Derek Thompson

I wonder, number one, if you're familiar with that work, and number two, if you see some kind of underground river that might connect these two pieces of research.

Well, that's too bad because my next question was going to be to ask you to speculate about the mechanistic level.

So maybe we can just make up answers here.

What you said a few minutes ago made me think that, you know, there's this cliche that you should do crossword puzzles as you get older to maintain these neural connections, right?

As if memory is just training for some crossword puzzle marathon you're supposed to do in your 90s.

But I wondered as I was listening to you,

if maybe one reason why social connection protects memory is because at some mechanistic level, at some evolutionary level, memory is for socializing.

That is, if you think about the species,

And where we came from.

And you think about the architecture of our brains, which is very ancient.

Like, what did we use memory for 100,000 years ago?

You know, maybe it was to remember, oh, that's where the berries are.

That's where the poisonous berry is.

That's where you're likely to find the really calorie-dense mammals that will move very slowly so we can kill them.

Something like that.

Yeah.

But you also have to remember social facts.

Like, oh...

that guy is dangerous in short temper.

Absolutely.