Memory, Imagination and Symbol

Kim, Jong-Gyu

The aim of this paper is to criticize the digital externalization of memory from the point of view of humanities. This sort of externalization is based on the engineering approach which aims at realizing the ‘Total Recall’, with which the limitation of human biological memory is able to be overcome. But the origin of this approach is typically grounded on the modern thought. In the modern thought, the mechanism of human knowledge process was quite simply explained by regarding it as dualistic process. This explanatory simplicity makes the engineering approach encounter the modern thought. In the virtue of this simplicity, human memory can be identified with data stored in a computer’s memory. It is the main point from which ‘Total Recall’ starts. But,can we accept this the meaning of human memory? Human memory can be explained and understood in various ways, and this variety of explanation and understanding stems from the relation between human memory and imagination. Given the perspective of humanities, especially from the idea of Gilbert Durand and Ernst Cassirer, human memory and imagination is originally rooted in the human symbolic faculty. The ‘Mnemosyne’, which means the origin of the memory, is the very example of relation among these. So, in proceeding to explain the human memory and imagination, we should bear their own original meaning in mind. Much to our regret, the current engineering approach seems to be a great distance away from their original meaning. In this sense, there is a high probability of reduction of the meaning of human memory and imagination in the contemporary engineering approach of the human memory. It is important to question and elucidate the original meaning of human memory and imagination in this situation. This is very important in both humanities and engineering technology.

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* 2022년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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