Memory As Basis Of Everything

Memory As Basis Of Everything

What makes me unique? All I can say is, I have a unique memory of myself, both in psychological and physical terms, shared with no one else in the world. Right now I am just a bundle of “memories“ in my mind and body. Memory is what makes me different from others. Therefore I am curious to know what memory is.

Memory is one of the least understood subjects in science. Psychology defines it as a process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. But is memory limited to the psychological domain? If so, how do millions of atoms that could be flying through the cells randomly “somehow“ stay together in a double helix structure in order to create a DNA molecule in an impeccable way so that it is unique to every living creature on earth? It is difficult to explain this without knowing how memory truly works.

So memory must be evolving at a much deeper level, perhaps even from the physical level and could manifest into chemical, biological, and psychological levels. Perhaps physics has an explanation. I became curious to know which theory in physics could successfully explain memory. Surprisingly, none of the existing physical theories explain memory successfully.

Recently, a few physicists have begun to realise that memory can help us understand physics better, for memory could be more fundamental than physics itself. This notion is going to drastically transform the way we have been looking at physical aspects of the universe.

This shift in thought among physicists is because of their inability to explain the random nature of elementary particles.

Quantum mechanics (QM), the most successful theory in physics, can just give us the probability to find a particle in a given location and time. The idea that nature is inherently probabilistic -that particles have only likelihoods, until they are observed -is directly implied by the standard equations of QM. This is the central problem in QM. Einstein rejected this idea by saying, “I am convinced God does not play dice“. He believed there must be some hidden variable or property of the particle that gives rise to such weird behaviour. But this theory was not accepted by many physicists who argued that as long as we are able to make useful predictions using QM without hidden variables, it really does not matter.

After nearly 100 years, a few physicists are at the verge of proving that there could be hidden variables associated with elementary particles. They call it “path memory“, because particles seem to carry the “memory“ of the path they have travelled and the interactions they have undergone along the path. Therefore, two electrons that are identical in terms of all known physical properties need not react to an experiment the same way because their path memories can be different.

As path memory builds up during the particle's journey, its randomness seems to be increasing. In fact the particle is not behaving randomly at all. Our ignorance about the path memory (of that particle) shows up as randomness. This theory might explain how an electron inside my brain could be different from the one in the hot core of a distant star.
They carry extremely different path memories.

I can now say that atoms carrying a unique combination of path memories stick together to form my DNA, defining who I am. Memory could be the basis and origin of everything.
Who knows, one day we might even prove that “empty space“ itself can hold memory.

Om Namah Shivay