Why don't we have a neuralyzer from men in black?
Scientists and medical experts are working on ways how to improve our memory. Whether it's to address a specific medical concern or just to simply give our minds a boost, some methods are already out and are continuously being tested and improved.
Now, what about doing the thing in reverse? Are there any ways for people to make them actually forget something and erase it from their memories?
It may be a cringy experience from the past or memories of a broken heart but whatever it may be, there are just some things that we might want to erase from our memories.
Sci-fi films feature memory erasure in the form of new technologies or as a medical procedure. Popular examples include Joel’s aim to forget all memories in the 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We also have the amazing neuralyzer from Men in Black Films which is a portable device that can erase certain parts in the memory of the person who witnesses that iconic white flash.
A question comes to mind: How far are we exactly in having a method to erase memories? Of course, it is undeniable that we are still far from having a portable device like the neuralyzer anytime soon. That device is just a bit trickier and more complex to produce in real life. What can we have soon is related to what was done in the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
In the 2004 film, Memory erasure was depicted as a medical procedure, in which the sleeping protagonist wore a device while doctors work on erasing the memories. There is a method called Transcranial Magnetic Simulation which is used in treating severe depression but may be adjusted for memory erasure purposes in the future. However, it still won’t be like how it was presented in the film as erasing selected memories would still be extremely difficult.
There are still a lot of things that we don’t currently have, and one of these things is memory erasure. Aside from the complex process of actually developing a method to erase a person’s memories, there can be conversations about how it will impact our society whether it would be for the better or the other.
With memory erasure not around just like in those sci-fi films, some of us might need to hold on to these memories we want to erase for a little while. There is also an option to just wait until we actually won’t remember them. In the case that actual memory erasure becomes possible, will you be doing it?