brain knows that that's a memory I'd like to go back Emotion-based. It's emotion-based, yeah. And we talked about that before about memory-emotion links and how highly emotional situations, whether that's fear or anger or something funny or a song you like. You watch one hilarious comedy movie and you're repeating all the lines for the next year because it creates that memory faster. But we turn that into a business, Brian, because what we do, we take Peter Griffin. Or we get more from the pharmacy. And what we do is every time we're talking about a specific topic where somebody made a mistake, an error in this, it was a driving the tax trip or whatever else. We use that family guy ism or a Greg ism or a Brian ism. And we put it in there. And we actually send that to each other via text rather than the gosh damn news story. And then the next thing we send is the news story. Why do we do that, Brian? Because we're trying to catalog certain memories into a file that we can recall. So, for example, you and I both have a file on school shooters. You and I both have a file on serial killers, on targeted attacks. And we can recall that information while we're in the moment in the middle of an eight hour presentation that we're doing. And people go, hey, your recall is uncanny. No, it's not. I've been up in front of a class before and made a big bolo. What it is, is I've rehearsed it enough that that portion of my skull and memory, I can regurgitate on recall. And that's the emotion memory link that you're talking about to making it sticky versus just trying to memorize some dry information or studying for a test. Exactly. Which doesn't mean anything. But it doesn't. Your brain kind of knows it. It's like, look, you're just going to go recall this for some tests. That's not very important. So what you're saying is what we do as well. We've talked about this before, but putting that emotional... part of the message that's why you know that you get the political messages are so emotional in these times or what they're trying to do and they're trying to anger you why because well one anger is a great great motivator you can motivate the hell out of people using anger and two you that getting that emotional response and attaching that message to it that's going to make the information sticky. So it's, you're going to be able to recall that better. And so that can be done in a number of ways, right? So it can be funny, it can be sad, it can be happy, you know, whatever, whatever it is you want to, you want to match that up so it's congruent and that your brain categorizes it for recall. And that's the things, the more emotion you can attach to something, the better, the more you're going to remember it. Now it'll still be the details will still be, you know, rough, right? It's going to be rough around the edges, but you're going to remember more of that event. You know, everyone can, that's why the whole, like everyone can say like, oh, I know exactly where it was on 9-11 or when the Challenger exploded or when, When JFK was shot and killed, like those are so profound to our culture here in the U.S., especially that people will remember. They can recall what they were doing that day where they couldn't tell you anything about the time around that. So that's the powerful emotion part. So if you're saying I can utilize that in my – so that I can create better memories or – Yeah, but I'm also saying you can use that to fix damaged memories. But I'm also saying that you have an extra job. Your job is to, as a human, your job is to understand that memory and recall are two different things. Your memory is the file folder that we're talking about. Your recall is the ability to utilize information from within that. to solve complex dilemmas. Two completely different standards, right? Now, the second part of that is, or third, if you will, the more information that we add, the more meaning to that memory. So that increases our ability to use the information at a future event. So when you, here we go again, when you think that recoil makes you a better shooter, or that the smell of decaying flesh is going to improve your performance in a certain event. It's not. That's your job. You have to take those things apart and reintegrate them back into what you want them to be. So that's the problem when people evoke or invoke or, you know, use Harry Potter's magic wand and talk about training. The training that you're doing doesn't immediately become a memory unless you make it a profound memory. And then the recall of that in the moment is spurious at best. Look, you can work out at the gym all your life and then still be startled and overwhelmed by a surprise ambush attack. Those things can exist in the same space. That's what we're not talking about. So I'm saying that as we create cognitive fidelity inside the brain, that's equally as important is doing a curl a push-up running and gunning on the range and we're not there yet as a human culture because because what we say is let's engage active listening well that's a good bullet point brian but none of us do it because what we're doing is we're going hmm I've I've got that and another thing moment or my memory that I want to insert and I want to talk about myself I want to snipe Your comments and insert mine. Well, why is that happening? That's happening because our ego is very important, not to the world around us, but to us. And we think that our inflated or elevated position within the tribe is hugely important. And that's why we update file folders wrong. We always put ourselves at the center. We always think we're the one. OK, so that's right. That's that's a good point on kind of how they become corrupt, because because, you know, we're talking about how do I