Conceptual Detailed Memory

What causes memory to be more conceptual or detailed?

By “conceptual or detailed memory”, I mean the degree of detail that memory focuses on and retains in the process of conscious thought. I’m specifically considering conscious thought for this topic, and excluding memory access which is exclusively subconscious thought, since by my understanding of conscious thought (as further “detailed in this post from 3 yrs ago; Conscious Comprehension) it involves the connection in memory, of method of interaction between factors, which allows comprehension of cause and effect. This method of memory access should be interesting to distinguish causes of differing degrees of detail of memory, as well as how that affects intelligence.

The degrees of detail could be generalized into 2 categories of memory, being: detailed or conceptual. Conscious thought and memory access seem to vary throughout a significant range between these 2 types, from exceptional memory of detail to effective memory of concept. Concepts are quite relevant when it comes to conscious thought, since a concept is virtually the relevant cause and effect of an interaction (as I further conceptualized in a post form 2.5 yrs ago; Carry the Concept). What makes it a concept is that the cause and effect is more generalized than any specific detailed example, and can be applicable to alternate details or factors (as I “generalized” the concept of, in a post soon after that last link; General Generalization). 

The conceptual memory type would cause overall intelligence which is better able to carry useful concepts to new situations, resulting in what could be called Generalised Intelligence, as I covered in that post. The other type of memory focus, being detailed, would result in intelligence which is effective at recalling details in a more stable and simple environment where the same details will be common and repetitive (as I compared in a post from over 1 yr ago; General vs Memory Intelligence). That topic covers the common resulting effects of the 2 variances of intelligence which are respectively caused by the 2 types of memory focus. 

For this topic, I want to attempt to distinguish why the human brain seems to generally function in the method of only 1 or the other memory focus types. If a brain has detailed focus, this must be caused by the neurons typically using the same neural pathways to lead to the same details. Since conscious thought involves neurological access of memory of multiple factors, as well as the interaction between factors, detailed memory will usually simply access the same neurological combination which represents memory of the same factors (and the conscious comprehension of how those factors interacted).

On the other hand, conceptual memory would be more likely to create varying neural pathways and combinations, which are required to save in memory how a concept, which is extracted from details, can apply to alternate details or factors. This neurological process creates more neural pathways from a specific conscious comprehension, to a generalized concept, which can then lead neural pathways to alternate factors that are applicable to that concept. This function of neural access is more varying, and less consistent to the exact same neural combinations involved in memory of specific detail. As conceptual memory saves a concept from any instance of conscious comprehension, the neural access in the future will tend to access the more generalized concept, rather than the specific detail. 

This function of neural access can then cause the concept (rather than detail) to be accessed subconsciously, after repetition of access. As I described in a post from 1.5 yrs ago; Sub -Conscious Shift, when conscious memories are eventually accessed by the subconscious, this allows that sub-construct memory to be accessed in a larger macro neural combination. If conceptual memory is able to access a concept subconsciously, as only 1 component of a larger neural combination, the brain should be able to connect that concept to more varying factors and other concepts. Conceptual memory seems that it is likely caused by more adaptable neural pathways, which can allow connections to more varying factors and details that are applicable to any concept of cause and effect. 

Assuming the brain has a capacity for relevant neural focus (as I further “focused” on in a post also from 1.5 yrs ago; Fundamental Focus), it seems rational that the brain would have the 2 general types of memory focus. This capacity for focus should be relatable from experience, if you’ve ever found it difficult to; 

-focus on studying, while other aspects of life keep distracting you, 

-trying to connect how various concepts relate to one another, 

-trying to hold various thoughts or ideas in your mind at once,

-or trying to distinguish details of generalized concepts in order to make them more tangible (as has perhaps been happening to my mind in the last hour or more).

For neural combinations to be relevant and respective of memory of perception, the limit of access to combinations can either focus on details or concepts. Consciously comprehending these functions of the mind can be saved in memory as only detail of function, or as a concept which can potentially be useful and applicable to various circumstances throughout life. If the benefits are understood, then the process can be utilized for those benefits resulting from the comprehension of the concept of Conceptual Detailed Memory..

Societal Systems Set

Are systems within society and humanity too set into place for changing circumstances?

What are the causes and effects if set systems continue momentum without adapting?

Within modern day society it seems it may be evident that past systems were set into place for a reasonable purpose, but those systems continued through the changes of society into circumstances which are relevantly different from the initial intended purpose. With circumstances changing gradually within society, caused by technological development, changes in resource availability, and or changes in leadership and inhabitants, it seems sometimes societies methods and habits do not adapt in suit.

Some potential examples of society systems which may have not adapted with the change of circumstances, could be; 

-Schooling systems with unilateral methods of learning and grading, which was initially designed to prepare children to be factory workers.

