Chapter 8: On the Distinction Between True and False Visions

" A credulous mind...finds most delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are the easier they pass with him; but never regards those that are plain and feasible, for every man can believe such. ~ Samuel Butler

     In preparing for courtroom testimony, witnesses are coached by their lawyer and made to repeat the story over and over again until they get it "right". Once on the stand, they remember the story they have been telling the lawyer's office. The witnesses may have forgotten that their memories were reprocessed.
     These facts are relevant in evaluating the societal effects of advertising and of propaganda. This lawyer aspects applies to the therapist who assist those who where abducted by aliens. Therapist must be very careful that they do not accidentally implant or select the stories they elicit.
     Perhaps what we actually remember is a set of memory fragments stitched onto a fabric of our own devising. We can make a memorable story easy to recall.  The situation is like the method of science itself, where many isolated data points can be remembered, summarized, and explained in the framework of a theory. We then much more easily recall the theory and not the data.
     In science the theories are always being reassessed and confronted with new facts.  Our memories are almost never challenged. They can be frozen in place, no matter how flawed they are or become a work in continual artistic revision.