how do I improve? How do I create more accurate memories? And, you know, that obviously, you know, we talk about the the emotion based stuff and, you know. how to, you know, listening versus doing something versus actually participating. And then, you know, what you're talking about there, Um, is, is like we are all human beings who care who you are. You have a very egocentric viewpoint. It's how we've survived as humans, right? We have to look out for ourselves. Otherwise we, we probably would have died a long time ago. But, but the idea is, um, you know, so when, when we do, especially even the recall or, or thinking of something, you know, it's, we're always that sort of center of, of we're the protagonists in our, in our life and our story, that's how it works. And so if I recall things that way, it's sort of already putting that sort of bias on it and it's already clouding how I look at things. And so it's, if I just always make it about me, you know, then it can be difficult to, you know, use that information when it's necessary. So like, for example, I was showing the insurgent when Max was even younger, he was only a few months old. It's like, okay, like this is, you know, how, you know one thing you have to worry about is he's moving around now he's gonna put everything in his mouth so babies can choke right and this is how you can you know if he's choking this is what it'll look like if it sound like and if it's still coughing it's fine and then this is what you can do I showed her I was holding max and then she's like okay got it and I was like all right here And I literally handed her the baby. And I was like, stick your finger in his mouth and see what that's like. And she's like, what? I was like, yeah, he'll be fine. And so she's like, you know, putting your finger, then he's like doing this, like, what the hell are you doing, man? Like, this is annoying. Right. And like, so she's like, oh, I was like, yeah, see how it's tough. And he's going to want to squirm and fight back. I go, now, how do you, you know, how do you do that? How do you hold him over on his stomach and then hit his strike his back? Like, so he's like, OK, well, like this was again, I'll do it. And she's like, what do you mean you want me to? Yes. I was like, I don't want the first time you were doing this to be in an emergency situation. But you see, now you felt the weight. Now you know it. And here's what he's going to do. And instead of having it focus on her and her actions, I was like, look at the baby. This is what you do. Make it about him, right? See how he's moving this way versus his weight's going to come down here. Do it over the bed in case you drop him. Then he's just going to fall on your bed. And she's like, oh, OK, I see. Now practice it. She's like, you want me to hit him in the back? I was like, well, not hard. You know what I mean? like and and uh exactly we're not going to stick a lego in his mouth just for exactly but I i I made it like a little scary for her and walked it through it because I wanted that emotional reaction from her to go this is odd this is weird like uh I'm a little nervous but but now I'm the being that sort of the mentor along during that process to show her to So the relevance was there and the memory was created. I mean, it was just it's just an example that kind of popped in my head right now. Actually, I was talking to Clark about something he did with his kids, too, where they were doing the fire drill at the home. He turned the fire, the smoke detector off, you know, sort of this loud beeping. And like, why do you have to do that? Because this is what it's going to be like. You have to know that, you know what I mean? So there's certain elements that you can add in just to create enough of an emotional type of reaction when you're tying that information to it. And that will, in a sense, make that memory better right it'll make it more accurate but but let's add a couple of things from the cognitive file and again cognitive is the dynamic exchange of information from an environment to that file folder so let's take what you and clark did and make it even better let's take what you did with the insurgent with max and make it better brian I would tell you go to home depot and get uh construction papers much cheaper than file folders or uh index cards of different colors and Get them and get a big black magic marker or a colored marker that'll contrast with those individual pieces. And on each one of them, write, call 911, check airway, position baby. Okay, put all the individual steps of the skill that you want to use. Now, also take a pair of scissors and one is round and one is square and one is trapezoidal and one is a pyramid. I don't want the edges to fit together because you can't solve for X just by making them fit. You see? And what I want to do is I want to flip them over and say, now take a look at those cards and put them in the correct order. And I want a conundrum. I want one card that can fit in more than one place. Well, the call 911. If I'm occupied, that may have to wait. Or I may have to yell someone, go call 911. And have that discussion while you're doing the other discussion. What you just did is you took the physical, the physiological, the psychological. and added them to the cognition of the memory now what you didn't build is emotion you built fidelity you built granularity to that emotion or to that memory rather and so now when you recall brian and each time we update let's say that six months then at nine months then at a year and a half 18 months okay we're gonna review that skill set hey do you remember that skill set well guess what I'm gonna do I'm gonna pull those cards out of the manila envelope the file folder And we're going to play