Black Mirror’s episode The Entire History of You showed a possibility of a world with perfect memory using futuristic technology implanted into the brain. As the episode showed this could cause considerable problems with the way people interact with one another. No one could forget events unless they purposefully deleted the memory. People would be able to constantly look into one another’s past experiences and very little privacy would remain. Any mistake that you made could be held against you for the rest of your life even if you had changed considerably since then.
This not only could cause social problems but psychological problems as well. Being able to forget about traumatic or painful experiences is very important to a person’s mental wellbeing. The inability to forget a traumatic memory is one of the key components of PTSD. It could be beneficial for the person to be able to delete the memory mechanically when the brain refuses to forget it. However this would assume that the traumatic was not also stored in the organic brain. This brings up the issue of what is stored in the organic brain and what is stored on the electronic device. If everything is stored in the device and nothing is stored in the organic brain then the person would never be able to stop use of the device.
This form of visual memory storage is actually very different from the way our brains store memories. Our brains do not actually store a memory as an image like this episode’s futuristic technology does but rather as a series of electrical signals. Not only that but different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. Though we have a better understanding of how memory is stored it is not fully known exactly where different types of memories are stored. Without knowing exactly how the brain works this type of system could potentially cause problems in the function and development of the brain. If the device was implanted at birth like it seems to be in the episode of Black Mirror is could hinder the development of the brain further enhancing the inability to discontinue use of the device.
Our memories make us who we are. Each person has different experiences from one another and each one teaches us something different. Being able to delete a memory could change the way you look at the world and how you react. Though it may seem like a nice thing to be able to remember your 3rd birthday party the risks is poses would greatly outweigh the benefits.