What is the oldest memory you can remember?

I think I might have remembered a time while I was in the womb actually. I have this vague memory of an instant where I saw some faint light through a veined membrane.

If that is in fact not a valid memory, I also remember this one time where I was just crawling around in our TV room. Nothing significant happened that I am aware of. Obviously, I was just a toddler.

And if that even is not valid, I remember this one time I crapped my diaper. I think might have just started walking about this time.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Actually, I do not think what you say is possible Eleo.

One of the main things about how memory works is that it doesn't just record experiences like a tape-recorder, or some hard-drive. Instead, it stores the impressions that your experiences make on each of your sensory cortexes(is that the right word?). If these cortexes are not sufficiently developed, then impressions cannot be properly made, and memories cannot be recorded.

Memory, in a way, feeds back to each of these centers past experiences, and if these experiences were not processed in a manner similar enough to how the present configuration of these cortexes processes information, then recollection is just not done.

And since almost no thinks the same way they did when they were infants, their ability to recollect is hindered, almost directly proportional to how long ago they experienced it.

One way of preventing this however is to keep reprocessing old memories to keep them fresh and "up-to-date." Of course, who really wants to do that?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by SILBER-5

EDIT: I always thought old, important memories were just tucked away in the part of the brain we are not aware of? But you can remember with certain techniques to bring them out. That is what I've heard, anyways.

In a way they are. The only technique I can think of is to attempt to think in more primitive ways and try to recall them that way. The more of your "advanced" way of thinking you can strip away, the easier it may become. The problem is that often people are trying to recall things in the context of their current way of thinking.

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This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Eleo

But who's to say that they aren't developed prior to birth or soon after?

Because the developments are environment induced.
Without an environment in which the cortexes can adjust their discerning abilities, they remain in their relatively inert state and certainly don't function like that of a more mature individual.

Life in the womb does not seem sufficient enough of an environment for the brain to develop these skills, as the brain's interpretive abilities are dependent upon dynamic changes to function, and the womb is a relatively static environment.

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Just because they exist in an alternate form doesn't make them inaccessible. Like I said, there could be a potential to uncover these memories using some scientific method. It's possible that there could come to be some device that extracts and translates these memories into some form that could be interpreted by the brain in its current state.

Yeah, that may be so. I am not one to shoot down technological possibilities at all; however the amount of effort needed to do that seems to me to be vast. ('sup complete mapping of the brain in the past)
Ultimately, this seems highly unlikely, and very impractical.

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