that game again. And now Max is a little older. So the situation has changed. We're going to update it, Brian. See, the idea is that you're on to something because memory to motion link is huge. But when we think that memory to motion link is all, that's like saying memory and recall are the same. So we have to work at it, Brian. We have to consciously go after these memories and make them better. So your example about the index cards, but cut up in different colors and, you know, in different shapes with the steps on them, it's not always, well, it's not a linear process. We like to put as humans, we like to put everything in a linear process, right? We want to say, okay, first I do the A, then I do B, then I do C. One, that's not how real life situations are always going to play out. Well, simple ones will, right? I mean, you know, so, okay, great. But complex situations don't play out like that. And your brain doesn't need it like that all the time. Meaning, because what you just did, you're correct me if I'm wrong here, right? What you just described is, deconstructing an event and the steps within the event so that I understand my brain goes, well, they can go in different order sometimes. It doesn't always have to be this, then this, then this. It's not a squared plus b squared equals c squared. That's great for a math problem, but that's not what we're dealing with here. There's a complex situation. To me, you gave an analogy in a sense of how your brain recalls information. It'll access it in a non sequitur manner and it will put it together based on if I train that way, if I look at situations that way, it'll allow me to draw on and recall more memories. It will allow me to link those together in ways that otherwise I wouldn't have, but are really, really essential and great for gaining insight and arriving at good conclusions and drawing on other experiences outside of the specific one I'm in. Precisely. That exercise is a great one. We've actually never really talked about that one before because I like how you did. You get the different colored index cards and then cutting them into different shapes. That's how file folders are in a sense. Now, it still says call 911, But it doesn't matter where that fits in. And it doesn't immediately fit, does it? That's the key. You're exactly right. And how do you put this together given the set of circumstances that you have in front of you? Not some sterile, you know... you know, like I said, like taking a test, a math problem. Okay, well, that's a different type of recall that you need to do. And there's a different type of rote memory that you can have and do things. Like how many people do you know that can do really well on tests And then when you try to get them to like, and merely sort of conceptualize the information and they can't, they can just recall facts. Like there's a lot of folks like that too. And you see that with the influence of the academic community, different training things, different areas where it's like, okay, how many have you seen me say before? I was like, yeah, awesome. You're really good at naming things. Good job. You're awesome at naming everything. Yeah. You can't fucking go do it. You don't actually understand what you're talking about. You're just naming everything you see here and going, there's a name for that. There's a name for that. It's like, cool. I don't give a shit about what the name is. I care about doing it. You're a walking dictionary and a thesaurus, but that doesn't make you any more relevant as an operator. And so at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to build, isn't it? Yeah, and that's the idea. How do you create a better human sensor? Well, this is one by creating accurate memories by... conceptualizing information in a manner that I haven't done before in the past by your index card or construction paper example. I mean, that's the thing. Throw it all out on the floor and then re-denigrate it in a different manner for what you have. But if you really learn each one of those steps, you know, then you're good no matter what order they need to go in, it doesn't really matter. It's, I have this capability. So this is, this is how we can sort of create going forward, accurate memories. But one of the things you brought up and I want to know, I'll kind of get your opinion and how we do that is, you know, fixing memory distortions. Like when I look back on something, can I fix something that happened in the past in a sense that, So that I can use it better in the future. Right. Because that's one, obviously you're talking about something that's difficult to do that will create some cognitive dissonance. When I say, well, no, that's not what happened. You Greg. And you're like, yeah, I was effing there, man. I know what happened. It's like, well, you, you, you, you know, the emotion that you felt, you know, some major muscle movements, but here's what actually occurred. So can I do that? Can we actually do that as humans? Yep. Yeah, yes, is the answer. And a great discussion we had, Brian and I were on a project with DARPA and working Shauna Bashana with SRI for 18 months. And we met a lot of doctors, scientists and geniuses during that 18 months, and we have our entire careers. But one of the things that was funny from each of these groups, JAIDA, JFCOM, FightJCTD, DARPA and stuff that we did is they all hate SMEs. And they'll tell you right up front. And the same thing is why they hate SMEs. Because when they ask you a question, you say, subject matter expert, you'll always say, well, it depends. And then you start giving conditions. And a scientist doesn't want that. A scientist wants yes or no. right or wrong, now or later, and a subject matter expert operationalizes that