When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future

What happens when digital codes can no longer be deciphered and all history and information is irrevocably lost. Historian Abby Ramsey reviews how information has been gathered and stored from antiquity to the present. Memory was the first steward of lore sustained through story telling, and then the hands prompted memory with the use of knotted strings and beads to facilitate recall. Writing followed the oral path and soon stone and clay tablets provided the bookkeeping. This weight was supplanted by papyrus retained as scrolls which subsequently led to printing on paper and our precious books. To maintain records of history, culture, property, law and all the arts, libraries were established. One of the earliest was in Alexandria, more modern versions were initiated by Jefferson until we reach the gigantic edifices that continue to grow with accumulated data. Now in the digital age, information technology transfers memories into bits and bites that constantly change and are fragile and mutable. Just as tablet, scrolls, books, films, art, architecture can easily be burned, bombed, and destroyed, so too is the mighty web vulnerable. With the population explosion and the concomitant exponential increase in knowledge, memories become overwhelmed by the superfluity of data.

This book presents a fascinating view into how the mind’s memory functions and all the external devices that complement this aspect of consciousness.