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06 May 2008 11:17 am
When To Take Photographs
Tyler Cowen answers whether it is better to take a photo of an event or view it unmediated:
If you take photos you will remember the event more vividly, if only because you have to stop and notice it. The fact that your memories will in part be "false" or constructed is besides the point; they'll probably be false anyway. In other words, there's no such thing as the "one-time in-person viewing," it is all mediated viewing, one way or the other. Daniel Gilbert's book on memory is the key source here.
But why is remembering an event the key to experiencing it fully? Sometimes, being there, without mediation, without worrying about whether one day it will be forgotten, just being there is what matters. Life is now; and when we obsess about storing it for the future, we forget to experience it in the only way we truly can: in the present.
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