information and puts it into context. Well, that is different from A squared plus B squared equals C squared because it doesn't end with a question mark. And so, yes, you could do it, but it's going to take time. And let me give you an example of that. So I was watching a couple of years ago a shooting competition, and it had the top female shooter. She was the fastest to put a bullet on a target of all the other females in the United States. It was not an international competition. And so she's standing on the line and she's got her hands on her ear muffs up by her ears, you know, for the sound. And all of a sudden the targets flip, they come up and she doesn't fire a shot and they call alibi stop. And then the woman looks back and goes, I didn't hear the horn. And the guy said, well, we didn't do a horn. And she goes, well, I have the condition. Then I put my hands up when the horn goes, the targets flip. Okay, Brian, that conditioning took precedence over in real time, the targets facing her. And you're going, well, we got to fix that. Well, yeah. And we got to fix it in the context, not that she's going to lose because of time, but that she's going to lose on the street. That's not how life is. So, so you're saying, well, you know, we understand it's a game. Your brain doesn't. Your brain understands something's a game on its own time. So all of a sudden you're doing a shitty scenario. You didn't plan well. The actors aren't doing well. And all of a sudden the brain goes, I'm going to call this bullshit because it's notional and it doesn't matter to me. Your brain walks out and leaves you in the room watching the shitty scenario. So you, as a human, have to make sure that the information that goes in One, chunk information. It has to be digestible chunks. Two, it's got to be relevant to an adult learner. Kids are different. We don't have the time to talk about all the differences between adults and kids, right? But adults have to know that the information that you're putting in there is relevant to an operation they'll actually encounter. And and there's obviously there's there's different students, you know, kids learning versus adult learning when you're teaching them. But but at the same time, learning is still learning. Right. Meaning meaning that because because what people get go too far into sometimes it's like, well, you have to use this adult learning model. You have to gauge them this way. And I'm like. No, you fucking don't. Sometimes, like sometimes I can throw the Legos on the table and start going at getting everyone excited and go, you do this and do that. Now it's, it's up to me as the person teaching it to, to tie this game to the concepts we're going over, but that's the same thing as a kid. So, so we learn, we don't necessarily learn that differently. We're just taught differently. And, and, and, and I think that's our biggest fight with some people who are like to say, well, no, this is how it has to be. It has to be like this. It's like, well, no, it doesn't. I can leave some things out and get them to go, well, wait a minute. Why did, what's that over there? And I go, we'll get to that. It's like, you know what I mean? Like, well, how come we don't have that? I don't know. You tell me. I can't give you every answer. I can give you prompts. But it's no different than kids. Why do we use different cell colors and loud stuff and videos and music? It's like that's how your brain learns. You have to take that. And that's no different. That's how kids learn, too. Let's look at every kid's little programming they have on YouTube and TV. It's all the different colors and happy voices. And we bring in the stuffed animals. And it's like, why? Because you get engaged. Your brain's golden. This is interesting. Yeah. So I think that's another thing. But I want to kind of get off on how are we learning. It's about what I did ask about fixing those memory distortions, right? Let's try to focus on that. So look, if this is my file folder in real time, it has all the elements of a file folder. The problem is it doesn't have a tab. And the tab has to be big as a dry erase board because there's a whole bunch of subsections that are in there. So if this is shooting, then there has to be internal terminal ballistic, external ballistic, wind velocity, Coriolis effect. All of those things have to be subtopics. And this file folder gets a lot bigger, even though inside the information we're trying to convey is the size of a gosh damn postage stamp. The other thing is that this has rigid edges. I'm holding up a file folder and tapping all the edges on it. Your brain's memory doesn't have rigid edges. As a matter of fact, the entire reason we have myelination is so that you can use those axons and dendrites over and over and over again, and they don't lose their power, and they can connect in different manners. Again, the Wonka Vader in forward and backwards and upwards and downwards and sidewards and all the different ways that connections can be made. True cognition is being able to see those connections, and reinforce some and delete other ones. Now, again, your brain has editing rights, so it's going to do that for you. But the reason that you and I sometimes argue about what we, let's call it sloppy training. We have, as an advisor, a person that builds education and training for a living. That's what they do. And they know all the elements that have to happen there. But you know what? uh oogluck and moktar when the journeyman was trying to teach that basic cave guy how to sharpen that stone he didn't know all that information and he still was able to convey the essential elements of that skill so the tribe would survive yeah it was implicitly in in what you're doing and then the design came