The Evolutionary Advantage of Feelings
"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." - Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
Sometimes I feel like I’m more certain about things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago than something that happened just recently.
I feel I “know how” Moses split the Red Sea. That story is already in my “Stuff We All Know” bin. I know Moses. I know the Red Sea. And the parting of the waters is saved in the “miraculous things that happen once in a while by the grace of powers unknown” category.
However, yesterday I found a candy bar wrapper on my doorstep. I’m sure I’ll never know how it ended up on my front door.
I have doubts about the JFK assassination as well.
Or was the election in Argentina a fair one? It’s safe to assume that it was (since I have no evidence to the contrary) but again, I’ll probably never be 100% sure of that like the way I know how WW1 started.
Perhaps a hundred years from today, both the JFK assassination and the Argentina election will rise to the certainty level of WW1 or Moses.
The passage of time matters.
Aging changes history.
But something else also happens here.
The Ratio of Feelings v. Facts
All events have two components: 1) Facts, and 2) Feelings.
As the event ages, its fact component decreases, in the sense that we cease to investigate the facts after a certain time and close the book on them.
We document things up to a certain point. Once they become “common knowledge,” we let the facts go wherever they may.
But the feeling component increases over time. Sometimes all we’ve got left is a feeling.
In the early days of 9–11, we were awash in documentation. Every bit of data was broadcast as Breaking News! Now it’s mostly a profound feeling of loss, laced with indignation and justified anger.
Looked at from a factual angle, every feeling is like an imperfection of memory since it keeps changing and can’t be verified objectively.
Looked at from the feeling front, every fact looks like yet another inadequate documentation since it’ll be challenged immediately. That’s why we have Science.
Evolutionary Reason
I believe there’s a good evolutionary reason why feelings exist despite the failings of memory.
A single feeling can code and encapsulate an almost infinite number of facts.
Nations have independence days on which citizens celebrate the whole history of the nation by joining the festivities even when they don’t know all the facts.
Facts are not that economical. You need to memorize tons of facts to present a smooth and articulated history of anything. If we could retain and recall facts easily, there wouldn’t be any need for mnemonics, memorization methods, and degree programs.
However… when the wife tells the husband “We need to talk!” the emotion that accompanies that statement tells everything even though not a single fact is exchanged yet. The situation is already emotionally defined with no need for testimony of the facts.
In the age when humans were living in caves, the sound that felt like the roar of the saber-toothed tiger released enough emotions to hurry the young to a safe spot. No time could be lost by analyzing the facts about the roar. That’s how we survived as a species.
In quantum physics, the role of the Observer is a central and unquestioned one. The observer is also important in history with a twist: the age of the observer is also important, actually, it’s probably the most important factor in what we know and how we know it since time changes memory and the ratio of facts versus feelings.
Intergenerational Dichotomy
This presents an intergenerational dichotomy.
Those who are lucky enough to get old will coast through the bewildering events of the day by hanging on to the feelings that succeeded in encapsulating similar data points in the past. They’ll take refuge in common memory at the risk of failing to reexamine them.
The young, on the other hand, will jump on every raw data point with vigor, their intellect bent under the burden of current and past documentation. They won’t yet have the comfort of an encapsulation method that the old enjoy regularly.
The old will accuse the young of ignorance and arrogance.
The young will accuse the old with cowardness, callousness, or worse.
In the end, people will increasingly forget what the facts were/are (the inadequacy of documentation) but they’ll never forget how you made them feel (even though memory is imperfect).
Given enough time, the imperfection of memory will always beat the inadequacy of documentation.
(Illustration © Ugur Akinci)