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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Metaverse Roadmap IV - Lifelogging - Si

Lifelogging (Intimate/Augmentation) - Si


A perfect memory isn't necessarily an ideal, at least by
current social standards. Human relationships are aided by
the consensual misremembering of slights, allowing the
sting of insults and personal offenses to fade over time.
With easy access to records of past wrongs, “I forgot,”
will be much less frequent, and some will find it
impossible to "let bygones be bygones." On the positive
side, new social accuracy will provide opportunities for
individuals to more frequently admit their mistakes, and
after some ego adjustment, help them be more tolerant and
open to a change of mind and behavior. We see such
learning on some (not all) blogs today, which are accurate
text-based lifelogs of past arguments in social space.

Si memory is *subjective* memory, and is anything *but* photographic (but try to tell that to an Si dominant ;-)). It's the most visceral of the four kinds of Perception. Despite this, Lifelogging is subjective in terms of the perspective of "I" remember. Lifelogging technologies, as is warned, break the necessary barrier of forgetful memories, but as a recent case study has shown, these technologies actually help "objective" memory in the long run, and may help build tolerance as we stop self-selectively forgetting things. Lifelogging technologies aren't capable of recording the feeling of 'butterflies in the stomach,' but they can help us recall the exacting details of the moments that caused those butterflies to launch into dance, and the more details we can record, the easier those moments are to recall viscerally. There's a two sided coin to Si memory - when unJudged, these replicated memories can result in phobias or untold stresses; ironically, when paired with other techniques, they can be the tools to rid ourselves of overreactions. It's hard to learn from one's mistakes if one cannot remember them. It's equally hard to learn from one's mistakes if one unnecessarily dwells on them too, and is the nature of chronic depression.

Unlike virtual worlds, lifelogging
won’t allow you to walk in another person's shoes, but it
does allow you to look at the world through another
person's eyes. Or multiple people's eyes: memories tagged
for a particular time and place can call up similar
recordings from others at the scene, giving an
individual access to multiple perspectives on an event.

Here we diverge a little from Si into Fi. Introverted Feeling is the function that deals with empathy - being able to walk in another's shoes, or view through another's eyes. It's a Judgment function really, not a Perception one. Why they say you can't walk in another's shoes is beyond me - that's exactly what Lifelogging enables, down to the exact footstep if your Nike is hooked up to your iPod.
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