When Engrams Become Exograms
Organic Data Memory and Biological Memory Extension
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21823019 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Colaço (0000-0001-7877-5664, Munich School of Philosophy, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of Philosophy and Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1878-5158 • E-ISSN: 1878-5166 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s13164-025-00789-6 |
| OpenAlex | W4415605722 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
The advent of novel technologies has bolstered the idea of extended memory, where memory processes extend beyond the human body or brain. However, investigations of extended memory, and extended cognition more generally, do not address how biological componentry might be externalized from the body and into artifacts. In the paper, I introduce and explore a case where human engrams are externalized into exograms, stored via organic data memory technologies, and reimplanted later. This case involves the same medium of memory storage in internal and external systems, which I call a biological memory extension . Further, it creates a concern about a blur between where agent ends and artifact begins, highlighting a potentially inconsistent consideration of the boundary between the two. These concerns reflect the need for us to answer a fundamental question: for extended memory, must the artifact merely extend beyond our bodies, or must it extend beyond our biology
Cognition · Engram · Human memory · In-Memory Processing · Action Observation and Synchronization · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Psychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience
Cognitive Integration
The bounds of cognition
The psychology of memory, extended cognition, and socially distributed remembering
Exograms and Interdisciplinarity
The Extended Mind
Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds
The phenomenology of dwelling in the past post-traumatic stress disorder & oppression
Phenomenal transparency, cognitive extension, and predictive processing
Extended mind and artifactual autobiographical memory
The Memory-Modifying Potential of Optogenetics and the Need for Neuroethics
Distributed selves
Phenomenal transparency and the extended mind
Multiple realizability and the spirit of functionalism
Rip it up and start again
Where memory resides
Remembering and relearning
Bodily moral disgust
The Personal/Subpersonal Distinction
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |