On 'Memory' by Bernard Stieglar

Terms used: 

• Hypomnesis - Making technical of memory (exteriorisation of memory) 
• Anamnesis - Recollection, especially of a recent event 
• Mnemotechniques (individual exteriorisations of memory functions)
• Mnemotechnologies (large scale technological systems or networks that organize memories)

Stieglar's 'Memory'  is a challenging essay to analyse which in some ways makes it the embodiment of the very thing Stieglar is discussing.

The first evidence of mnemotechniques can be seen in lithic tools - these stone tools that were the first examples of reproducing, modifying, even controlling memory and knowledge. With the later advent of alphabetisation, these mnemotechniques not only provided a method of retaining and sharing memory and knowledge but also began to evolve.

The shift from mnemotechnique to mnemotechnology allows societies to access and understand the knowledge and memory on which they are founded - and thus to continue developing. However, as these externalized technologies of consciousness become more complex, the less an individual needs to internalize knowledge as memory.  The increased use of these technologies - and by consequence the decrease in internalized memory -  has led to a more proletariat and industrialized society.  This in turn has led to disindividuation. We lose our ability to participate in collective individuation.

The newest (perhaps) grammatization - the participative economy  no longer requires this disindividuation to exist. By no longer enclosing hypomnesic memory in industrialization and imposing the ensuing producer/consumer opposition, the Internet is allowing - in fact requires - receivers to be at the same time senders. Technologies of consciousness are no longer confined to a tool accessible only to us but have evolved. Our computers, our phones, our social media feeds provide a milieu in which we share, consume, create, annex consciousness constantly.