Hi Paul.

There is no need for us to debate reincarnation, because that isn't the point. I'm sure we wouldn't get anywhere. If you remember, this conversation started because you wrote, as if it were beyond dispute: "human memories are literally encoded in the brain". I merely mentioned reincarnation because past-life memories would be the most obvious evidence that this is not the case. Your reference to Nature papers on reincarnation is therefore irrelevant to our conversation. I was referring to any Nature papers which might support your statement.

I don't think my reference to wikipedia was a cheap shot. As you say, some entries are excellent, and others are poor. We don't know who wrote them, and anyone is free to edit them. As I'm sure you know, professional journalists and academics were in the past forbidden to use wikipedia as a source, and I'm not aware that the situation has changed.

As an amateur writer, only writing on Medium, I myself sometimes refer to wikipedia entries, but never as conclusive proof of anything, merely that it is a point of view.

The particular entry you refer to does indeed look impressive, with many references. However, you say that you believe that the brain is responsible for consciousness. In that case, you presumably make the logical deduction that memories must be stored in the brain, because there is nowhere else for them to be stored. This sounds like something approximating to an in-principle position.

This is somewhat analagous to the so-called Hard Problem, i.e. neuroscientists like Anil Seth and David Eagleman assume that the brain is responsible for consciousness (our sense of self), and spend years and vast amounts of research money trying to figure out, so far without success, how this is achieved. Perhaps their starting assumption is faulty.

I don't want to have to go through all the references in that wikipedia entry to see if there is anything to substantiate your statement, but on a quick skim I found two sentences which shed some doubt on it:

“The hippocampus is essential (for learning new information) to the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem to store information itself”.

“Research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be maintained by DNA methylation, and the 'prion' gene”. Not the brain therefore?

I believe from memory that Susan Blackmore does indeed use the term 'brain malfunction', in In Search of the Light.