The unopened book, its spine uncreased, rests on the shelf, untouched by breath. No hand has turned its waiting leaves, no eye has met its silent depths.
The pages sleep in folded time, ink unmoved by thought or light— a universe uncalled to mind, a star unkindled in the night.
Who knows what worlds it might contain— a lover’s vow, a tyrant’s fall, a name that once was yours or mine, a deathless truth, a whispered call?
The story never yet begun is writ in ink that does not fade. Its fate, unlike the morning sun, has neither risen nor decayed.
And yet—another book lies bare, its binding worn, its chapters told. The margins smudged by time and care, its tale rehearsed a thousandfold.
We read, we skip, we turn again, we bookmark thoughts we dare not bind— then falter near the closing lines, no meaning fixed, no end designed.
A narrative half-read, half-lost, its final thought left unexpressed— the thread unwinds, the ink runs dry, the reader dozes, unconfessed.
Between the two—a paradox: the never read, the half-complete. Which holds the weight of what we are? Which better marks our own defeat?
Perhaps all books are mirrors dim, reflecting what we dare not see: the start we fear, the end we flee, the truths we touch but never free.
So let it lie, unopened still, or let it fall apart, well-worn— the soul is both the waiting page, and every word we leave unborn.
Moonlight, Strandgade 30 (1900-1906) – Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916) Oil on canvas, 41 x 51.1 cm; On view at The Met Fifth Avenue, Gallery 813. Hammershøi’s Moonlight, Strandgade 30 captures the stillness of night in his Copenhagen apartment, where light and shadow become the true subjects of the scene. Photograph courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain
A poem by D.S. Yarab, reflecting on the fleeting nature of time, the way memories persist even as moments dissolve, and how the quiet glow of moonlight can stir both longing and serenity.
Whispers of the Waning Light
The misted pane distorts the night, A wavering world in silvered hue, The lamplight bends—a trembling sight, Yet past and present shimmer true.
The clock-hands drift in softened glide, Their silent whispers feign retreat, Yet memories, steadfast at my side, Hold time within their quiet seat.
A voice long stilled, yet clear it sings, A scent unbidden lingers near, As if the years had feathered wings, And bore me back to what was dear.
Yet all dissolves in drifting haze, Elusive as the frost-bound air, What tempts the mind, what thought betrays, What hand still grasps what is not there?
So let the veils of time unwind, No rush to capture or define— For in the fleeting, we may find That all was ours, yet none was mine.
Because of my ongoing work on an essay tentatively titled Endless Horizons: Theories of the End of Time in a Multiverse of Block Universes, I woke early this morning with a question about the nature of memory and whether it, like physical systems, is subject to entropy. To deepen my understanding of this topic, I decided to engage ChatGPT in a research query. This also presented an opportunity to demonstrate how I ethically use ChatGPT as a research tool.
The experiment was straightforward: I formulated a fairly simple (complex?) philosophical and scientific question and asked ChatGPT for a response. ChatGPT, as previously instructed, provided authoritative sources to accompany its answer. This approach allowed me to gain immediate, well-rounded insights while ensuring I had reliable sources for further book research, should I choose to explore the topic more deeply. In addition to my own well-stocked library, I have access to resources through the local city and county libraries, as well as one of the local universities, where I am an alumnus. I also have access to other libraries associated with organizations of which I am a longstanding member. Moreover, through these libraries and their subscription databases, I have online access to a wide range of books and scholarly materials.
This process reflects my commitment to using AI as a tool to aid my scholarly inquiries—never as a replacement for rigorous research, but rather as a way to generate new questions, gather preliminary information, and identify potential sources for more thorough study.
Below is the question I posed and the response ChatGPT provided. It provides ample information for me to reflect upon and good sources for follow-up if I wanted to pursue the topic further.
My Question To ChatGPT:
Is memory merely the present attempting to retrieve the past, albeit fragmentally? This retrieval process, often redundant and incomplete, may not capture the same fragments of the past on each attempt. Alarmingly, the mind can create new memory fragments to bridge gaps, make sense of discontinuities, or even improve or alter alienating memories. However, might the past itself—the objective past we are striving to retrieve—be subject to its own form of deterioration or entropy over time, making it inherently more difficult to access as time flows forward?
ChatGPT’s Response:
The notion that memory is a fragmented, partial reconstruction of the past has long been recognized in cognitive science and philosophy. Memory, by its nature, is fallible, prone to alteration with each retrieval, and influenced by present emotions and experiences. As you rightly point out, the process of memory retrieval is often redundant, incomplete, and subject to creative interpolations by the mind to make sense of what is forgotten or unclear. This invites the deeper inquiry: Is the “objective past” itself subject to entropy, rendering it less retrievable over time?
To explore this question, we must examine both subjective memory—the internal representation of past events—and the objective past—the events themselves as they occurred in time.
Memory and Reconstruction:
Cognitive science has demonstrated that human memory is reconstructive rather than reproductive. Each retrieval is a dynamic process, during which the brain reassembles fragments of stored information to form a coherent narrative of the past. This phenomenon is supported by work from Elizabeth Loftus, a pioneer in the study of false memories, who demonstrated how suggestibility and the passage of time can alter or create new memories. Her research suggests that memory is not merely a passive storage but an active process subject to distortion (Loftus, 1997).
The brain’s capacity to fill gaps in memory, to “improve” or distort unpleasant recollections, can be seen as a kind of psychological entropy, where the once-clear memory of an event becomes increasingly disordered with each retrieval. As you suggest, this process can indeed make it difficult to capture the same fragment of the past with each attempt.
The Objective Past and Entropy:
Your inquiry into whether the “objective past” itself is subject to entropy requires an exploration of philosophical and scientific thought. In one sense, the past, as it existed in time, is immutable. It has occurred and is fixed in the timeline of the universe. This perspective aligns with the Block Universe theory in physics, where all points in time—past, present, and future—exist simultaneously in a four-dimensional spacetime continuum. Under this model, the past is not subject to degradation; it simply is (Callender, 2010).
However, while the objective past may remain fixed, our access to it is mediated by subjective memory, which is indeed subject to entropy. Neurological studies, such as those by Karl Lashley in his research on engrams, suggest that memory retrieval is dependent on the integrity of neural circuits. Over time, these circuits degrade due to aging, injury, or disease, making it more difficult to retrieve specific memories (Lashley, 1950).
This entropic degradation in the brain mirrors the second law of thermodynamics, which states that systems naturally progress toward disorder. Just as physical systems decay, so too do the biological systems that support memory, causing retrieval to become more fragmented, incomplete, and distorted over time.
Philosophical Considerations on Memory and Entropy:
Philosophically, the question of whether the past itself is subject to entropy touches on deep metaphysical issues. The philosopher Henri Bergson proposed that memory is not a simple retrieval of static information but an active synthesis of the past and present. Bergson argued that our experience of time is fluid, and memory plays an essential role in shaping that experience. As such, memory’s entropic decay may reflect our subjective relationship with time rather than any inherent deterioration in the past itself (Bergson, 1896).
In cognitive psychology, Daniel Schacter explored the “seven sins of memory,” one of which is transience—the natural decay of memory over time. Schacter’s work highlights how memories fade and distort as they become more distant from the present. While the events of the past remain fixed, our mental representation of them becomes increasingly subject to entropy, making retrieval more challenging as time passes (Schacter, 2001).
Conclusion:
In conclusion, while the objective past may remain untouched by time’s passage, existing as a fixed point in the spacetime continuum, our access to it through memory is undeniably subject to entropy. Neurological and cognitive processes that support memory deteriorate over time, rendering our recollections increasingly fragmentary, incomplete, and prone to distortion. Memory’s entropic nature reflects the broader theme of disorder and decay that governs all physical systems. Thus, while the past itself remains fixed, our ability to access it diminishes with time—a poignant reminder of the impermanence of human cognition.