-The system of lengthy work week hours, initially intended for the husband of a stay-at-home wife in a traditional family, and to make up for lower resource production.

-Daylight savings time, initiated to save energy during WWI

-The imperial measuring system

These are just a few I thought of off the top of my head, but there are likely many other examples all throughout any society and culture. 

These system sets, and plausibly any other that becomes outdated, likely have a common component which is basically fundamental to the concept of them being a “system”. They have a fairly rigid set of guiding rules. Sets of rules can be useful to keep things organized and efficient, but are usually only applicable to fairly specific contexts. Since circumstances within society and life are often so complex, in such a broad range, and changing, the context of outlined rules of the system will often not fit or be most effective for the situation. 

The difficulty to outline rule sets which are effectively applicable to all circumstances may just be the conventional cause of systems being unable to adapt with changing variables of society and humanity. The psychological cause for societies to allow systems to persist out of context may be another topic. But as can likely be seen, the effects of these rigid systems persisting into changing circumstances of society, often result in inefficient and inapplicable methods, relative to the new circumstances. 

The more systems of specified rule sets we allow to continue in society, out of their scope of intended applicability, the more problems are likely to result. In order for our implemented systems to continue to be effective, 1 method could be for the rule-sets to be updated and reevaluated as the environment changes. This can be done with a secondary, overarching, more generalized system consisting of set conditions for the more specific rule-set to change. 

An example of this applied in society may be; the more generalized set of rights and freedoms guiding the more specific laws, within most societies. An example in nature could be; the generalized system of instincts guiding the specified rule-sets of the subconscious. This natural setup of interaction between systems in the workings of nearly any animal has proven to be quite effective in adaptability to changing environments. Instincts have the generalized rule-set to cause the animal to receive positive or negative reinforcement to general reactions which allow survival, and which overarches the more specific reactions of the subconscious. The more specific and changing rule-set of the subconscious, uses the reinforcement combined with perceptual memory to adapt reactions to specific factors within the changing environment. This seems to be an effective set-up, which perhaps we could take into consideration for application of more rule-sets within society.

Overall, systems can be quite useful within context, but perhaps to allow systems to be adaptable to the changing environment of society, we should more often apply more generalized guidelines for systems within, to follow. This setup could be applied to many specific systems within society. But perhaps the most significant and overall useful application for any and all people within any society, would be implementing the overarching generalized guidelines of comprehension. If everyone was taught the general concept of conscious comprehension, this concept of critical thinking of cause and effect could be adaptably applicable for basically any more specified under-arching rulesets or circumstances. 

Conscious Awareness or Comprehension

Are there significant differences between conscious awareness and conscious comprehension?

The 1st portion of my questions to distinguish might be what I mean by conscious. I think there is a general common understanding by mostly anyone from their own experience, of the interpretation of what consciousness is. Even if there’s no common detailed understanding, I think there is still a roughly similar idea that most people share of what consciousness is. 

But to try to be more specific in the parameters of what I mean by conscious, I described my hypothesis of the function of consciousness (which seems to repeatedly hold up and become more evident, the more it is applied to other related concepts) in a summary post from 3 yrs ago; Conscious Comprehension. Overall, the most basic constructs of consciousness seem to be memory access of factors and their interaction. These basic components allow for conscious awareness of anything perceived, and how it is relative to something else. It also allows comprehension of cause and effect from any interaction of factors, which allows potential understanding, problem solving, and intentional choice to alter factors for preferred outcome. 

Generic “Awareness” generally insinuates; alert perception and mindful attentiveness. Most people and animals have basic awareness of their surroundings daily, as they perceive their situation, save in subconscious memory a relevant amount, and react subconsciously or instinctively to any stimulus that is perceived. 

Similarly, the concept of conscious-awareness (as I’m using it in this description) would be more related to real-time perception (than conscious comprehension would be). Besides only perceiving surroundings through the senses, and recording in subconscious memory, conscious awareness would also involve the brain making neural connections in memory of how various aspects which are being perceived, interact with 1 another. 

For eg. Someone can drive the same typical repeated route to work, and be only subconsciously aware of what they see while driving. Through habit and repetitiveness, they will still be aware enough to subconsciously react to their surroundings by steering and stopping appropriately without thinking about it or actively considering their surroundings or actions. 

But if that same person is driving in a new city they are visiting, they might be consciously aware as they drive. The difference being, they are awarefully making connections in their mind of factors that they are seeing, and how those factors interact relative to other factors or concepts. They might be paying extra attention to the road names, trying to remember them if they need to find their way around later. This involves making the neural connection between memories of the road signs, and the saved concept that those signs represent that road itself, as well as connecting the concept that in the future they will be driving these roads again, and the road names will be applicable for direction. The person could also be consciously aware of buildings they see, and make the memory connection of the design or height or quantity of the buildings compared to other cities' buildings they’ve seen. 

