Memories play a huge role in making us who we are. Without them, we lose all individuality. Even the process of learning depends on forming new memories. Therefore, apart from our intelligence and emotions, memory truly forms a large part of who we are.

Since our childhood, the amount of memory that we gather and store is simply astounding. I mean, when we are old and wrinkly, we can still remember images of our childhood in our minds. Life truly is a remarkable thing and how we became capable of this incredible feat is a pleasant mystery.

But memories are not always something you would want to feel nostalgic about. There are some memories that are too painful to remember and so we try to supress them deep into our minds. Then there are memories that are not bad but you would want to dump them anyways.

If one day science advances to a really insane level such that we will be able to selectively remove or upload memories to our brains, would you want to do it? There are certain situations where I think I would definitely want to at least try.

Erasing Memories

First off, there are people who have been through some really traumatic experiences which affect their very way of life. For them, this would be a real boon if they were willing to erase their memories of their traumatic experiences.

For others, it might just be a privelege sold as a commodity in the future to delete memories that they do not wish to keep for whatever reasons. It could be that they are no longer needed, or too painful, or icky, or any number of other reasons.

One cool scenario would be for movie and tv show fanatics like me. Let's say you binge watched a tv show and you loved it. After some time, when you watch it for a second time, it still feels good but it just doesn't feel like the first time. You know, those little moments that make you all tingly inside! They won't have the exact same effect during the second time.

This might sound crazy but if you could erase the memory of having watched the show, you could get that same exact feeling of watching it the first time, any number of times you want to! It surely sounds like an episode of Black Mirror and sounds totally bizarre today but who knows in the future it would be a common place tech!