Your natural memory is the result of an exceedingly intricate
network of retention of facts, ideas, and physical activity--all of which
are learned through sensory perception, and then stored in your mind
and limitlessly cross-referenced, for future use. This is how it
happens:
Facts
“Camembert just had six kittens.” That sentence tells you, first of all,
the fact that six kittens have begun to exist. It also reveals, in the
word “just,” the fact that their birth was quite recent. But, because of
your mind’s retention of other facts, previously learned, the sentence
tells you even more-you know that Camembert is a cat, and that the
kittens are her offspring, and that she is a lady cat. You know these
things because of your previous knowledge that kittens--baby cats-are
descended from female cats... information which comes from your
mind’s ability to register facts.
Abstract Ideas:
Now, what is a cat? Can you picture one in your mind? Unless you
know Camembert, your impression of “cat” will probably not be an
accurate picture of Camembert herself ... but still, you have a very
good idea of her basic parts, at least. This impression is the image of
an abstract idea, one built on a whole slew of impressions in your past
involving cats and cat-ness. Then, too, how many are “six”? One more
than you have toes on a foot, three and three, one less than days in a
week, half-a-dozen... another abstract idea that is so well documented
in your mind that you need give the word- and the concept- no more
thought than it takes you to think of what letter follows “G” in the
alphabet.
Motor activity
If you swim, or ride a bicycle, or climb up a step ladder to get
things off a high shelf, or move you arm to avoid putting your hand
into flame, or walk, I’m sure that you don’t spend every active
moment thinking about these things; they come to you so naturally
that you don’t even have to give them thought. If you type, no doubt
you can now type many more words in a minute than was the case the
very first time you tried a typewriter. But that took time and practice.
Through repeated experience, effort and practice, your mind comes to
retain memory of motor activity.
But all this mental memory-activity is only a part of the total picture.
Remember, our definition of memory plainly calls for all means of
making information available.
