An Urgency to Capture Memories

I try to spend a couple of hours having coffee with my father on Saturday morning before the Saturday “craziness” begins with brothers in-laws, nephews, nieces and a few acquaintances begin their weekend visits and pull my dad’s attention, conversations and thoughts in just about any direction.  Both he and I are early risers and coffee between 6:30 and 9:30 provides and escape from the reality of daily life and allows us to concentrate on one or two topics.  A very rewarding “quality” time that I always hope could be a time for transferring knowledge from his generation to mine.   But I have learned that this “transfer” cannot be forced and it has to flow naturally when he feels like talking about it.

In many cases I spend two hours answering questions he may have about people, nature, headline news, science, and any other topic including discussions of ailments and medicine.   In some cases, that I enjoy the most, he talks about his life.  He lets his memory flow and I try to either take notes or make an effort to remember what he says.  He is 88 years of age and seems to concentrate his stories on three stages of his life:  Key events in his childhood; his latter teenage years; and his twenties.  He also talks about his siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and in all these cases his memories are event driven; that is significant events that happened in his or their life.

Sometimes I get very frustrated at the absence of details of his life.  There is a pattern of his memories that are based on events, and in some cases fond or disturbing memories of friends and relatives.  What is amazing is that even when I ask him for specific information about a brother or another relative, he does not remember.  For example, what did his brother die from?  He could not tell me.  The brother that was closest to him!   Sometimes I wonder if he did not want to tell me, or that he deliberately wanted to keep certain information from me.  People who grew up in a certain age, and many people from his generation, are very cautious of giving family and personal secrets and I wondered if that is what was happening.

Then this past weekend I decided to begin reading a three novel series that I had read in the late seventies and early eighties.  I had seen these three novels on sale on the web and they had been on sale for fewer than six dollars.  I had very fond memories of those novels and I wanted to experience the complete story again just like I did when I first read them.  The books had come in the mail on Saturday and I completed reading the first book on Saturday night.  I have to admit, it was as, or more enjoyable as the first time 35 years ago.  I closed he book and sat there thinking.  Not about the plot, but of the fact that it was almost all new to me!  I estimated that I had forgotten over 95 percent of the details!  I remember three or four of the main points and the general theme, although not very accurately, but that is it!  The name of the characters, the situations, the details of the plot, the various subplots, nothing – nada!

The next question that flowed in my head was:  What amount of information from that period did I really remember?  It turns out not very much, at least not details.  I thought very hard of what my life was like between 1975 and 1985 and the only thing I could remember were major events and procedures.  I was an engineering and an economics student and many of the equations and facts that I learned, I still know.  But then I thought,  "I remember those things because I continued to use them!"  So, what happened to all the details of my life?  I must have done some regular routine things during that time, study, help clean house, help make dinner, play with the kids.  But my mind was a complete blank.  I went downstairs and started to go through my photo albums from that period, it helped me form a more concrete memory of the events in those photographs, but many of those were of events that I remembered without the photographs!  So what happened to my other memories?  where they not "stored" in a neuron-based brain disk file?

I thought back to the conversations with my father and I can almost see what is happening.  I believe now that his memory “problem” is not of being absent minded or not willing to talk about his history, he simply does not remember just like I could not remember details or events from 35 years ago.  Moreover, coming from a very poor family and not affording a camera, he does not have pictures of his youth to help him remember events.

Serendipitously, I was reading a summary of the science journal Nature this morning and came across an interesting article by Helen Shen (May 12, 2014) “New Brain Cells Erase Old Memories” that finds that neurogenesis interferes with past learning in infant and adult mice. The research “suggests that newly formed neurons in the hippocampus — an area of the brain involved in memory formation — could dislodge previously learned information.”  Since we grow new neurons throughout our lives, we not only have the limitations of our memories limited to only our “Episodic,” “Semantic” and “procedural memories - were we tend to remember only events and episodes; or things that we had to learn from textbooks; or procedural stuff, mostly memories that allow us to do things without consciously thinking about them, but we also have new brain cells that are constantly destroying the limited memories that we do have!  I so much wish I would have kept a diary all my life.  I would not have as big of problem as I or my father is having.

So, reading the book on Saturday evening and discovering the limitations of my memory has given me great urgency to document not only my experiences but to spend more time with my father to help him remember and document his.  I also need to visit my remaining aunt and uncle and try to capture some of their knowledge so it can be transferred to my and the generations that follow.

What should we worry about next – Alien Life?

