Where are Memories Stored?

As you saw in a previous post, I work in computing. Mostly I work in networking, but about a year ago I did some work related to cloud computing. There is a strong correlation between cloud computing and how humans store memories, highlighted by the story of Lazarus and the rich man.

You may have heard of "the cloud" in the news, since many technology companies are working in this new area. It's a hip term. "Cloud computing" means that instead of having a single computer sitting at your desk to perform calculations and store data, all of your calculations and data get stored across a network of computers. The computers cooperate with each other so that if one computer fails, others will perform your calculations and store your data. With the "cloud", there is no more any worry about losing your data due to a hard disk crash, because other hard disks are always available.

You store a copy of a photo on your computer, then it gets copied to the cloud by Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, or any other cloud storage service. Those services replicate your photo to multiple computers in the cloud. This means that if your physical computer crashes or is stolen or destroyed, you can still access your photo by connecting to the cloud. It is called a "cloud" because multiple computers form a single entity, just like individual particles form a cloud of dust.

I find it interesting that I see this "cloud" in the story of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). In this story, a poor man named Lazarus and an unnamed rich man both die. In the afterlife, they change positions where Lazarus lives a life of comfort and the rich man is in anguish. The rich man pleads for temporary comfort, but Abraham responds:

Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.

Distressed by this response, the rich man pleads for a special warning to his relatives who are still living:

Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house — for I have five brothers— in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.

What I find interesting is that the rich man remembers what happened during his life with respect to things he did and people he loved. The power behind this minor point is when we consider where these memories were stored.

Traditionally, we think of memories being stored in our brain. An event happens to us, and parts of our brain reform themselves using electricity and chemistry to store the memory in a biological format. We think that if we had a precise enough pointer, we could point to the spot on the brain where our memory of a recent event was stored. Someone gets hit in the head and they might forget some event or habit, due to physical damage to their brain.

The concept that memories are stored solely in the brain is challenged by the story of Lazarus and the rich man. When the rich man died, his brain function would have ceased and the biological material would have begun to degrade. Once the rich man died, his memories would have been inaccessible. Once his body decayed, his memories would have been gone forever. But is that what the story says? On the contrary, the story clearly says that at least some of the rich man's memories were accessible after his death and apart from his physical body.

What this tells me is that when we form memories, those memories are stored in a non-physical location (in addition to our brain). After we die those memories are still accessible. This is a powerful concept. This may be the reason why a finite amount of biological matter (our brain) can store a seemingly infinite amount of information (see here). Some scientists believe that our brains record everything we experience, even if we can't access it or "remember" it.

As you form memories today, those memories are being silently uploaded/synchronized to some non-physical location, like cloud storage uploading a photo from your computer. It is by this mechanism that we can remember our loved ones after we pass on. By that same mechanism, we'll also be able to recall the reason for our eternal condition. When we see God in the afterlife, we won't need to ask him "Why am I here?" or "Why is this happening?", we will know. By the same mechanism, I know that Roscoe still knows who his dad and mom are even though his body and brain are gone.

I point all of this out to highlight the persistence of memories. Memories aren't stored in a box (our brain) and then thrown out at the end of our lives. Each day we are forming part of an eternal story and building pieces of an eternal composition. We get to choose which memories get formed by the choices and reactions we have to life's experiences. Live life in a way that those memories make God proud. Form memories that you can look back on with fondness and confidence, rather than shame or regret.

What will you remember about how you lived today?