Conscious comprehension shares the same concept of connection in memory between factors and their relativity in context, but tends to insinuate a more specific concept. Comprehension doesn't necessarily involve active perception, since it can regard a concept saved in memory of the interaction of factors. Comprehension refers more so to understanding the extent of cause and effect of an individual concept or idea. The concept being comprehended can be specific, such as; heat rises, or more generalized, such as; thermal dynamics, or even more generalized, such as; the concept of a concept (as I specified more in a post from 2.5 yrs ago; Carry the Concept).

The differences may not be as significant as the concepts themselves, but overall comprehension tends to involve a more outlined set of parameters of a particular concept of cause and effect, whereas awareness can include multiple concepts which are being actively perceived. Perhaps it can be relevant and sometimes applicable to awareness of circumstances in life, to comprehend these concepts of Conscious Awareness or Comprehension.

The Grate Challenge

Why is it such a challenge to be grateful to God?

Personally, I find it puzzling why I myself find it so difficult to be grateful enough for all the freedoms and opportunities life offers. In a post from about 1.5 yrs ago; Grate I questioned whether or not we should be grateful, and the reasons why. Considering basic existence as an option to experience positives throughout life is virtually incalculably better than complete lack of existence and chance, it seems pretty reasonable to be grateful. A lot of what we perceive as negative, is in reality only a lack of positive, as I mentioned in a post from before that 1; Positive Reinforcement Perception Relativity. Yet why does keeping these perspectives in mind seem so challenging?

I considered similar concepts in a post from 2.5 yrs ago; Contendment for Contentment, that being content is difficult because our ability to consciously comprehend prospects of alternate positives often leaves us over-focused on the past, future, or what others have. 

Differently than being content, the term “gratefulness” usually insinuates comprehending the cause of something. Regarding the aspect of God for this topic, perhaps the difficulty of being grateful is also extenuated from a lack of comprehension of what God causes, as well as comprehension of the benefits of our existence relative to the potential contrary. A misunderstanding of God and these concepts of the benefits of existence could lead to a negative perspective of blame towards God. In my last post; Author of Authority, I considered the immense complexity of circumstances and effects which are often far beyond our awareness. To be more grateful to God, it might help to include in our comprehension of God, our acknowledgement of our own lack of awareness of circumstances. With acknowledgement of this can be included God’s authority to cause or allow various circumstances, including all potential positives of life. 

Adding to the difficulty of keeping the perspective of gratitude, it seems to be natural and common to feel entitled. As I covered in a post from almost 2.5 yrs ago; Titled, but not Entitled, we may often assume we deserve more positives in life. This could be because of various status’ someone might have, or regarding God, feeling entitled could be yet again from a misunderstanding of Gods function. Bringing back the concept of over focusing on other positives, if we assume others have more positives from God or we should have more from God, this sense of entitlement can potentially result even in resentment. To avoid this, it should help keeping in mind the counter to this, that our existence or even accomplishments do not mean we deserve anything, since credit for existence, or anything we have the opportunity to accomplish thereafter, goes to God. 

It seems to be our instinct and subconscious steering perceptions of entitlement and ungratefulness. I hypothesized more detail of how instinct and subconscious can steer the mind, in another post from about 1.5 yrs ago; Mind Driver. As it may be with a lot of problems, if the subconscious is steering thoughts in a dispreferable direction, the best option is likely to consciously condition your subconscious in a more preferable direction, as I covered in a post from about 4 yrs ago; Conscious Conditioning. 

For application of this, to being grateful, conscious comprehension has to be aware of this overall concept (perhaps through writing or reading this), then consciously consider it significant enough to be triggered in memory in the future. If it’s triggered, then consciously choose to analyze and be aware of various aspects of positives of which to be grateful for. If this is effective at causing positive reinforcement, the subconscious will be more inclined to take this direction in the future. Through conscious repetition, can result habituation, and preferable alteration of the subconscious to be more Grateful. 

Hopefully the understanding that any positives we do have in life are a huge blessing (compared to lack thereof), and that focus is better directed on those positives, than potentials, can be a potential solution to; The Grate Challenge. 

Author of Authority

If God is the author of reality, how much authority should God have?

In my last post called; Authority of Freedom I considered the basics  of the interplay of freedom and authority to restrict it within society. Typically it seems agreeable that someone has authority in decision making and potentially reducing freedom over an individual if they are not capable of making effective enough choices for themselves. Examples would be parents authority over their kids, or owners authority over pets. 

