I’m currently reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, which explores the rapid, exponential advancements in technology and genetics and their future implications.
Kurzweil discusses how our brains handle memory storage in a holographic manner. Memories aren’t confined to a single location; instead, they are stored across multiple neural networks. As we age, some of these networks are pruned away. Much like a hologram, if you break it and keep just one fragment, you can still perceive the entire image, though with reduced detail and clarity.
This gave me an interesting idea: what if we could intentionally reduce the “resolution” of certain memories that we want to have less impact on us? While clarity and blurring are familiar ways to think about memory submodalities, as a Photoshop user, thinking in terms of image resolution adds a concrete dimension to this concept.
Imagine taking a mental picture or even a whole mental video and lowering its resolution to diminish its influence. As media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message,” meaning that the tools and formats we use shape the way we think.
Nowadays, with the widespread use of operating systems like Windows, where multiple software applications run simultaneously, many people conceptualize their lives as having multiple “windows” open at once — representing all the different tasks and experiences they’re juggling.
Previously, phrases like “windows of opportunity” referred to a single opening or chance. But in today’s context, could it now evoke the image of the many tabs or windows we have open on our digital workspace? Our language and metaphors continue to evolve alongside our technology and daily experience.