Forgive and Forget or Remember?

In Ted Chiang’s, The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, the conflict between choosing to forgive and forget or remember is present. When Chiang has an argument with his daughter, the future him wonders if it would be better that he forget the argument as a whole. He notions that if they forgot the argument even took place, their relationship could be stronger. On the other hand, he notions that the fact that they remember the argument and were able to make amends afterward made their relationship even stronger. This caused me to think about which circumstance is better.

“You’re the reason she left! You drove her away! You can leave too, for all I care. I sure as hell would be better off without you” (Chiang 10).

During our class discussion on this reading, Professor Cordell pointed out that when you remember something, your brain decodes it and makes a new copy of it. This new copy is encoded with more proteins that reflect the new feelings and emotions that you attached to the memory while revisiting it. In short, the more you remember, the more your memory is changed. This caused me to reason why Chiang twisted this argument with his daughter in the first place. He firmly believed that his daughter told him that he was the reason his wife left, not the other way around. Perhaps Chiang, in his narrative, really revisited this memory enough times to recode it while changing a significant detail. Perhaps Chiang simply needed a way to make him feel better about his actions and unconsciously, purposely changed his memory. Chiang says, “the details we choose to remember are a reflection of our personalities” (Chiang 21). Does our brain’s recoding of memories have the power to reflect our personalities as well?

Thinking back on my life, there are plenty of moments that I’ve said if I could forget completely, I would. However, there’s a small part of me that feels that even if a single bad memory is taken from me, who I am today wouldn’t be me. When I say this, I mean that every experience I have impacts how I interact with the world and others. Every experience, in a way, can make me stronger. If I erased the memory of a tense argument between me and another which ultimately broke our relationship, I believe that it would just be bound to happen in the future with someone else. My memories are what prompts me to make the best decisions. In my opinion, it is better to remember. On the other hand, I can easily see why someone would want to completely forget an event if it was particularly tragic. This is even seen today as there is work being done on indiviuals certain neurons are being manipulated to erase bad memories. What is your take on all of this?