How many of us, during high-school and universities, have wondered at our ability to retain so much material, retrieve it, and be able to write our exams and pass?

I first studied pharmacy. In the first year of pharmacy, I had 4 subjects: chemistry, physics, botany, and zoology. Each subject in turn was made out of a few related topics (with different professors and different books). For example, chemistry included physical, organic, and inorganic chemistry. Physics included heat, optics, sound, electricity & magnetism, and particle physics. Same deal for botany and zoology. Then, there was the lab work. I carried an experiment once, and if this experiment came on the exam, I had to remember what I did a few months ago. I could repeat an experiment if I was sick on that day, or for revision purposes, but not all lab work lended itself to repetition.

I stand in awe at the ability of the brain to store all that and spill it out during a stressful exam.

Another example is what we call corporate memory. Say I worked for a bank for 20 years. I was asked one day to remember something that happened 17 years ago! With the help of some documents from that time, I was able to provide management with the requested information. You might say that there was sufficient written data from that time. Yes, but nothing can replace a human. I provided the circumstances, the reactions of the players, and my own interpretation of what happened. I could have even put my own spin on the whole thing!

No amount of archival material, or even the storage capacity of computers, can replace a human memory. These are tools. They help us; they cannot replace us.

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