This is the third story in a series I an writing about possible catastrophes that are very real and sneaking up on us

We think of alien invasion of the earth as malevolent being from other planets coming to earth to conquer and take over.  I remember the first science fiction story I read where life on earth was threatened with conquest and extinction, H.G. Wells' novel “The War of the Worlds,” for a long time afterward I remember watching the skies for signs of Martian spaceships.  Then I learned about the radio broadcast that had the U.S. panicked and thought it was funny.  Then I saw the movie and had a hard time falling asleep for many months afterward.  Many more movies of alien invasion where made in the 1950s and 1960s, with the Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1856 and the remake in 1978 was one of the scariest because it was not a takeover by a force that could be fought. 

But the plot changed a bit in later movies with the novel I am Legend made into a movie three times.  The second “The Omega Man” with Charlton Heston and the Third “I am Legend” with Will Smith.  In these plots, the “aliens” are man-made through viral infections.  The most recent movie of this type is “World War Z.” I believe the real Alien invasion we need to fear is more akin to the "aliens" in World War Z and I am Legend type of invader; alien life produced by man that could be infinitively more damaging to the world.  

The first step in the production of alien life was taken in 1989.  At that time, Dr. Steven Benner, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and his team managed to place modified forms of cytosine and guanine into DNA molecules. He then made test-tube reactions, and the recombined RNA strands had more than the standard four different bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G) that encoded the encoded RNA and proteins.

In an article in the Science Journal NATURE, “First Life with "Alien" DNA Created in Lab” May 7, 2014, they described how they have created the first stages of Alien life though an engineered bacterium that is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic code.  The scientists conducting this research succeeded in getting their unnatural base pair to copy itself and be transcribed into RNA, which required the bases to be recognized by enzymes that had evolved to use A, T, C and G. 

According to this article, the scientists “created a short loop of DNA, called a plasmid, containing a single pair of the foreign bases, and inserted the whole thing into E. coli cells. With the diatom protein supplying a diet of foreign nucleotides, the plasmid was copied and passed on to dividing E. coli cells for nearly a week.”  The limiting factor for this new alien life was the “food” in the E. coli.  But now they are trying to engineer cells that can make foreign bases from scratch, obviating the need for a feedstock in the E. coli.  Some of the scientist are confident of the “the ability to control the uptake of foreign DNA bases as a safety measure that would prevent the survival of alien cells outside the lab, should they escape.”

OK, as a scientist, I am all for experimentation and developing new things, even “alien life” if necessary under strict controls.  But the dialogue in this journal article could have come right out of a science fiction movie where the scientist is sure he can control the “creature” outside the lab should they escape.

There is a very high probability that “alien DNA” introduced into humans and other life on earth could be very beneficial and even allow us to survive some man-made and natural catastrophes.  On the other hand an unintended consequence could be the production of DNA modifications with alien DNA that changes our character and life for the worse.  To some extent, the science Fiction author Frank Herbert explored these consequences of uncontrolled genetic mutations in two of his books The Jesus Incident and The Lazarus Effect, (I recommend reading).

The alien E. coli that was created is made up of only a single pair of “alien” bases, but scientist see no reason why a fully alien cell isn’t possible.  If we think of the “primordial soup” and how life began on earth, it probably began with a single pair of bases.  However, I don’t think this “new life form” will take 4 billion years to evolve.  It could use our ready-made DNA to evolve much faster.

A Hallway Discussion on Non-Traditional Marriage

The following is a compilation of several conversations held at different times with pretty much the same people.  I may have modified the exact verbage only because i did not record them or take notes.  Also the names of the participants and the settings of the conversation have been changed to avoid identifying specific participants.

I recently overheard an interesting conversation in an office I was visiting.  It was about marriage and it was being held by some of our more conservative staff, which without saying, had a bias homophobic inclination.  The topic, of course, was gay marriage.  After what seem to be hours of conversation where each person was trying to outdo the others in their status of “machismo,” I decided to join in.   I asked one of the people (I’ll call him Samuel or Sam); “Hey Sam, suppose that I asked you to marry me.”  Everybody went quiet for a while and then the strong refusal and name calling toward me began by everybody at the same time.  Things like:  “What are you some kind of closet fag?”  “What have you got the hot’s for him? Someone else asked.  This went on for a few minutes, but I held my hand in a stop position to be able to get a word in.

No, I said, I don’t have a sexual attraction for him.  But let’s do a mind experiment.  Suppose that Sam was dying of, say cancer, and he did not have the resources to pay for the cure, but I had insurance that covered all his medical costs.  And, suppose that he was going to die in a few days unless he had treatment and with treatment he could expect to live a long life?  The benefit to me is that I was getting frail and needed help to maintain my house and my activities.  If I could offer you the opportunity for a healthy life in exchange for your help, would you marry me then?  Again in a very macho tone of voice almost everyone said they much rather die than marry another man.  “Well,” I said, “suppose there is no intimacy involved.  No touching no kissing, no sex (of course) just a friend relationship where we shared benefits, chores, responsibilities, etc.”  “Well you can have that without getting married,” Sam says.  “Yes you could,” I said, “but not the health insurance.”  They all thought about it for a while and finally one of the guys (not Sam) said, “Well, if it’s that type of deal, I would take it, it’s either that or dying in a week.”  There was a lot of pro and con discussion on that option and finally Sam and everyone else saw the benefit of the marriage arrangement - if it was defined in that manner.

