The Weight of Memories by Cixin Liu Page A

I’m a neuroscientist—that’s someone who studies how brains create thoughts and construct memories. A human brain possesses enormous information storage capacity, with more neurons than there are stars in the Milky Way. But most of the brain’s capacity seems unused. My specialty is studying the parts that lay fallow. We found that the parts of the brain we thought were blank actually hold a huge amount of information. Only recently did we discover that it is memories from our ancestors. Do you understand what I just said, child?
    Fetus: I understand some of it. I know you’ve explained this to Mama many times. The parts she understands, I do, too.
    Dr. Ying: In fact, memory inheritance is very common across different species. For example, many cognitive patterns we call “instincts”—such as a spider’s knowledge of how to weave a web or a bee’s understanding of how to construct a hive—are really just inherited memories. The newly discovered inheritance of memory in humans is even more complete than in other species. The amount of information involved is too high to be passed down through the genetic code; instead, the memories are coded at the atomic level in the DNA, through quantum states in the atoms. This involves the study of quantum biology—
    Mother: Dr. Ying, that’s too complicated for my baby.
    Dr. Ying: I’m sorry. I just wanted to let your baby know how lucky he is compared to other children! Although humans possess inherited memories, they usually lie dormant and hidden in the brain. No one has even detected their presence until now.
    Mother: Doctor, remember I only went to elementary school. You have to speak simpler.
    Fetus: After elementary school, you worked in the fields for a few years, and then you left home to find work.
    Mother: Yes, baby, you’re right. I couldn’t stay in Xitao anymore; even the water there tasted bitter. I wanted a different life.
    Fetus: You went to several different cities and worked all the jobs migrant laborers did: washing dishes in restaurants; taking care of other people’s babies; making paper boxes in a factory; cooking at a construction site. For a while, when things got really tough, you had to pick through trash for recyclables that you could sell …
    Mother: Good boy. Keep going. Then what happened?
    Fetus: You already know everything I’m telling you!
    Mother: Tell the story anyway. Mama likes hearing you talk.
    Fetus: You struggled until last year, when you came to Dr. Ying’s lab as a custodian.
    Mother: From the start, Dr. Ying liked me. Sometimes, when she came to work early and found me sweeping the halls, she’d stop and chat, asking about my life story. One morning she called me into her office.
    Fetus: She asked you, “If you could be born again, where would you rather be born?”
    Mother: I answered, “Here, of course! I want to be born in a big city and live a city dweller’s life.”
    Fetus: Dr. Ying stared at you for some time and smiled. It was a smile that you didn’t fully understand. Then she said, “If you’re brave, I can make your dream come true.”
    Mother: I thought she was joking, but then she explained memory inheritance to me.
    Dr. Ying: I told your mother that we had developed a technique to modify the genes in a fertilized egg and activate the dormant inherited memories. If it worked, the next generation would be able to achieve more by building on their inheritance.
    Mother: I was stunned, and I asked Dr. Ying, “Do you want me to give birth to a child like that?”
    Dr. Ying: I shook my head and told your mother, “You won’t be giving birth to a child; instead, you’ll be giving birth to”—
    Fetus: —“to yourself.” That’s what you said.
    Mother: I had to think about what she said for a long time before I understood her: If another brain has the exact same memories as