How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

by Ray Kurzweil

A related phenomenon that everyone experiences frequently is trying to think of a name or a word. The procedure we use in this circumstance is to try to remind ourselves of triggers that may unlock the memory. (For example: Who played Queen Padmé in Revenge of the Sith? Let’s see, it’s that same actress who was the star in a recent dark movie about dancing, that was Black Swan, oh yes, Natalie Portman.) Sometimes we adopt idiosyncratic mnemonics to help us remember. (For example: She’s always slim, not portly, oh yes, Portman, Natalie Portman.) Some of our memories are sufficiently robust that we can go directly from a question (such as who played Queen Padmé) to the answer; often we need to go through a series of triggers until we find one that works. It’s very much like having the right Web link. Memories can indeed become lost like a Web page to which no other page links to (at least no page that we can find).