Sought
in faith by those wormish and abject accessories of the academic community, the
life sciences center offered a berating not unlike that they might find in any
corner of the remainder of their lives, be it scholarly or otherwise. Lauren
too…
―And so I intend to measure the selectivity of memories based on
a series of surveys of, essentially, like, self-classification among volunteers
aged eighteen to thirty-five. To see how, well, or what, certain demographics
and professions or focus groups neurologically are connected to, um, choosing
to remember.
A hand raised, ―But isn’t that more social
psych based anyway like how…
―Like the notion of someone quote deciding
end-quote what to remember based on preconditions of narcissism or…
―I don’t really think narcissism is a
measurable variable though really so…
―Oh, you don’t think that? What, then, was the
entire point of the semester spent on personality and…
―No, but what do you mean about preconditions
affecting the predecision on how some person is going to remember something as
an example of social…
―He’s just trying to say that measurable
influences are not really neurologically based in a way that supports a…
―I mean, what exactly is the quote thesis, or I
mean, even hypothesis of the quote thesis end…
―It’s a measure of personality through basic
knowledge of neuroscientific factors…
―I mean, I see how it could work, like as a
kind of lighter take on an approach to…
―Or rather because we are measuring this more
through a method of cognition, I wonder, how do you think it is applicable
based on what we know of hippocampal memory form…
―Actually, though, that’s a point that I was
just going to get to that…
―I just don’t understand what you mean about
selectivity, as in how do you know what someone is going to, like, select when…
―Because there is a simple commensurate
solution to how I think I can…
―I think I know what you’re going…
―She’s going to say she wants to use an MRI, I
think…
―But then how are you going to be sure about
other factors outside of the fact like that the MRI is so loud could be having
an effect on how the person might be hearing and stuff like…
―A simple control variable of repetition inside
and out could pretty much account for anything too…
―Do you mind if I step in here? He’d remained silent at the head
of the old rectangular table, right hand underneath it, sort of tugging at the
corked and laminated wood where, he thought, a piece might crumble, at which
time he’d have decided it was a good one in which to step. But the table did
not, curiously: the word had cycled about in his mind, leading him to new
curiosities about the origin of a word of its meaning, and leading, naturally,
to the idle fumbling of his fingers along the questionably immaculate
furniture, reinstating his enthusiasm in the fruitless endeavor three times, actually,
before he’d become aware of the situation unfolding, really, only in seconds.
―I mean, because, as a kind of quote lighter…
―Do you mind? He, with a bit more stringency, was effective, and
considered this. The seminar room grew quieter. ―An air conditioner hummed, he
waited a moment, ―the professor said aloud. Then some more seconds. ―You see,
yes, Ms. Obst, this requires a bit less, er, stringency on my part as your,
well, because as you can clearly. Your fellow classmates make some good points.
But why don’t you try to reapproach, or reintroduce the topic from another…
Some shooting presque vu he thought he remembered whipped away. ―Why not just
give it another go. As a pitch. That is…
―Well I was trying to get to the point about
how we instill memories, and how it would be fairly easy to record, like, what
is lighting up and where, and how that’s related to, like, certain phenotypal
categories of, like… She could feel herself drifting from the comprehension of
her own language. Her own point, shaken by the um of the crowd, seemed to
evaporate in a space a few feet behind her own receptive field. ―Like, she
repeated, and flipped through the notebook opened before her.
―I think I know what she means, like how…
―Why don’t you let her talk then…
―Whoa, wait a second, wait, then aren’t you by
interrupting me continuing the system of interrupting her so in that case
creating an entirely moot…
―Don’t we let Ms. Obst try to carry on with
her, er, her words on this matter.
―I’m sorry, it’s just I have this, like, there’s
the problem, I get it, with classification but that we have the access to
certain, like, observational pathways to deduce how these memories might be
pulled and then, like, using a survey to go along with it, but there is this
thing I read about how certain things might, like, replace the reality. Like
almost like roots spreading, or how a garden could like grow from a seed is how
the theory was trying to describe it, like as a center of selectivity of the
singular item that gets remembered and the false memories, or forgotten
elements that are replaced, replacing it. I, flipping through the papers now
radiating from the center of her section of workspace around the rectangular
table, sliding across one another, disassembling a sense of hierarchy in favor
of unbridled commonality, ―seem to have possibly misplace, I mean, I’m sorry you guys,
um professor, I mean Dr. Piedmont…
―Piedmeant. It’s all right, Lauren, why don’t we
just come back to you next week. Keep up the good work. And, to another student
across the table, ―why don’t you give us a feel for your research aspirations,
Willis.
―Gladly. He shuffled his chair a bit. ―As you
all know, there is a quote accepted understanding end-quote in that certain
psychoactive drugs are responsible for long term losses of function in parts of
the memory-oriented cortex, affecting, many times, motor function of those
habitually involved individuals. However, I’m interested in how reintroduction
of similarly chemically constructed psychoactive drugs in persons who have not
been exposed to such influences in five or more years may potentially be
utilized in order to restore those quote muscle-memory functions through a
series of sessions focusing all brain attention on those issues, thereby
experimentally restoring pathways that may have been compromised through the
shortcut of, raising his index and middle fingers in exaggerated, twice-pulsing
curls, ―tripping…
After the students disbanded, Lauren, advancing toward her
professor, became suddenly, as if he was consumed by some forward moving notion
of his existence beyond hers, elevated in terms of time, like he was existing
seconds ahead of her, partially ignored. Following him, then, down the stairs
voicing concerns of the machinery possibly necessary in order to see through
her thesis, the man’s lurch seemed to react in anticipation of each thought
stated, as if her very existence was some adumbration on his part, to be
endured. Out and across the park, up two flights of stairs and down the echoing
tiled floor, he turned to her and paused. She could read neither judiciousness
nor humor in the thin lips, which not unsmilingly shaped around his words, when
he did finally reply, ―Have you considered a career in social work? and slipped
through a door just scarcely open, not having to say she’d be better not to follow.