So I turned and asked Steve, “what if you were homeless and winter was coming and the only way you could survive was to come and live in my home, but the law only allowed you to live with me if you and I were married.”  Again, an explosion of macho positioning followed and again, after indicating that no other option was available, we came to the conclusion that if that was the only way, they would do it since it was either continue living or dying in the winter.

“OK,” I said, “suppose that I had the tools to manufacture something that would make a lot of money, and you John, had all the raw materials.  However, by law we could not share unless we had a marriage arrangement.”  You really wanted to manufacture stuff and so did I.  “Would you enter into a marriage arrangement?”  “Well,” they all responded in one way or another, “if it had the same limits with no sex, or kissin, or huggin, and stuff, yeah, I would do it”  John replied, “but only if I’m able to go out with women.”

“Why don’t we consider,” I continued, “another hypothetical case” (as if nothing I had said up until now was not hypothetical) “Let’s say that this person had a psychological dependency on being close to another person of the same sex, not necessarily close in the intimate way, but close proximity wise.”   “There is nobody like that.”  Sam stated.  “That’s not true,” Tom Said, “I had an aunt that had to have a person near her otherwise she would go nuts.” “OK,”  I said, that person needed constant care, but the law prevented them from living together unless they were married.”  “Are they both men?”  Sam asked.  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, “they could be either of the same sex or of opposite sexes.”  “Well, if they were of opposite sexes, there would be no problem,” Tom mentioned.  “What if they were both women?”  I asked.  In that case everybody agreed that that would be OK.  “But what if they were both men,” I asked.  “With the same condition for no intimacy?”  Steve asked.  “Sure.”  I said.  “Yeah, that would be OK,” they all agreed.

“What if you were single and were getting on in years and had done well for yourself, but wanted to leave your stuff to an heir.  So you adopt a child.  Isn’t that like a marriage?  You love and respect the kid, you nurture him (or her) and it is your best interest for the kid to grow and love and care for you as well as have your same values, after all you will leave him your whole estate.”  “But that is different,” Sam said.  “Why is it?  I asked.  “You have an official certificate for a union for life, there is love and caring, teaching and respect.  Like the scenarios earlier, there is no intimate contact, not in the sense of sex, but there is hugging and caring.  In a way they are kind of the same, aren’t they?

A long discussion pursued but at the end they all agreed that it was kind-of the same in terms of legal commitments and emotional commitments between the two, but until the child was of age, the legal commitments was between the state (and the adoption agency) and the person adopting.

“So in all these cases,” I said, “marriage has been like a mutual commitment to do something for each other.  Someone needs something that the other person can provide.  Who cares if they are of the same sex, if marriage is the only way to have that arrangement, you are all telling me that you would all do it.”  It’s almost like an economic arrangement where tangible and non-tangible goods and services are bartered and exchanged.”  They all agreed that it was more like an economic arrangement.  It was trading health coverage or shelter and safety for companionship and assistance, collaboration of compatible resources to meet a goal, or an investment in the future through an offspring.

“So,” I said, “what happens if the goods exchanged are more non-tangible to include, say, ‘love?’  What if someone, in order to live and make them happy was willing to give love for something in exchange?  I don’t mean love in the sense of sex, but love in the sense of caring, companionship, everything we define as love.”  I continued, “and to carry that case out a little bit more, what if the other person was also willing to offer love as part of the exchange of goods and services?”  “Well, that would be just like a normal marriage,” they all agreed.  What if the two parties were both women and or both men?” I said?  “But that would be different!”  Sam jumped out and said.  “But that’s no different than the other cases.”  Tom and John jumped in defending the issue.

I had a meeting to go to and I left them discussing the issue.  I don’t know if I changed any minds in that discussion, but as I left down the hall I could still hear them discussing the pros and cons of same sex marriage.

As an afterthought, I think that what consenting adults do in private should not enter the discussion of marriage.  For most of history mates were not chosen on something as fragile and irrational as love and then focus all their sexual, intimate, and altruistic desires on the resulting marriage.  Most marriages, before “love” became a factor, were pragmatic, involving considerations of property and family alliance, love was something you found after, sometimes outside your marriage. Only rarely in history has love been seen as the reason for getting married.  Maybe Tina Turner had something in her song “Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it.  What's love but a second hand emotion”  OK, maybe not second hand emotion, but definitely and economic non-tangible good that is the basis for, and possibly bartered and traded in, a contract of marriage.