论记忆（On memory and reminiscence）读书报告

Reflect onmemory and reminiscence

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  Before I read this book, my understandingabout memory is somewhat happened or somewhat we learned in my brain. In termsof reminiscence, I think it is a process to seek the memory. But In Aristotle’sopinion, which was put forward thousands years ago, things are not simple as I imagine.

  Aristotlecame up with his theory based on his personal experience and his assumptions. Atthat time, there were no any technological tools or methods. I am so amazed tofind that his theory is still work out in modern times. In his book, he mainly talksabout memory and reminiscence.

  Memory, as we think, is the past thingstationed in our head. As Aristotle says, memory can be divided into twocategories: Things that experience by your own and things that you hear fromothers. For the first one, things went into your mind physically. For the otherone, although you have no idea about the truth, you always imagine a similar picture,and this picture replaces the fact. So Aristotle thinks the objects of memoryare as same as the objects of imagination. Its form is like a picture in mymind. Just as the saying goes, let the memories emerge like a movie. So what ismemory really is? It’s some status caused from mental image which is similar toreal a picture. The ability to memorize is some feeling that help you feel thetime passing away.

  As for reminiscence, Aristotlethinks it a process to make a series ofstimulationandto seek your memories. The process includes memory but is different frommemory. In this part, Aristotle emphasizes the word stimulation. The action toreminiscence itself gives our brain a stimulation to find the memory, and this stimulationcalls for another stimulation and so on. If the reminiscence is successful, theultimate stimulation is the memory we need. This reminiscence process is like alink, the nodes of which are the related stimulations. The complexity of the stimulationsnetwork determines the difficulty we recall memory. To put it simply, if every stimulationpoints only one other stimulation, we can get only one link. So that is why wefind something easy to reminisce. Something we think is hard to reminisce may havethe reason that the stimulations point so many other stimulations and the rightlink to the memory we need is hard to find. Based on this theory, we canexplain why we can easily recall some basic mathematical expressions and why wethink it difficult to memorize a sequence arranged in random order. Toconclude, the reminiscence can be descripted as a linear process which has aone-way direction. In western medicine, Aristotle’s theory seems to be proved,because those abstract stimulations in deed are nerve cells in our brains andthey are connected. 

  Aristotle’s theory only introduces what arememory and reminiscence, how do they work and what are the differences betweenthem. How to make full use of our memory ability and improve out memoryefficiency requires our thinking.

  For one thing, although Aristotle holds theopinion that the ability of memory varies from ages and bodies. But sincememory is related to imagination, every time we try to memorize something wecan imagine lots of things that related to the main one. Not just merely do thetedious and repeating memory work. For another, since reminiscing process isjust like a link, specifically, we are supposed to seek the original thing thatrelated to the target, and finally infer the target step by step.   

 

 

花了一晚上撸出来的读书报告，中文翻译戳：论记忆，交给星期四的高级英语视听说。这段时间并没有在刷题，因为感觉把时间用在复习方面效率会更高，得以慰藉。