Borges and Memory ─ Encounters With the Human Brain

Imagine the astonishment felt by neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga when he found afantastically precise interpretation of his research findings in a story written by the greatArgentinian fabulist Jorge Luis Borges fifty years earlier. Quian Quiroga studies the workings ofthe brain -- in particular how memory works -- one of the most complex and elusive mysteries ofscience. He and his fellow neuroscientists have at their disposal sophisticated imaging equipmentand access to information not available just twenty years ago. And yet Borges seemed to haveimagined the gist of Quian Quiroga's discoveries decades before he made them. The title character ofBorges's "Funes the Memorious" remembers everything in excruciatingly particular detail but isunable to grasp abstract ideas. Quian Quiroga found neurons in the human brain that respond toabstract concepts but ignore particular details, and, spurred by the way Borges imagined theconsequences of remembering every detail but being incapable of abstraction, he began a search forthe origins of Funes. Borges's widow, Maria Kodama, gave him access to her husband's personallibrary, and Borges's books led Quian Quiroga to reread earlier thinkers in philosophy andpsychology. He found that just as Borges had perhaps dreamed the results of Quian Quiroga'sdiscoveries, other thinkers -- William James, Gustav Spiller, John Stuart Mill -- had perhaps alsodreamed a story like "Funes." With Borges and Memory, Quian Quiroga has given usa fascinating and accessible story about the workings of the brain that the great creator of Funeswould appreciate.