later to to explain all of these different elements and different And the person in the tribe who was better was a natural leader. It didn't go by union. This guy's been around longer, so we're going to give it to him. And we've all got stories about seeing that fail. Like every trainer goes through this levels of training until they finally get to the point of realization where, hey, the physical act itself is the easy part. It's what's between your ears that's the hard part. Yeah, no, and that's, you know, you're talking about knowledge and skill transfer and, you know, developing, you know, some sort of expertise or journeyman level kind of, but, you know, how... how can I can can I fix memory distortions like can I go back and look at things and go oh wait a minute like like how what what's what's a way that I can do that in a sense can I go back and go almost like an after action review and go oh wait a minute like you know what I missed this element over here and that's why I jumped right you know is it is it something almost that simple or or is it yeah it's not something but yeah right on So here's the thing. Okay. Why, when we're conducting interviews at a crime scene, do we not want to put all the witnesses in the same room? Because we understand that their memories are going to taint other memories. Great example. Number one. Don't allow your memory to be tainted. Write down, draw, take photos of those things in the moment that are going to be essential for you. If you're a cook, if you're a chef, if you're an artist of some kind, if you're making music, record that stuff as you're doing it so you can play it back. Sorry about that. And recall and modify it later because. If I don't have a left and right lateral limit for my memory, distortions will occur. So one, acknowledge that distortions occur. Two, acknowledge that some of them can't be fixed. Three, acknowledge that the way that you fix them is by going back and revisiting the memory that's distorted. So excuse me while I kiss this guy is excuse me while I kiss this guy. That's a memory distortion. I have to physically go to that memory. I have to rehearse and repeat it because repetition is a good way of constructing new and more granularity filled memories. And then I have to actually play with it to make it sticky. So I have to ride my unicycle in the backyard in the rain while singing it at the top of my lungs. And you go, why? You're not going to forget that. You're not going to forget that. Yeah. Okay. So the idea is, Brian, I think recognition that one occurs. Like you made a much better example than all the examples I've made on this call, on this pod, by saying that you've had to sit people down, including me, and go, that's not the memory. And that's because you're very much like Shelly. Like, let's call out the shaved ape. Collier is an emotion-based human. So Collier is the drama queen. Now, he's an amazing killer and shot and strength and great friend. And I love him to death. But he's always going to lead with emotion. I'm going to be the emoter. I'm always going to lead with emotion. You and Shelly are Pinocchio. You know that there's emotions out there. You just choose not to use them. And so the idea by sitting in a room with a mentor. Yeah, you do. You know. I mean, you know even where they are. Like you know in the house where they're stored. But you just can't get there. But the idea behind that, and that's a compliment if you know Brian. I don't fit into them anymore. The idea behind that. No. In those pants you outgrew him. The idea is if I understand that, I should seek a mentor that can do that. Now, why do people go to the psychiatrist? What does a psychiatrist do? They unpack broken memories and refill them. They redentigrate them. Redentigrate them. I pronounced that wrong for 40 years in the appropriate way. So look, we all have a gestalt memory. Dig deep, folks. Go study. And a gestalt memory is that we put that fourth leg on the chair. The idea is that a psychiatrist, a mentor, a lover, a friend can help you slow things down and go, dude, when we got there, that was broken. And then you'll fight, man. You'll fight hard. You'll go, no way. I was there. I smelled it. I remember that. And then guess what? Now enlist the aid of others. I remember that I was way down the Shelly hole and saying, oh man, Shelly, you were there. We picked out the Christmas tree. Marcy and Jeff were there too. And Shelly picked up the phone and held it. And I'm like, oh, she wants me to call Marcy and Jeff. And the worst thing about a good memory like that, Brian, is a witness. And so Jeff and Marcy are both on speakerphone, and they're going, no, Greg, that was with your wife before Shelly. BS, and that's where the term BS came from. And I felt embarrassed about it. So did I fix that memory? Yes. But I fixed it. one memory in one file folder of myriad file folders that are constantly circling my head like a constellation. So it's not as easy as you think, but yeah, you can do it. And I'll tell you what, the easiest step is training correctly at the beginning. That's why you and I fight all the time. That's why our name is Arcadia Cognorati. Cognition is that universal language that all brains understand. If we can start there, then we don't have to worry about the damage that can be caused from an incomplete or damaged file folder. No, and that's absolutely, you know, the way going forward is, okay, one, the recognition of how this stuff works and how I can create some more fidelity in it moving forward using, obviously, like we talked about different memory motion links and focusing on what the actual details were, not what we think they were, right? What was the actual experience, not what we felt through the experience? And then you brought up a great one. of the fixing the memory distortions. That's kind of like a big post-traumatic stress one where people have a different traumatic event and it causes a lot of issues when you can go back, you can unpack that and look at it differently and take different perspective with someone helping you. Ideally, that's easier. And then you go, oh, wow, look at what I got out of it. I mean, that was one of the big things. you know, I was fortunate enough to experience after, you know, really, really horrific day. And one of my buddies was killed and blown up all over me. And it was just a really, really shitty day. And we kind of had we're able to the next day come together. It's like, OK, well, what else happened? What did we learn from this? What did we do the rest of that day after that event? What can we do going forward? So you kind of turn this loss into something positive that we can use. And it was like an immediate course correction. You know what I'm saying? So it was an immediate going, you all, yeah, this awful thing happened, but here's everything that you learned that you can use from that. And you're like, oh shit, that's pretty useful information. Wow. And so technically you're now stronger going through that horrible traumatic event than you were before because you have those tools. But it's just a great example of fixing that memory distortion. Otherwise you go back and you look at that as the worst thing ever. You know, it's like when people do the different and a lot of them are just cheesy, stupid quotes and made up or whatever on LinkedIn where, But some of them are real. When someone's like the best thing that ever happened to me, this guy fired me and told me I was an idiot and this, that, and the other thing. And I was down. And then I realized like, no, no, I'm screwed up. I need to change these things. And it always takes this huge loss. And you go back to, well, wait a minute. I learned from that moment that I'm never going to be able to do that or never work for someone like that. Or I can never do this again. And now I'm successful for that negative experience. So I think that that's just in general, a great way of looking at fixing those memories. So let's argue about the name fixing, amending, adopting, right? Because you won't always be able to fix every facet of it. But Brian, you can pay it forward as you're talking about. Now, look, I was a copper for a good long time. Ask every cop that ever worked with me. I worked in one person scout car for a long time, undercover, unmarked, drugged, everything. But I worked as a partner and an FTO a long time. Every single time that I was a contact officer that went up on a traffic stop, I would change. Now, this is contrary to everything that they teach in Academy. I'd walk up and I'd ask the driver something like, hey, what day of the week is it? Is it already Wednesday? to get them thinking differently. So then I would start drilling down to those questions. Where are you going? Where are you coming from? Who's the owner of the car? Who are the other people? I need to get there, okay? But if I start there, then we start going back and forth into this metronome conversation. where I'm just detailing information that I've done a thousand times before. And guess what? Nothing feels new. Nothing tastes new. Well, I want to be like the Yegg. Yegg was a guy that used to figure out a safe by touching the knob on the safe. And through his fingers and his ears, he would feel where it was different, and that was the number that came up. So the safe code was 52 left, 32 right, and go. They would sand the tips of their fingers so they could feel those minute clicks behind that metal and keep the feelings very fresh and new. I say that's the way you should approach everything. If you're going to build a file folder for this traffic stop and this person, Make it fresh and new. When you walk up and go, hey, nice car. What do they call that color? And a guy goes, red. Oh, I thought maybe it was like cinnamon. I'm going a place. You see what I'm trying to say? That they didn't expect to go. And then I'm naturally going to get there, Brian. I mean, that's my goal. Why am I saying that? Because now that nuanced information... is going to help that sense memory for that specific situation be just a little bit different. And then my brain will do the rest. It will pack information in it. And you know that. You've seen me operate. When we call people on the range or in real life, when we're tracking them through a crowd, we say, glasses guy. You know what I'm saying? Blue hair. Cane guy. We come up with very, very simple thing to help us categorize that person. And then that creates the big basic file folder. And then we start dumping information into it. And it's information we wrote, information we thought, all those other things. And then you're talking about the final process, which I love, is excising ridiculous or duplicitous information through an after action review, through sitting down. And sometimes we do that at a funeral, at the wake of a funeral. Sometimes we do that at a bar or a restaurant. The venue doesn't matter as much as the content. The content is other like-minded people can't lead you to the decision. They have to challenge you and go, no, I think it was four shots. Well, how did that happen? And you're saying, wait a minute, you just said not put the witnesses in the room. Now, I've already done the interviews. I've already written the reports. Now we're going to walk through it to see what usable chunks of information from that memory and that incident that we can pay forward. Yeah, no, I know. And those are all, those are all great examples. And those are ways we do them sort of naturally