[splittingTimes]

I am as ever amazed by Alan Kay's ability to comprehensively remember events, interactions with people and thoughts he had from 40 or 50 years ago and still have such detail.

I cannot remember all the interactions and conversation topics I had two weeks ago or explain in detail how an issue got fixed or what its root cause was. It feels to me as if things happen so fast today, that my brain drops old information the moment I consider it done to make room for all the new information.

Is there a trick or technique to it [1] or is his brain wired differently with higher neuroplasticity?

=== [1] I do use bullet journaling for example. It helps to stay on top of the gazillion things that need my attention, but feel it makes matters worse in the regard as I offload stuff and my brain knows it can forget about it ever more.

[hota_mazi]

There is actually no evidence he remembers any of this accurately, just like most of us.

The difference between you and him is that you (rightfully) doubt your memory while he doesn't doubt his.

I think you are more likely to be correct than him.

[cmrdporcupine]

I wonder if it has to do with the fact that prognosticating about technology and being a visionary and having conversations about it has basically been his job for the last 30-40 years, while people like yourself (presumably) and I are having to write code. I'm not sure how much code Alan Kay has written for the last few decades. He certainly thinks a lot about it, but not sure there's much program authorship.

Put it another way, your focus might just be elsewhere. Holding bags of knowledge perhaps in more disperse ways, or on other topics. But these conversations Kay has, and the thoughts and plans he's made around them... that's kind of his whole thing.

[agumonkey]

Ah I wonder, are these recent memories worthy to you ? A colleague told me my memory was impressive yet we both struggled to remember what we worked on a month ago. As soon as a release was done, our brain wiped mostly everything to start on new work. I was personally shocked and I assume it's because it's of no interest to my brain.

Some stuff gets a lifelong spot in your brain, some are week long refugees.

[mcswell]

My mother had memory problems in the last years of her life. My sister would take her to a coffee shop, where she would order a latte or some such. To my mother, it was new and delightful every time--and she would exclaim over how she'd never had anything like that before, although in fact she'd had it just the week before.

When I get old(er), that's how I hope I'll be: delighting in new experiences, even when they're old.

[blippage]

I discovered some weird thing: our brain seems to have "taste memory", separate from "regular" memory. If you have the same dinner several times in a row, for example, you become averse to it. You then have to stop having it for awhile so that the brain "forgets" what it tastes like.