Lament of the Mind

intj-confessions:

stat3s:

intj-confessions:

jopolniaczek:

that golden moment when your “useless knowledge” comes up in conversation and you sound like the smartest person in the room but really you just spend too much time on wikipedia

People used to ask me how I “knew that,” as if I’d remember. I dunno, nature video? Book? School? Source amnesia keeps us from recalling where we learned something. At least now I can say I majored in it when I spout random animal facts.

Is that a thing? Source amnesia? Hmmm

Yes, it is.

Our brains have many failings, and this is one of them. Source isn’t considered as important as the information itself, which is more crucial to survival. Let’s say you are a hunter-gatherer and you come across a specific plant that you know to be poisonous. Does it really matter how you know that? The information- that it is poisonous- is good enough.

Repetition also reinforces memory, regardless of accuracy, which is why I often avoid reblogging or commenting on posts that are wrong, even to correct them. All it does is further spread the lie on the internet. If I comment on something on Facebook everyone linked to me will see it. Who’s to say they’ll even read the correction, let alone remember it? People often forget about corrections and redactions.

Here is a good article on it which also brings up how unscrupulous people can use it to spread lies about their competitors.

You can get around it by purposely attempting to tie the source and information together in your memory. The two must be linked well for you to recall both when the information is accessed.