The Perverse Way in which Memory Works

Sorry, no profound meditation upon important things. I was just stuck for a word months ago, and decided that I would not look it up, I would not supposedly accidentally just happen to, you know, brush by it while reading something else. I would let this problem simmer until I darned-well dredged the word up from the depths of memory, Harrumph!

That was about three months ago. Since then, I have remembered this little internal fetch-quest perhaps eight or ten times, and strained my brain in the effort. The word in question refers to a function of the gastric system, and it was one of those words which stuck with me for a kind of dual economy -- not only did the word cleanly capture something complex, it mirrored the actual clean encapsulation of a complex process. Fascinating how the human body works, how some individual muscle movements can be grouped together into larger functions, yet which are clearly isolated, fully functional elements of yet a larger thing, which is itself a function.

I do believe that language is not the origin of thought, but is indeed a refinement of it. Language did not create the biological phenomenon, and some creatures which are aware of the process (ya feel a rumblin) will modify their behavior to accomodate it -- even creatures which we are quite certain have no word for anything. So there is clearly thought without words even in creatures without language. To insist that language precedes thought, or that a word precedes a particular thought, is to insist that humans in gaining language have simply lost the ability to think without it. I don't think that holds water.

Now before we go, I'll confess that this word I sought is sufficiently biological that you'll think I'm playing for gross points or have selected it for shock value, but this is not the case. First, I am reporting what happened in truth, and second, it illuminates the working of memory, and supports a rather large and important position that I hold anyway, so the serendipitous nature of the word, well...

Wikipedia: "~...a radially symmetrical contraction and relaxation of muscles that propagates in a wave down a tube, in an anterograde direction."

Some medical term SEO site: "~...is the wave-like movement of the muscles that line your gastrointestinal tract, which propels food and fluids through your digestive system."

STOP reading here if you wish to issue the word challenge to yourself.

Today, several minutes ago, I was reminded once again of my little memory task, and finally decided that it had been long enough, and that no amount of bearing down upon the matter was going to produce results. I gave it a last effort, turning up all sorts of words which were all over the map. Tmesis (really? yes). Cnemis. Gastrocnemius. Lateroplasmic arushandapush. Clearly, I was off on the wrong foot here. And so I committed to looking the durned thing up. I opened a new browser tab, put the mouse in the box and considered what to type into the sear -- PERISTALSIS.

That was it. That was the word. Not like a thunderclap, and as much as I would like to say that there was, there was no flash, no rolling echo applauding the spark of awareness. Just a clearing of fog and hey whaddyaknow that's the word. After three months of gritting and bearing, of relaxing and hoping, the very moment that I had decided to just look it up, the word plopped out of memory.

Per. Verse.

We understand memory even less well than we understand various uh gastric functions. That is to say, when it comes to the mind, we don't know poop. One thing is clear, however. The mind has its functions and processes which do not answer to our command. Rack your brain, be patient, be fervent, be logical, be emotional... yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes when it comes, but not at random. Just when it comes is a matter of the mind's timing and not of yours.

And so there is a certain peristalsis of the mind as well. Not necessarily physical, and certainly not in too close an analogy of other physical processes, but there is a physical thing that happens at least in conjunction with the arrival of the thought, the retrieval of a memory, the grasping of a word.

I specifically avoided looking up the word in question, explicitly as an experiment in how memory works. Would I be able to salvage a sunken word? Or would I be forced to look it up and then say "oh yeah, of course I knew that"? Would I as usual wonder whether, had I just given it a bit more time, I would have recalled the word on my own?

Over a period of months, I made several actual attempts to recall this particular word via force of will. Between those attempts of course were weeks of opportunity for the word to simply drift to the surface, as in when we recall at midnight that thing which we desperately needed the previous afternoon. Yet neither of these methods bore any fruit. Months!

The odds that my memory simply happened to come up with it in the instant after committing to look it up but before actually accomplishing that research are vanishingly small. Instead, there is a mechanism which refuses to release the information until supplanted -- threatened? -- with another mechanism. And then it's all Oh, thaaaaaaaat word, why didn't you say so?

Literally perverse -- perversus -- in opposition.

We are fond of joking that the misplaced thing is always in the last place you look. Well, of course, because once you find it, you stop looking. Jokes aside, there have been occasions when I have remarked that the damned thing was in literally the last place that I could have looked. Keys on an unwieldy ring, or papers in a stack cut like a deck of cards to "reset the odds" come to mind. These are handy closed-set examples in which the last thing is also the last possible thing.

It may be that the perverse thing, which refuses to drop the knowledge until finally credibly threatened with a lookup in progress, is in operation while you select your places to look, your ordering of keys to try on the ring, your shuffling of the sheaf. And the next time you feel like you're in charge, try swallowing some food using only conscious muscle movements.