References:
Bergson, H. (1896). Matter and Memory. Swan Sonnenschein & Co.
Callender, C. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press.
Lashley, K. (1950). In Search of the Engram. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 15, 1-24.
Loftus, E. (1997). Creating False Memories. Scientific American, 277(3), 70-75.
Schacter, D. L. (2001). The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
On Sunday evening, as the sun had just receded and I returned home, I found myself in my backyard. There, I witnessed the flicker of light from the tail of a lightning bug, the first I had seen this summer. In that instant, a crash of childhood memories, from so many decades ago, flooded my mind. It is remarkable how a single sight, much like a familiar smell, can trigger memories from so long ago.
The next morning, still smiling from the memories elicited by that twinkle in the night, I quickly sketched out the recollections that had cascaded through my mind in that luminous instant. I then spent a little time shaping them into form. For better or for worse, here is the result. I imagine only my siblings can fully appreciate these memories, as they are so deeply family-centric.
Memory Fragments of a Mahoning Valley Childhood
In the heart of summer, lightning bugs glowed bright, Church festivals thrived, Saint Luke’s, Saint Pat’s in the night. The Canfield Fair’s grand end of summer delight, A crush of people, crash-up derby, under starry twilight.
Handel’s Ice Cream, a seasonal treasure so sweet, A&W root beer floats, a frothy, chilled treat. Sunday drives through Mill Creek Park’s serene retreat, Fresh bread’s aroma from Schwebel’s bakery street.
Poulakos donuts after Sunday mass, divine, Pierogies with butter and onions, St. Stan’s line. Idora Park’s Wild Cat, Jack Rabbit in summertime, Learning to swim at the downtown Y, feeling fine.*
Downtown shopping at Woolworth and Strouss, a spree, Barney Bean, Gilligan’s Island, and more on TV. Isaly’s chip chop ham sandwiches, more than we’d plea, Dad’s Friday night football games on AM frequency.
Bowling leagues, Dusi Music, Conti Dance’s beat, Mom at ceramics studio, weekly meet. Family dinners nightly when Dad came home to eat, Vegetable garden’s bounty, homegrown treats so neat.
Bicycles, unicycles, basketballs in the drive, Chalk drawings, sandboxes, tree forts where dreams thrive. Imagination abundant, throughout the neighborhood we’d roam, Mahoning Valley memories, forever our home.
*In truth, I disliked the swimming lessons at the Y, the water was so cold that I shivered incessantly, teeth chattering and lips turning blue, every lesson — oh, and let me tell you that the smell of chlorine was overwhelming!
It is incontrovertible that I abhor beginning a written sentence with a first person personal pronoun. This aversion was engrained in me by Sister Madeleine in the first grade when I attended Saint Luke Catholic School in Boardman, Ohio. As I vaguely recall, fifty years later, Sister explained in age appropriate terms that it was exceedingly narcissistic to begin a sentence centered upon oneself. Thus, to this very day, I twist a sentence to no end to avoid such a sin, though sometimes I cannot avoid such a transgression.
Curious as to whether I was remembering the source of my predilection correctly, I recently conferred with my older sister, who also attended St. Luke Catholic School, to inquire if she had been instructed as I had been, regarding the use of first person personal pronouns at the beginning of sentences by the Ursuline Sisters at St. Luke Catholic School. She quickly confirmed that she had been so instructed and that, like myself, she still avoided beginning sentences with a first person personal pronoun with the result that she often found herself twisting perfectly fine sentences into contorted jumbles for little reason. Laughter ensued as we both recognized the hilarity of the situation.
The Ursuline Sisters who taught us at Saint Luke Catholic School were excellent teachers and role models, and we both remember them fondly. Sister Mary and Sister Madeleine were kind and generous and exemplified the best of both the education profession and the Church. And if on occasion my writing is a bit convoluted because of their slightly misguided effort to teach children to avoid excessive self-centeredness, I can live with that.
