The Gist — “Mark Rowlands on Memory and the Stories We Tell Ourselves”

Date: December 9, 2025
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Mark Rowlands, philosopher and author of The Book of Memory: How We Become Who We Are
Duration: ~30 minutes (content-rich portion: ~04:38–20:34)

Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca interviews philosopher Mark Rowlands about the nature of memory, its role in shaping identity, and the stories we construct based on what we remember—and what we forget. Drawing from poets like Rilke and literary figures like Proust, as well as scientific memory research, Rowlands explores how memories can persist and influence us even when we think they’re gone. The discussion is both philosophical and practical, touching on personal anecdotes, classic philosophical metaphors, and psychological experiments.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Rilke’s Influence on the Philosophy of Memory

Timestamps: 04:38–06:07

• Pesca sets the stage by quoting Rilke, emphasizing memory as vital to selfhood, but elusive and transformed over time.
• Rowlands introduces his concept of “Rilkian memory”—a poetic, philosophical approach where memories, even forgotten ones, subtly shape who we are.
  • “Memories are generally thought of as making us who we are… This is puzzling because almost everything that we’ve done and experienced… we’ve forgotten.” — Mark Rowlands (06:07)
• Rowlands uses the metaphor of “a book of memory” that, if examined, would mostly be redacted pages with only scattered remaining sentences.

2. Where Do Forgotten Memories Go?

Timestamps: 06:35–08:09

• Pesca references Rowlands’s child’s question: "Where do our memories go when we forget them?"
• Rowlands explains his view: even forgotten memories may influence us, returning in transformed, unexpected ways—not as traditional memory, but as ingrained patterns or emotional responses.
  • “The act of remembering can live on in a new, unexpected form even when the something that’s remembered is gone.” — Mark Rowlands (08:28)

3. Embodied and Emotional Memory

Timestamps: 08:51–11:02

• Rowlands distinguishes two forms of what he terms “Rilkian memory”:
  • Effective/emotional memory: Underlying emotional states influenced by past experience.
  • Embodied memory: Physical patterns or habits (like running technique) reflecting forgotten experiences.
• Personal anecdote: Rowlands’s altered running style, unknowingly developed to avoid pain, only recalled when a coach draws attention to it.
  • “I remembered why I was running that way in the first place… there were these experiences I had, and as a result, my running action changed subliminally over time.” — Mark Rowlands (10:30)

4. Memory and the Architecture of the Mind

Timestamps: 11:02–13:44

• The “childhood house” thought experiment: when visualizing a generic house, most people unconsciously recall their childhood home, showing the foundational role of real memories in constructing mental imagery and concepts.
• Rowlands: Not all new concepts are memories, but memory is central to how we form and apply concepts.

5. Reliability and Construction of Memory: Psychological Experiments

Timestamps: 13:44–17:13

• Pesca discusses famous memory science:
  • The “Challenger explosion” recall experiment, where students’ memories became highly inaccurate over time.
  • The “Earthquake experiment”: Students close to the 1989 California quake (Santa Cruz, Berkeley) retained nearly perfect recall, whereas distant students in Emory did not.
• Rowlands: The key is repeated storytelling—social reinforcement helps fix memories in stable form.
  • “If you’re a student in Berkeley… people are going to… ask you what you were doing and how you felt… you’ve got this kind of external testimony. And this… seems to fix the memories in a… stable form.” — Mark Rowlands (17:07)

6. Blending Philosophy and Science of Memory

Timestamps: 17:25–19:32

• Rowlands discusses Plato’s wax tablet model—memories as impressions in soft wax that harden over time, paralleling current understanding of short to long-term memory.
• Every time a memory is recalled, it becomes malleable again, introducing opportunities for distortion—recalling isn’t pure retrieval; it’s partial reconstruction.
  • “Whenever we recall a memory… it is a lot more like forming a memory than we originally thought… supposed stable, long-term memory returns to a soft, labile short-term form whenever we recall it.” — Mark Rowlands (19:32)
  • “One of the ironies of memory is that whenever we think memories are supposed to connect us to a past, but whenever we retrieve them, there’s always a danger that we will be led further away from that past.” — Mark Rowlands (19:32)

7. The Social Function of Memory and Storytelling

Timestamps: 16:45–17:13, interwoven throughout

• Retelling memories, especially significant events, with others helps solidify and even shape those memories.
• The collaborative nature of memory-making, hinting at the influence of community narratives on personal memory.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the persistence of memory:
  • “Even when memories seem to have gone, they haven’t really gone. They’re always there in some way, and they return eventually in some form or other.”
    — Mark Rowlands (06:35)
• On memory’s unreliability:
  • “We know this about memory, that memory is in some respects unreliable. Not, not in all respects because no one forgot that the Challenger exploded or that the Challenger was a space shuttle. But what they forgot were the kind of experiential details.”
    — Mark Rowlands (14:16)
• On the malleability of memory:
  • “Whenever we retrieve them, there’s always a danger that we will be led further away from that past.”
    — Mark Rowlands (19:32)

Important Segments & Timestamps

• 04:38: Introduction to Rilke and “Rilkian memory.”
• 06:35: The puzzle of forgotten memories and self-identity.
• 08:51: Bodily memory and memories’ return in changed behavior.
• 13:03: The “childhood house” thought experiment.
• 13:44–17:13: Scientific studies on memory (Challenger explosion, earthquake recall).
• 17:25–19:32: Wax tablet metaphor and memory as continuous reconstruction.

Tone and Style

• Mike Pesca is conversational, witty, and intellectually curious, threading accessible humor through philosophical topics (“It was sort of your Achilles heel. Ye.” — Mike Pesca, 09:49).
• Rowlands is reflective and precise, mixing personal anecdotes, philosophical reference, and scientific results.
• The dialogue is approachable but packed with insight, questioning, and a willingness to challenge assumptions about how memory works.

Conclusion

This episode provides a rich and interdisciplinary investigation into memory: how forgotten experiences can continue to shape identity, how memories are both socially and individually constructed and reconstructed, and how both ancient philosophy and modern science contribute to our understanding. The conversation is marked by lively exchanges, memorable analogies, and a balanced critique of both scientific and philosophical traditions.

For listeners who missed the episode, this summary preserves the core arguments, main takeaways, and illuminating stories—capturing both the rigor and humanity that make The Gist a compelling listen.