Traces of the mind: the conception and eternity of design

Traces of the mind: the conception and eternity of design The art of the memory of an image, from western culture all the way to ancient Greece: Plato created the image of the mind as a block of wax on which the sensations or "signs of closure" are imprinted; and Aristotle later re-explored this model. From the beginning, the existing relationship between the persistence of a memory and the type of information memorized was used to describe the mental processes, which, in any case, can be traced back to the common idea that "trace" is the sensation that is imprinted in the mind. These reflections and the image of the block of wax led us to reflect on the existing analogy between memory and design; between the willingness to remember and the desire to trace; the mind and sheet thus reinterpret emotions. The design already contains - in its etymology - the power of memory, the ability to describe, store, trace (to remember) and block an image from our memory... on paper. There are two main types of memory that play entirely different roles to generate as many different results: short term memory is being able to preserve a small amount of information for about 20 seconds and it is the opposite of long term memory, which is able to preserve an enormous amount of information. I would use a metaphor to establish the relationship created between memory and design, amongst the traces of the mind and signs on paper, the metaphor of the magic lamp: several or an infinite number of signs appear and disappear to be remembered or forgotten. But which is the real memory? It is the question Plato would ask himself, and Aristotle would answer: "Real memory is the one written by the hand of he who learns." Just like the main phases involved in the memory elaboration process are: Codifying, elaborating the information received. Storing, the creation of a permanent storage for the codified information. Recalling, recovering the stored information to answer to a solicitation; at the same time, as far as design is concerned, we can think of these three phases as three times of checks and verifications, three times during which the magic lamp shows us our memories, our emotions. It's nice to think the traces imprinted in our mind correspond to the ones outlined on a sheet of paper; these, in both cases, represent the personal elaborations that belong to ourselves and to nothing else. Kant defines knowledge as that which arises from three elements: sensitivity, intellect and reason. Sensitivity is the means through which we perceive a phenomenon, intellect is what makes us analyze sensitive data and, finally, reason is the way we try to explain reality beyond the limit of experience; maybe we could add another one: memory. Memory is the means through which we recognize things, it is therefore configured as a dynamic plan used to reconstruct and connect "representations" more so than as a simple "storage" of data in a static mental space. It is precisely this dynamism and ability to connect that finally generates the representations that manifest themselves in the most different forms. It's almost natural to think of the relations that are generated between the memory and representations, between the images and designs, between the words and thoughts; these are different forms of the same mind: knowledge. When signs disappear or weren't able to get imprinted into the mind, we forget and do not learn anything. On the contrary, memorizing perceptions and thoughts is the result of a deliberate act of willingness, it depends on the quality and amount of wax. Our traces, our designs will thus be the conception or eternity of an idea.