Addressing the second paragraph here - while conflation and reconsolidation are real phenomena, it's also quite clear that most humans form episodic memories. Some quite clearly have incredible abilities in this regard [2].

A distinction between semantic (facts/concepts) and episodic (specific experiences) declarative memories are fairly well established since at least the 1970s. That the latter is required to construct the former is also long posited, with reasonable evidence [1]. Similarly, there's a slightly more recent distinction between "recollecting" (i.e., similar to the author's "I can remember the event of learning this") and "knowing" (i.e., "I know this but don't remember why"), with differences in hypothesized recall mechanisms [3].

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.277.5324.33... or many other reviews by Eichenbaum, Squire, Milner, etc

[2] https://youtu.be/hpTCZ-hO6iI?si=FeFv8MGmHTzkLd8p

[3] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-42814-001

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pipularpop 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

"That the latter is required to construct the former is also long posited, with reasonable evidence [1]."

This is very interesting to me. I have temporal lobe epilepsy. My episodic memory is quite poor. However, I believe I'm fairly good at learning new facts (i.e. semantic memory). Perhaps my belief is an illusion, or I'm really only learning facts when my episodic memory is less impaired (which happens; it varies from hour to hour). It's difficult for me to tell of course.

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mallowdram 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Is the idea cars start a fact or a concept? Is the certainty I remember how this particular car starts a fact?

Once we begin to disengage from the arbitrariness inherent in arbitrary metaphors, and rely on what actually generates memories (action-neural-spatial-syntax), we can study what's really happening in the allocortex's distribution of cues between sense/emotion into memory.

Until then we will simply be trapped in falsely segregated ideas of episodic/semantic.

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saltcured 3 days ago | parent [-]

You've prompted some interesting memories out of my teenage years and my first truck.

I can recall the experience of getting in on a cold morning, pumping the throttle pedal three times to activate the semi-automatic choke, starting it, and getting out to clear frost off the window while it warmed up a little. The tactile feeling and squeak of the throttle linkage, the sound of the starter motor, the hollow sound of the door closing, and the noxious exhaust from the cold start (which I haven't smelled in 30 years). I remember how my little plastic window scraper sounded when scraping the glass, and even how the defrost vents made two regions which were always easier to scrape. But, I cannot really remember a specific episode of this on a certain date or leading to a particular trip.

On the other hand, I do have an episodic memory on my final trip in this truck. It was sliding off an icy road, rolling over, and sledding down a steep slope. I remember the ruptured, snow-filled windshield, and the sound of the engine idling upside-down. I remember the slow motion way the whole crash unfolded, and the clothes I was wearing as I crawled back to the roadway.

Ironically, I have more emotional context with the generic cold-start memory. It brings with it some vignette of teenage eagerness and pride in having this vehicle and the freedom it represented. The crash is more dissociated, a movie I was watching from within myself. I can meta-remember that I was very distressed afterward, but those feelings are not connected with the memory during recall.

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mallowdram 3 days ago | parent [-]

Fantastic to read this. Thank you for it, that you can interpret these associations/dissociations still is incredible.

	▲	saltcured a day ago \| parent [-]
		No problem. Let me also clarify, my language was a bit ambiguous in the prior post. I am not dissociated from the memory. I recall the way the original experience was dissociative. It was all slow motion and detached while it the car was in motion, then went back to normal after I got my bearings, detached the safety belt to drop out of my seat, and crawled out the window into the snow... I had a minor "mortality crisis" in the hours and days after, as I processed the facts of the event. But, the real-time experience was numb, almost passive observer. And my recall of it also recalls that meta context.