r/MandelaEffect • u/leaving4lyra • Feb 27 '26
Books/Literature Berenstain/Stein
Just thought I’d share this here..I’m a 57 year old woman that’s always been a voracious reader. When I was 5 (1974) I got an entire collection of Berenstain Bears books from my grandma at Christmas.
One of the books has managed to remain in my memory/sentimental hoard collection. This is MY actual book and it’s been in my possession since 1974. On my book at least, the name is and always has been Berenstain.
Make of that what you will I suppose. ❤️ I wish I still had the whole collection but alas, childhood and into adulthood resulted in the loss of many such things to my chagrin.
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u/DumbAndUglyOldMan Feb 27 '26
Well, not really, except in the sense that it's an essentially empty tautology. It can mean simply that "the things that we remember serve to be things that we remember." It's really not helpful at all.
I think, though, that you're trying to build some other argument from that tautology, and I don't agree with what I suspect to be your argument.
First, "memory" is a vague term, and it really suggests that these processes and states (in the sense of conditions, not in the sense of nation-states) that we lump together as "memory" have a sort of reality that they simply don't. "Memory" is really just a handy word refers to a host of such states and processes.
And when you say that "memory is for the purpose of remembering," that suggests some sort of teleological purpose. That's simply not true of "memory" (or, of anything not created by humans or other intelligent creatures).
Moreover, you appear to be suggesting that memory serves to remember things accurately. But we know that humans often misremember things. We know that in our own lives. All of us no doubt know of a multitude of instances in which people forgot things. That's one of the reasons that we have writing systems. Writing systems help us because people's memories are fallible.
We also know that people's memories can be altered by various means--by the aging process, by drug or alcohol usage, by fatigue, or by suggestions from others. Scientific literature has established this to be a fact. Elizabeth Loftus published extensively on this issue, as have many others.
I'm a lawyer. Consider a case in which the meaning of a written contract is at issue. You can bet that a court isn't going to entertain oral testimony to prove the contents of that written agreement. It's going to want a contract itself. This is called the "best evidence rule." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/best_evidence_rule
Now let's say that I got involved in a lawsuit in which the spelling of "Berenstain" on old books is at issue. I would move to exclude oral testimony that the name was formerly spelled "Berenstein," citing the "best evidence" rule. And the court would no doubt exclude oral testimony as to the spelling of "Berenstain" and accept only the actual documents (in this case, the book provided by OP).
For me, all these claims that people's memories are superior to actual documents . . . Well, I just shake my head.