[randcraw]

And as an infant our world was incredibly smaller than our world is now. Surely the 'principal components' of that day were reshaped or subsumed by other pointers later, thereby shifting the landmarks used to retrieve memories.

I would hazard a guess that the original pointers aren't revised to point nowhere, but are, if possible, moved to point into the revised reference model. (Presumably we do this now when we learn a new domain like music, and as the model for harmony becomes more concrete, our original pointers to elements within it are adjusted rather than lost.)

[westcoast49]

I think it happens to a certain extent, if we do as the article says, and revisit our memories. We then probably reinterpret our memories in the context of our new and updated understanding of the world.

In other cases I believe it’s quite possible that our understanding of the world, say at age two, is so radically different from our adult understanding, that the old memories don’t even make any sense in the new context. They can’t be remapped in any meaningful manner.