even the dross that sticks in our heads from the flood that bombards us every day has its utility profile. Much of it sticks because it is designed to stick, by advertisers and propagandists and other agents whose interests are served by building outposts of recognition in other agents’ minds, and, as Sterelny notes, much of the rest of it sticks because it has some non-zero probability (according to our unconscious evaluations) of being adaptive someday. People—real or mythical—with truly “photographic memories” are suffering from a debilitating pathology, burdening their heads with worse
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