首页
登录
职称英语
Is the Internet Making Us Forgetful?A)A tourist takes a pic
Is the Internet Making Us Forgetful?A)A tourist takes a pic
游客
2024-02-08
11
管理
问题
Is the Internet Making Us Forgetful?
A)A tourist takes a picture of the Empire State Building on his iPhone, deletes it, then takes another one from a different angle. But what happened to that first image? The delete button on our cameras, phones, and computers is a function we use often without thinking, yet it remains a fantastic concept. Most things in the world don’t just disappear. Not our thrown away plastic water bottles. Not the keys to the apartment. Not our earliest childhood memories.
B)"It is possible that every memory you have ever experienced that made its way into your long-term memory is still buried somewhere in your head," Michael S. Malone writes in his new book The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory. It is both a blessing and a curse that we cannot voluntarily erase our memories. Like it or not, we are stuck with our experiences. It’s just one of the many ways that human beings differ from digital cameras.
C)Yet, humans are relying more and more on digital cameras and less on our own minds. Malone tells the story of how, over time, humans have externalized(外化)their internal memories, departing themselves from the experiences they own. The book is a history in time order—from the development of paper, libraries, cameras, to microchips—about how we place increasing trust in technology.
D)Is it a good thing for electronic devices and the Internet to store our memories for us? When we allow that to happen, who do we become? Will our brains atrophy(萎缩)if we chose not to exercise them? Malone, who is a Silicon Valley reporter, shows us the technological progress, but backs away from deeper philosophical questions. His love for breaking news—the very idea of breakthrough—is apparent, but he fails to address the more distressing implications.
E)The biology of human memory is largely mysterious. It is one of the remaining brain functions whose location neuroscientists can’t place. Memory nerve cells are distributed all over the brain, hidden in its gray wrinkles like money behind couch cushions. " What a plunge," opens Virginia Woolf s Mrs. Dalloway, as Clarissa tosses open her French windows and is transported into her remembered past. " Live in the moment" is a directive we often hear these days in yoga class, but our ability to weave in and out of the past is what makes life interesting and also difficult for humans.
F)The Neanderthal(穴居人的)brain was powerful, but lacking a high-capacity memory, "forever trapped in the now," according to Malone. The stories, images, and phrases that we turn over in our minds while lying awake in bed were different for them. Neanderthals could receive the stimuli of the world—colors, sounds, smells—but had limited ways to organize or access that information. Even the term Homo sapiens(晚期智人)reveals how our brains work differently from our ancestors. Translated from the Latin, it means knowing man. Not only do we know, but we know that we know. Our self-consciousness, that ability not only to make memories but to recall them, is what defines us.
G)Short-term memories are created by the compound of certain proteins in a cell and long-term memories are created by released magnesium(镁). Each memory is then inserted like handprints in concrete. This is what we know about the physical process of memory making. Why a person might remember the meal they ate before their parents announced a divorce, but not the announcement itself, remains a scientific mystery.
H)The appearance of language is linked to memory, and many early languages were simply devices that aid memory. They served as a method for sharing memories, an early form of fact-checking that also expands the lifetime of a memory. The Library of Alexandria is an example of a population’s desire to catalog a common memory and situate it safely outside their own short-lived bodies.
I)The ancient Romans even had a discipline called Ars Memorativa, or the art of memory. They honored extraordinary acts of memorization, just as they honored extraordinary feats in battle, and Cicero excelled at this. Memorization was an art that could be polished using patterns, imaginary structures and landscapes. Without training, the human brain can hold only about seven items in short-term memory.
J)The invention of computer memory changes everything. We now have "Moore’s Law" , the notion that memory chips will double in performance every 18 months. Memory plug base continues to decrease in size while our memories accumulate daily. Because of growing access to the Internet, Malone argues that individualized memory matters less and less. Schoolchildren today take open-book tests or with a calculator. "What matters now is not one’s ownership of knowledge, but one’s skill at accessing it and analyzing it," he writes. However, something is lost. We have unlimited access to a wealth of information, yet little of it belongs to us.
K)Human beings have a notion of self, a subjective world particular to us, thanks to our highly complicated and individualized brains that Malone compares to "the roots and branches of a tree". We own our own hardware, and we all remember differently. The Internet offers us access to information, but it is really a part of the external world of colors and sounds that even Neanderthals could receive. A world in which all our memories are stored on electronic devices and all our answers can be found by Googling is a world closer to the Neanderthal’s than to a high-tech, idealized future. I don’t remember when I first learned the word deja vu but I do remember the shirt I wore on the first day of 9th grade. Memory is a tool, but it can also teach us about what we think is important. Human memory is a way for us to learn about ourselves. [br] If we rely on electronic devices and Internet searching too much, we probably have a world more similar to Neanderthal’s rather than closer to a high-tech, idealized future.
选项
答案
K
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3432261.html
相关试题推荐
OnthePopularityofInternet-basedInstruction1.现在许多大学纷纷开设网络课程2.网络课程学习的利与弊3.
[originaltext]M:Whatareyouworkingonatthemoment,Beth?W:(19)I’mmaking
[originaltext]W:I’mhavingtroublemakingendsmeet.IthinkIhavetomakean
[originaltext]W:I’mhavingtroublemakingendsmeet.IthinkIhavetomakean
[originaltext]W:I’mhavingtroublemakingendsmeet.IthinkIhavetomakean
[originaltext]W:I’mhavingtroublemakingendsmeet.IthinkIhavetomakean
[originaltext]W:I’mhavingtroublemakingendsmeet.IthinkIhavetomakean
Modernmass-productionmethodslowerthecostofmakinggoods,andthusgive
Modernmass-productionmethodslowerthecostofmakinggoods,andthusgive
Modernmass-productionmethodslowerthecostofmakinggoods,andthusgive
随机试题
Americanscertainlyuselotsofenergy,butlessprodigiouslythantheyoncedid
[originaltext]MyfatherwokemeupearlyonemorningwhenIwasfourteen,a
设信道的码元速率为600波特,采用4相DPSK调制,则其数据速率为()b/
下列关于资产负债率的说法正确的是()。 ①反映在总资产中有多大比例是通过借债
下列有关垄断市场的缺点的表述,正确的有()。A.在均衡状态中垄断市场价格
改革开放三十多年以来,广东经济发展连上新台阶,综合实力不断实现大跨越。1979—
从哲学角度看,成语“守株待兔”中农夫的错误在于()。A.把偶然当必然 B.把
引起慢性肾功能不全的最常见继发性肾脏病是A.乙肝相关性肾炎 B.淀粉样变肾病
银行承兑汇票的承兑银行,应当按照票面金额向出票人收取()的手续费。A:千分之一
心脏病妊娠后应及时终止妊娠的指征是( )A.单纯性心瓣膜关闭不全 B.扩张型
最新回复
(
0
)