Articles

On those occasions when I’ve been on the Motorway alternating between 60mph and zero for no apparent reason, I’ve often wished I could be in a helicopter watching the traffic acting like one of those slinky springs that used to make their own crazy way down our stairs when I was a child. I find it amazing that a dab on the brakes that drops my speed by 3 mph can set off a chain reaction that causes cars five miles behind me to come to a complete halt 2 minutes later. This is called the Butterfly Effect, named by a brilliant meteorologist called Edward Lorenz.

Most of us have a sense of our own history, our successes, our failures, our ups and downs. Our memories form an intrinsic part of our self-identity; that elusive entity that helps to give us a feeling of coherence as we navigate through time. But how reliable is this sense of our past? Is who we think we are based on a system of memory that is more fluid and unstable than we are comfortable admitting?