We cannot predict, with perfect accuracy, the algorithm that forms a memory. We should not try to one-shot it.

The mechanical layer is closer to a data lake than to a model of the hippocampus. Store the traces of what happened, because today’s judgment about which of them should become bricks will be wrong, and because the judgment layer should be allowed to improve. A miss that has been discarded cannot teach a later algorithm what it should have formed.

The lake is not the memory, and it is not served from. Serve still admits only what a current toward requires. Dreaming still only proposes. Reconcile is still what promotes a trace into a brick, or a brick into a lesson.

“Store everything” does not mean “show everything.” It also does not mean the lake should grow a smart API. Capacity is what lets the philosophy remain revisable. Without the lake, the first theory of encoding becomes a tomb.

A philosophical exploration in memory systems, part 14. Terms · Previous: Capacity · Next: Emulate, Then Supersede