too. Like, you, you know, you brought up the, the wake at a funeral. I mean, that's our way sociologically to, um, you know, heal and to move on and to remember that person. Cause we want to be remembered too when we die. and live on so it's it's our way of of it's our coping mechanism every society every culture has throughout history even even even probably predating homo sapiens even there's finding evidence of have had some sort of ritual where that you do that and it's for it's to serve those purposes it's for the purpose of memory which is really paying it forward like you talked about earlier and going on and saying, well, this was their contribution. And this is why you do things in your life, because you're contributing to the tribe. And we're going to remember you and your contributions later. And then we can fix those things. Like you said, well, remember when he did this and that was kind of dumb as like, yeah, but you know, he, he was trying to do something nice for the kids that year and it didn't work out, but, but his intent was really, really good. You know, and, and those come out in those stores and sometimes, sometimes they get corrupted in a sense there. And we, we put a nice bow on it for the purposes of making it, you know, you know, after the fact we do that sometimes where people get idolized and then, then has someone else to go back and go, well, wait a minute. Like, what about all this other shit that they did? So, so I like that example because it's a great way of looking at memories and, and how we, how we, how they, they're, they're altered in a sense. And, and, and, and, you know, I too, for appreciate correcting, it's not fixing, but it's, it's influencing and modifying in this, you know, that's a fixing. Yeah. But, but fixing is, it's not, it's not slap the table and, oh, good. That one's good. It's like, well, you know, It's not really how it works. So let me throw a wild card at you. Right now, if you're still listening, you're a fan and we love you because nobody's going to put up with this much abuse in their brain for this long without being a fan. I want everybody listening to understand how the so what here, the bottom line up front of memories. I can use a memory for predictive analysis. Why? Because my emotions are similar to all other emotions. And if they're not, they're anomalous and I have to investigate it. So what am I saying? The talk that we have at that wake, grief, fear, understanding, emotions, is going to help us figure out why Jim put his uniform on, went to the Sally Port with his own car, parked it, and shot himself at work. Because Jim was looking for one more time that feeling of belonging to that tribe at that level. And he was familiar with that place. He knew that. And he knew that there would be reverence when the people found him and they took him out of that car and they were going to go, hey, this is Jim. And that's why Mary did the same thing and went back and shot up her elementary school. Why? Because she went there and that was a function of her memories where she remembered just one more time wanted to be pushed on a slide by that cute boy that liked her or whatever. Okay. You construct all those different things and it's not a Hollywood movie. That's how your brain works. So you're moving forward in your life or stagnating neutral gets you nowhere based on those memories, not just a memory and emotion link based on those memories and your ability to recall the information correctly. and synopsize it and say, I can apply that here. But I can't just apply it here. I've got to be applying it to future encounters as well. That means I'm efficient. And the more efficient of us in the tribe are the ones that have longevity. And I don't mean DNA based physical longevity. I mean, our memories go further in that tribe. That stuff you leave behind is going to return to dust in 100 years. Nobody's going to remember. But if you leave behind a book or a song or an impression on a group of people, Brian, that you influence to do something, those are going to outlast all of us. That's the key. So why are we trying to fix those broken memories? Because it's the right thing to do to make sure that we have a tabular rasa, a clean slate to go into each new file folder. Yeah, no, I think that's a good place to end on the so what, on the why, or not just the so what, because we got into that, but the why is important. Why does that matter? How can it matter? Even more. I agree. I agree with you. And it's just part of that human condition. And then, yeah, like you just said, I mean, that's how you want to live forever. Well, if you influence people and you leave your mark on them, you will. And that can be good or that can be bad, but you absolutely will. And that's how it kind of works. But no, this is a good discussion on memory. I enjoyed it. So hopefully the listeners did. I thought it was grueling. I'm sorry to make fun of you and Shelley is not human. No, and that's, that's on the, thank you for reminding me of that because the rest of the lessons learned is on there. There's some great ones in there too. The plate again, Sam from Costco. A lot of fun. That's a great one. And, and, or the, the, the, the date that will live in infamy. That's always a great one. But there's other examples that you have in the lessons learned that people kind of look at and, and jump into and see how those things change over time but it has a lot to do with memory and recall so that's that's all I have I appreciate everyone for for tuning in and listening um you know we remind you there's always more on the patreon site and please keep reaching out with any other questions or topics that you want us to cover and don't forget that training changes behavior