Suppose you had instant access to your entire life stream — all of the conversations that you’ve ever had. You would only need to think back on a particular day and time, and everything you said or saw or heard in that moment would be right there for you to revisit and study at will.
Would this ability improve your quality of life? Or would you end up regretting having such a power?
Now suppose everybody had that same power. Would society be pretty much the same as it is now, or would it be radically different?
How would you index and search a life stream? There’s obvious things like dates and keywords, but even then narrowing it down to a specific instance might be challenging. Are dreams and fantasies stored as well? How would you play it back? (Cue 1983’s “Brainstorm”…)
It’s disturbing when you realize something in your memory has been overwritten and completely reclaimed. For example, one day I realized I had absolutely no memory of commuting to high school, even though it was something I did hundreds of times. I could *imagine* how I must have done it, but the actual memory of making those trips is 100% gone.