good comments

jnf commented on my LoR laments: "it's not like our mind is electric memory, where we overwrite all the old stuff every time we get new stuff." ... and that combined with the good reminder by mg: "to loosely quote, jon cusack in high fidelity 'these things matter...they really are important.'" ... leads to the following questions [great opportunity for further discussion--hint hint]: If these cultural memories or experiences are (a) important/influential and (b) cumulative rather than strictly substitutive/interchangeable [both of which seem to be true], then (a) do certain kinds of media "stick" more to our memories? (b) what level of control should we have over what media feeds into us (and by extension, our children)? (c) is amnesia a blessing or a curse? (d) is our concept of intelligence really just a function of memory? (e) is "mind" really just a bunch of synapses firing inside our skulls and if not, where is our mind? (f) is John Cusack really that hot in person? (g) why does Frodo only look like Elijah Wood in my head right now--i.e., why do certain images stick more than others? (h) what would you do for a klondike bar?