# The internet saved my life!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724 "2001-09-10T19:17:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Racer\_Named\_Fisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@Racer\_Named\_Fisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Racer_Named_Fisk)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724/1 "2001-09-10T19:17:20Z")
Does anyone else thing this is bogus? [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,46456,00.html](http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,46456,00.html) Any facts here, or do we need to just trust Wired’s reporting? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724/2 "2001-09-10T20:12:10Z")
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see anything particularly hard to believe in that article. A man suffers an injury that leads to a complete and seemingly permanent memory loss. Instead of trying to regain his lost memories he seems happy to leave them behind describing himself (with the advice of family and loved ones) as some sort of major SOB in his ‘previous’ life. Content to let his old self go and begin building his new self he latches on to the internet as a major source of information and motivation. Big deal…could have been painting or auto mechanics or whatever. It all seems pretty straightforward to me. ---
**Author:** ![Racer\_Named\_Fisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@Racer\_Named\_Fisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Racer_Named_Fisk)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724/3 "2001-09-10T20:42:14Z")
Well, it’s just that he couldn’t remember how to shower, but he use his PC just fine…? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724/4 "2001-09-10T21:51:01Z")
One of the classic manifestations of post-traumatic amnesia is an oddly selective memory. [http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~psy001/jk/psych1mem3.html](http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~psy001/jk/psych1mem3.html) > [@](#): > > The amnesic syndrome represents a profound deficit in learning and memory; it is by far the most commonly studied pathology of memory. Its characteristic feature is a gross anterograde amnesia (AA), meaning that the person cannot remember events that have occurred since the time of the brain damage. Short-term memory (as measured by digit span, for example) is unimpaired; but after even a few moments’ distraction, these patients cannot remember what they have said or done, or what has been said or done to them, just recently. In the classic cases, the patient’s cognitive deficits are specific to long-term memory: general intelligence, perception, reasoning, and language functions are spared. But this anterograde amnesia is associated with several different etiologies, and careful examination indicates that these disparate origins are associated with somewhat different patterns of memory and cognitive deficit. > > \ > > Even conclusions about encoding deficits must be qualified to some extent. At first glance, the AA observed in the amnesic syndrome appears to be a complete inability to acquire new information. However, closer examination indicates that certain aspects of learning and memory are spared even in the densest cases of amnesia. Thus, Patient H.M. has learned to solve the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, but he does not recognize the puzzle as familiar. It’s under “spared learning memory amnesia” on Google, if you want to browse around. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet-saved-my-life/80724/5 "2001-09-10T22:10:04Z")
Wasn’t there an almost identical case of complete past memory loss on 20-20 or similar TV news magazine about a man who lost his memory and was trying to regain it and someone recognized him as a small time con man and deadbeat dad. When the show went back to interview him a second time with this info he was a lot more defensive about his “ailment”.