Dear Vyacheslav:

The pastness of the past is an essential part of the presentness of the present, and they are, therefore, inseparable!

Memories has always some importance in our life.It guides us to our future direction.Memories give us always mixed feelings.

The events of the past that remain in our minds forever are the memories. There can be good and bad memories. Good ones refresh and energize us whenever we recall them whereas lessons can be learned from the bad ones.

Friends, I like this definition of memories :)  To me, memories of the past shape our future. We learn from the right things we did and from our mistakes to prepare ourselves for future challenges.  When I took care of my old folks, I said that the memories will prepare me to live a useful old age.

Yes, I agree that the memories is the connection between the past and the present. But why do we remember - not to lose the connection.

Vyacheslav and friends, it's because we are humans, endowed with great memories.  So we must remember our PERSONAL HISTORY.  Don't we have to remember our national history, so that we don't repeat past mistakes?  OK, elephants also have good memories.  Those who are UNkind  to elephant will be remembered, caught up in the trunk, and hurled into the river! :)  So beware!

To describe memory by a scientific term, I want to give my definition: Memory is the possibility and technique to read stored data from our brain.

And if our brain is not enough, we have to use data storages from somewhere else. We then have to use techniques to reread saved data of  the humans in books, paintings, stories and myths... 

“The worst memories stick with us, while the nice ones always seem to slip through our fingers.” (Rachel Vincent).   

Dear Hanno. A good definition. But if continuing to quote Mahfuz, the question arises: what memories prevail. Why is this happening. The mood or something other.

When it comes to forming memories that involve recalling a personal experience, neuroscientists are of two minds. Some say that each memory is stored in a single neuron in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. But a new study is lending weight to the theory of neuroscientists who believe that every memory is spread out, or distributed, across many neurons in that part of the brain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/science/where-personal-memories-take-root.html?_r=0

Memory is the mental activity of recalling information that we have learned or experienced. 

It is the sum total of what we remember, and gives us the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences and leaned facts. The three stages involved in the memory process are encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Researchers claim that we have a selective memory  and we can train our mind to forget embarrassing moments completely

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8620360/Selective-memory-does-exist-say-scientists.html

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/three-stages-of-memory-in-psychology-explanation-lesson-quiz.html#lesson

http://www.helpguide.org/life/pdfs/what_is_memory.pdf

Dear Lala.

Thank you for clarifying that for the mechanism of the formation of memories.

But can you give an explanation of what memories are formed at a certain point, why.

Dear Behrouz. Thanks for the good links.

But hardly bad moments we forget. These moments are sometimes arise in memory. But why are they there, if we want to forget them.

Dear Viacheslav,

In fact We remember the bad events in greater detail. Nice quote mentioned by dear Mahfuz is in the same line.

This is not inconsistent with the link of my previous post which we indicates that we can train our mind to forget embarrassing moments. here is a relevant study:

In the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger and colleagues, explain when emotion is likely to reduce our memory inconsistencies.

Her research shows that whether an event is pleasurable or aversive seems to be a critical determinant of the accuracy with which the event is remembered, with negative events being remembered in greater detail than positive ones.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070828110711.htm

Dear Vyacheslav,

thanks for your response to my statement. Which data are present via our memory mechanism is a really interesting question. I think that´s a job for psychologists.

I agree, that we forget some data, we prefer some data and we change the view and asessment of our data. This techniques depends on our tolerance, wishes and actual state of our consciousness.

Dear Behrouz, uvazhapemy Hanno. Thanks for your informative clarification.

But there is a second part of the question - it may memories escape from reality.

I´m convinced, that discovered "memorial" data are changed. This can be a method to escape from the past, it can be a filtering of the data content to protect the own consciousness, and last but not least it could be a method to manipulate the own soul and the meaning of listeners.

Dear Hanno, I especially like the "manipulate the own soul and the meaning of listeners".

I do remember both bad and nice things from my past. Of course, the strongest memories are about children and my childhood.

But, behind this, I think that your fine thread, as we are an engineering people, deserves some consideration about fact HOW MEMORY LOOKS LIKE IN THE BRAIN!? No memories, no past without memory! The next paper discusses " prior findings and hypotheses on memory by researchers at three levels of abstraction: cellular (middle), network (higher) and molecular (lower) levels. The paper attempts to combine them, together with the author's own hypothesis on what a memory looks like, to suggest an integrated view of memory."

https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?query=what%20is%20memory&type=publication

Memory for past episodes provides a sense of personal identity – the sense that I am the same person as someone in the past. Most of our knowledge is in memory at any particular time. It is also true that the degree to which even our current conscious knowledge typically depends is on memory.

