Where do all our forgotten memories go?

Answer 1

Of course everyone who has answered already is quite correct, but mine (My forgotten memories) are at the beach without me, right now, Sipping Margaritas on the sand, playing Volleyball, going for a little swim. Hmmm- maybe I'll see if I can try a Decartesian reversal and see if I can forget myself and join them....
Wish me luck!

Answer 2

That's an interesting question. It seems to presuppose a view about the world called "naive realism" or sometimes "the naive metaphysics of things". That is, it treats memories as though they were substantial, when in fact they are not. Even on a physicalist view, a memory, while we are having it, is a brain STATE, not any particular substance in the brain. When you forget a memory, that brain state is gone.

Early philosophers held the naive metaphysics of things. Empedocles said that you couldn't get rid of anything real, for "it will always be there, however far away you push it". Young children often hold (unwittingly) a naive metaphysics of things. They will ask questions like, "When snow melts, where does the white go?" which, if you think about it, is a lot like your question about memory.

What gives us pause, is that we think a memory is something (not nothing), but we wrongly infer that it is something in the same way that a substance is something.

Hope this helps! :)

Answer 3

It's like a path through the woods that, over years of not being used, is lost. The trees are still there; the path that you once traveled is still there, though you can't see all of it; you can remember bits and pieces of it, "landmarks." Having a memory means running through the same thoughts in your brain, over and over. The less often you go over those thoughts, the more overgrown those paths become. Soon they are indistinguishable.

The answer about randomization of particles also has some truth to it. The synapses (connections) of your brain cells grow in different ways, until the new network looks nothing like the old one. Like how your own town looks so different now than it did when you were born.

Answer 4

Actually, the human mind is capable of storing all events throughout it's life. Hence, memories never go away. They are simply stored in a lower part of the brain that is hard for it to access, ergo, a memory may seem familiar and yet distant at the same time.

Answer 5

According to Frued, the forgotten memories go simply to the subconscience, and the subconscience is like the big junk box of the human mind in which we throw everything that we want to forget,suppress or hide from other human beings. I think he was right in that, live well.

Answer 6

I'm sure I had a memory regarding that, but I've forgotten it! LOL just kidding.

It doesn't go anywhere, it just disappears.

Answer 7

The information is either no longer accessible to the brain (but not destroyed) in which case they went nowhere, but you can't get to them,

OR,

the system is randomised and the information lost, in which case it went into the various particles that made up that memory, and are indisinguisheable from many other solutions.

:)

Answer 8

I think memories remain in our mind, but new ones cover them and it just seems they are gone forever. There are certain things we can't remember of our childhood, but that's normal because we were too small to remember some details. Don't worry...you haven't lost them forever :)

Answer 9

at the back of your brain. Like a black box when full it replaces with new memories.

Answer 10

Into the Universe. Probably?