Perhaps what we actually remember is a set of memory fragments stitched onto a fabric of our own devising. If we sew cleverly enough, we have made ourselves a memorable story easy to recall. Fragments by themselves, unencumbered by association, are harder to retrieve. The situation is rather like the method of science itself—where many isolated data points can be remembered, summarized, and explained in the framework of a theory. We then much more easily recall the theory and not the data.
