I'd delete so many memories that I wouldn't be anyone anymore.

I don't think I'd need to- I've already managed to block out all the memories I wanted to forget.

I asked my Dad about this when he sent me a story about it. He's got some bad memories from Vietnam. He told me that even regular therapy would make him feel like he was "editing" himself, so this would be much worse.

And I kwim about new gf's, js. I just told myself that I must have made a hell of an impression. :-D

If it could take out seventh grade and most of high school, I'd do it.

I can't remember what I had for dinner last night. If it weren't for Firefox, I couldn't remember my passwords! And you want to erase more?

See, all you haters poked fun at me for my ADD! Well, who's laughing now, hunh? Hunh? HAH! Me, that's who!

Ha ha ha ha ha haha hahaha

let's go ride bikes!
a;ksjdf;laskjsdf;

I'd erase my whole childhood and my entire 12 year relationship with my ex-husband. That would basically leave me with the two years of memories since I left my ex, and I'd be a happier person for it.

Yea, I'm with Doohickie. I'm practically in Memento territory already, I don't need any help forgetting things.

I have plenty of bad memories, but I wouldn't erase anything.

This idea is so fucked up. Never ever would I agree to something like this. To forget the pain would be to make me something less than a whole person. Did I say the idea is fucked up? 'Cause it's really fucked up.

Could I please have Zoe removed? Thanks.

McCOY
I was wrong. This "con man" took away
my pain!

KIRK
Dammit, Bones, you're a doctor. You
know that pain and guilt can't be
taken away with the wave of a magic
wand. They're things we carry with
us -- the things that make us who
we are. If we lose them, we lose
ourselves. I don't want my pain
taken away. I need my pain.

The best moment -- well, speech -- in a dreadful script.

No. No way. If I forgot all the bad stuff, I would forget the lesson I learned along with it. What if I erased memories of my first horrible, scary boyfriend (The Psycho) and then met someone like him again and didn't have the sense to run like hell and get a restraining order?

We are made up of memories. I don't want to start editing my brain, not even the horrible moments I still wince to recall.

Yah, I was thinking along the same lines as you, Specklet. I've learned so many lessons through my bad experiences that without the memories of them I'd live a crap life re-making mistakes.

i'm sure they'll be using it long before they know what they are doing or how it works.
Maybe it will help people never having to deal with negative information, learn and grow from it, maybe it will help patch in the natural functions of the brain to suppress extreme reactions.
They already can do some monkeying with memory, so this is potentially horrifying as another tool in the wrong hands.
Interesting find. Generally bad idea.

If you look at the hand transplant guy and how they've studied his brain function with and without the new hand, they can see whole parts of the brain activate and compensate.
i'd rather they'd figured out how to stimulate and retrieve memories rather than selectively obliterate them.

What if instead of removing a bad memory, you could stimulate a good one to help you through a negative time, learn and remember things did not always suck?

I worry that people would become a lot less...human, a lot less empathetic, a lot less understanding, if their most painful experiences were removed.

It's the sad and miserable experiences that make us humble and help us identify with others when they're in some kind of need.

There's a lot of stuff in my life that I cringe to remember, and a lot of pain I'd like to have avoided. But if I chose to disappear it, I'd be a different person, and probably less good and less wise - which I couldn't afford, since I'm not all that good or wise to begin with. What little soft humanity I have comes from the hard moments.