Tanzi: In your brain, there are billions of nerve cells. And they are making trillions,
perhaps even in some people a quadrillion connections. If you then ask, based on how
many possible connections you can make in your brain, that number is greater than the
total number of particles in the universe. That's how amazing your brain is.
Chopra: So Rudy, of course you are an expert in memory; Alzheimer's disease is a loss of
memory or ability to at least remember things in the past. I remember you had a conference
of over 150 neuroscientists, and I called you on the phone, and I said can you ask your
scientific colleagues - where is memory stored at the cellular level or how is memory stored?
And what happened when you asked them that?
Tanzi: It's funny. When I ask neuroscientists "Where are memories stored?" There's always
the same response. There's some hand waving. Say "you know, in your brain." Say "well
where? Where exactly?" "Well, in the neural network." "Where?" "In the synapse."
Wait wait, synapse are two connecting pieces of a nerve cell. It's protoplasm connected.
As Cajal called it, the "protoplasmic kiss". Where is the memory? Well it's in there. And
I say wait, you know that's not an answer for a scientist, 'it's in there.' I'm asking,
what's the thumb drive in the brain? I mean we know where we store jpegs and videos from
our computer; it's on a thumb drive. Where's the thumb drive in the brain? We know how
the brain makes connections and synapses to recall a memory, to call up a memory, to call
up the image of your mother's face or the color of a rose. But do we know where that
image of your mom or the rose was stored? Where was the thumb drive? And any neuroscientist
has to admit we don't know. It's conjured up in the brain but we physically don't know
where.
Chopra: So this is a very important point. It's conjured up in the brain but we don't
know where it is stored at a cellular level.
Tanzi: There's truly no good answer.
Chopra: But all the neuroscientists still believe that memories in the brain. That it's
somewhere in the brain. We don't know exactly where. They believe that it's somewhere in
the brain, right?
Tanzi: They believe that memory is imprinted in the brain the way you imprint a visual
on a computer.
Chopra: But we cannot explain how or where.
Tanzi: No we cannot.
Chopra: Okay so here I'm going to introduce you to a radically different idea, which comes
from the east wisdom traditions of Vedanta, that your memories aren't actually in your
brain, they're in your soul. They exist as possibilities. And so just like a particle
is a wave and a wave is a probability or a possibility, until you actualize the memory,
it's just a potential. And you know there's a Sanskrit word for it, it's called Sanskara.
So where is your vocabulary stored right now? (You know you have a vocabulary of several
thousand words. You and I are now downloading our vocabulary in order to make sense of this
conversation. Not only we're downloading it, we're doing it totally effortlessly, and through
intention, and we are sequentially unfolding ideas. Syntax -- grammar -- so it makes sense
hopefully. And Vedanta would say that your entire vocabulary, your entire experience
of life, exists as potential in your soul—and we can talk where that is—and intention
activates it. In other words, all the words that you know as your vocabulary, they exist
right now in superposition as possibilities in consciousness. And that you will never
find memory in the brain because it's not there.
Tanzi: Well I would have to agree that your brain allows you to recall words, recall pictures,
process them, view them in your mind. But where those words were stored, where those
visions that you can recall are stored, physically in the brain, where in the cell—fat, lipid,
protein—we don't know.