Memory is all we have left...

How does the transformation of human memory to commodity affect our definition of ‘human’?

While technology is advancing and new forms of media are being invented and used throughout our daily lives, I still do not really believe that this is changing what our definition of ‘human’ is. Yes, these new technologies make cause impacts on our lives, but they do not change the fundamental aspects of being ‘human’. Being human is having the ability to feel emotion, to cognitively think, to have an imagination, to interact with others. Without all of these things, we would be just another animal as we discussed in class.

While technologies may change the way in which we communicate of the way in which we interact with others, we are still using our basic ‘human’ qualities. I do not feel that I am less human for using technology, if anything, I feel that I am more. Able to communicate more, able to interact with others far away more, able to express my opinions and feelings more, and able to create new things more.

This idea of transforming our human memory to commodity is a really scary one to me. If you haven’t noticed, I am a little bit against technology and how it affects our lives and experiences. I find the idea of transforming my memories into a commodity a very scary one. Memories seem to be one of the few things that humans have left that have not been taken away from them. Memories are our own interpretations and feelings of things that have happened to us, individually. They are distinctly unique from person to person. While several people may have experienced a concert together, I guarantee they will each have completely different memories of the event from the feelings they felt while listening to the music, small aspects of the stage of musicians that they noticed and the smells, sights and sounds like experienced while at the concert. Memory is something so unique and so individual that it really scared me to think that I could one day sell it to someone else to experience. As Katie commented on in her blog, what is memory anyway? How do we box it up and make it a commodity if we can’t even pinpoint what it really is?

As Leslies commented on in her blog, she compares experiencing someone else memory as watching a video. When I read this I thought…isn’t that what videos and movies are made for today anyways? Movies are made to entertain and reach a large amount of people. They are made by taking the imagination, memories, and ideas of the director and writer to display a story to the audience. This in a way could be a memory that is sold as a commodity. But the difference is that they get to construct it how they want and plan on the reactions of the audience. On the other hand, our memories are extremely intimate parts of us. We may remember some things that we wish we hadn’t but we do anyways. There are certain memories that are so intimate and emotional to me that I could not imagine what would happen if someone else experienced it.

Sharing memories with other people is too far out there for me to really see it happening anytime soon. I do not see any real reason for this to happen or what good could come from this. Why do people feel the need to exploit the human and its unique traits at every chance they get? We have already discussed things like plastic surgery and implanting a chip into humans in order to identify them or release medicine into them. Why have we tried so hard to take advantage of ourselves? Are we not eventually going to ruin ourselves in the end?