Even in cases involving coherent adults, we often give authority to a 3rd party who has more expertise and or less bias, when there are disagreements between people, or a lack of knowledge, in the many circumstances that arise where it is difficult to distinguish what action is best overall. For example; Judges, and law enforcement often have authority for settling disagreements, while doctors, scientists, and researchers can be given authority for expertise. How do these concepts of authority apply to God?

If you believe in the Christian God that is omniscient and the cause of allowance of life, this seems it would be basically the same concept of a parent of a child. Just as a human parent has much more (usually) knowledge, awareness, and decision making capability than their child, the same does God (if not to a much more severe degree) have much more knowledge, awareness, and decision making capability than any human. 

When it comes to disagreements and involving an authority of power (such as law enforcement) which is supposed to be unbiased, if you believe God is good and loving, then God would likely be the ultimate unbiased 3rd party. With knowledge of every last detail of resulting scientific physiological effects, as well as mental effects of anyone influenced, even through every chain of reaction, God has a perfect understanding of outcome, and what is potentially the best for all. 

This is also the reason God would be the ultimate expert authority to go to for difficult or complex decisions and circumstances. As experts are fairly knowledgeable in one category of study and experience, assuming God is omniscient, God would be an absolute expert of all information in all categories of any circumstances. Distinguishing God’s direction may be a whole other complexity to grasp, but for the sake of this topic, the extent of authority seems quite reasonable.

The complexity of effects from any action or decision any person makes, is barely graspable as a concept, let alone calculable down to the last detail, for a human. Regarding the grand scheme of things, the concept of “the butterfly effect” is but a minor component of the total causal effects of actions we take. For eg, hypothetically, someone could take a step 10 cm further to the side on a trail and cause a butterfly to flap its wings. This change of air current, growing through temperature and distance, eventually causes a hurricane on the other side of the planet. But this is only a portion of the effects of that 1 step. If that hurricane killed someone who would have otherwise had a child 10 years later, and that child would have had a grandchild 50 yrs after that, who would have 25 yrs later saved the life of an inventor who would have invented a water treatment device to save millions of people from dying of thirst in the future world-wide lack of fresh water.,, that 1 literal step could have caused millions to be saved, or otherwise die. 

Throughout life, how many steps do we take without having the slightest idea of the total resulting effects? In all, if situations don’t occur the way we prefer, and if it can be difficult to understand why God might allow or cause certain things, perhaps the extreme complexity of interactions of effects, which are so beyond our knowledge that we can’t even perceive our own lack of knowledge, could be a reminder of the reason for; God’s Authority.

Authority of Freedom

Who has authority to reduce someone's freedom?

This may be largely dependent on the perspective of morals which is taken. In a post; Mutual Morality, I tried to outline plausible general prospects for morals. If the ideology is agreed upon that everyone in a society should follow the general moral guidelines of trying to allow maximum enjoyment for all, then it seems to follow that someone may only have authority to reduce another's freedom, if it is to increase overall enjoyment. 

Of course estimating overall enjoyment is complicated, especially since enjoyment is subjective. These complications are why there are so often disputes and arguments, basically anywhere on Earth where there are people. Societies usually have a somewhat decent concept put into place to deal with disputes, by having appointed individuals with extra authority who are supposed to have additional knowledge on pre-set moral guidelines we call laws. But Perhaps individuals could reduce disputes themselves, with more understanding of these concepts, and perhaps these concepts could be applied to circumstances where law is not applicable.

If the moral ideology is agreed upon of maximum enjoyment, complications can arise from estimating a comparison of oneself's enjoyment to another’s. Since this is all based on subjectivity, it may be best to take a default estimate of equality. If all individuals took this perspective that others enjoyment is of equal value as their own, they would avoid reducing someone else's freedom or enjoyment for their own benefit. 

This perspective of equality could also apply to scenarios of someone assuming they know better of what is best for someone else. I covered more of this idea in a post called; Freedom of Choice. As noted in that post, some scenarios exist where someone likely does know better and could have the authority to make a decision for another, such as parents over their children, or humans over animals. But how does this extend to authorities within society?

In reality, circumstances of life can be so complicated, where the effects on 1 person are very different than others and the difference of enjoyment could be significantly noticeable. If additional information and communication with those involved doesn't work to come to an agreement, authority could be given to additional 3rd party perspectives. Also, in reality, everyone does not follow these guidelines, so if someone blatantly and obviously disregards others enjoyment, this is where, ideally, societies designated authority of power could be applied. 

The next question could be; how much authority should be given to those in power? If authority is blindly given, this can lead to mass reduction of enjoyment or freedom, as can be seen by many examples of dictators in history. Keeping authority restricted to it’s scope of applicability for decision making could be 1 step to determine how much authority should be given. Not only can authority of power be given to individuals, but perhaps also authority could be taken back when deemed necessary to uphold morals of Authority of Freedom.