Please find here a few references for better understanding of memory.

http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/Papers/MemoryandSenseofPersonalIdentity.pdf

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/memory/

http://www.academia.edu/3087696/Philosophy_and_Memory_Traces_Descartes_to_connectionism

Ljubomir, well said: "No memories, no past without memory!". But on the other hand the memory - it's part of the memory.

Dear Nageswara, thank you for joining the discussion. You're right, "Memory for past episodes provides a sense of personal identity".

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.

Tennessee Williams

Their memory's like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can't remember Tell the things you can't forget that History puts a saint in every dream.

Tom Waits

Memories provide meaningfulness to life. Without memories, life would be boring. Humans highly value them. Human emotions are deeply connected with memories. Knowledge is largely built on memories. One can not analyze events if there are no memories. They are very much a part of life. Especially, events that touch us as good or bad or unusual are likely to remain in memories more often than the routines. When the mind has too much information, memorizing becomes difficult as human memory system has its limitations too.

Yes Prof Kamal and friends, very often the words I hear in a song or in speech bring back great memories.  We must make it a point to treasure good memories.

@Dear Vyacheslav, persistent sad memories are easily remembered to prevent us from making mistakes that are costly.  And we need to make it a point to remember good memories so that we are thankful, and wiser, people.

Memories are a basic part of our brain functionality. There exist many sections of our brain that have as their task to store what our senses have found or simply our emotional feelings.

Unfortunately several damages are made as human is getting older and only a little progress has been done on this issues.

“The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Dear Behrouz and Kamal, Gabriel Garcia Marquez had also problems with memory at the end of his life,

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18749389

so memory is a hard issue, I think...

The latest news about memory: Memories of error 'improve our learning speed'! 

"Rearchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, MD, think they have discovered why people learn an identical task faster on subsequent attempts. Publishing their findings in Science Express, the team says our memories of error are the key to faster learning."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/281146.php

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Oscar Wilde

Keep on going with quotes on memories, known and unknown authors. Just read it carefully!Very true!

http://cristimoise.net/tag/the-best-memories/

“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”

Tennessee Williams

Memory is essential to constructing scenarios for ourselves in the future. According to McDermott  investigation, person's ability to project forward and to recollect the past both develop around age 5, and people who are good at remembering also report having vivid thoughts about the future.

Memories comes every day in different forms and ways, of different matters and of different stages and deeds of life, some with good images and some with faint recalls. It is a one's own bank of personal and social life as well as all reflection of stages of life. It also depends on free time available -- more time likewise more memories comes.

What is the minimum memory for an organism? There must be a capability to distinguish between constancy and change. But as far as I see there are organisms that react only on light. Maybe they don’t need a memory?

Dear Martin,

I don´t know which organisms you mean which just react on light. But if you mean some protozoons, it can be that the memory is fixed in some controlling proteins.

It´s a different kind to remember, but very effective.

Dear Dr. Shanmugasundaram P,

it would be a good idea, to discuss this item in a separated new question from you.

Dear Vyacheslav

Memory is consciousness....

"A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen" Edward de Bono

Khalil Gibran: Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

Dear @Vyacheslav, something more about memory from human-memory.net. "Memory is the sum total of what we remember, and gives us the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as to build relationships. It is the ability to remember past experiences, and the power or process of recalling to mind previously learned facts, experiences, impressions, skills and habits. It is the store of things learned and retained from our activity or experience, as evidenced by modification of structure or behaviour, or by recall and recognition."

http://www.human-memory.net/intro_what.html

Something in the past, something to remember, recollect, recall

Yes Dear Kamal, our future lies on memories

 Our Mind & Brain remain a golden gift for every human beings from the nature which we all have inherited from our parents . With our arrival on our holy mother earth we all can come to know regarding the identification & standing of our parents & thru them what we are going to be as a human being & which mode we are to contribute in our working environment .

With this , we are aware & in certain cases we have come to know that with our birth we bring along with us the fruits of our action positive or negative from our earlier action of quite previous lives .It is this resulting fruits of our action of previous lives we find that all human being are not equal we have come to know regarding CASTE,CREED,& RELIGION after our arrival on this earth & with our birth our departure on this earth is certain & not in our hand .

It is this mode of evaluation we should come to regarding our standing & make if necessary the require change in the silent movement with our conscious & sub conscious mind & with our inner energy within us.

In the line of this our memory is nothing but a reflection of our Mind thru our conscious mind for this example are not unknown that a child of 6 to 7 yrs of age with his early memories can reflect to us the past event & quite good information of various countries .

In this line memory to be evaluated .

This is my personal opinion