A Question of Memory

Parker is watching a Sonic the Hedgehog DVD from the public library. I was in the other room doing something else when suddenly I was thinking instead about Steve Urkle from the television sit-com Family Matters. Sonic the Hedgehog sounds like Steven Urkle when he uses a certain inflection of the voice. I have another memory. I say to Michael, "Did Jaleel White do one of the voices on Sonic the Hedgehog?" He doesn't remember. Maybe he's never seen Sonic the Hedgehog as a cartoon before. Maybe no one ever brought the subject up before. While I'm in the shower I remember knowing this factoid (as my husband calls them) once upon a time. Jaleel White did do one of the voices on Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm certain my brother is the one who told me. I look it up on IMDB, and of course White's name is the first to come up in the credits, probably because he voices three of the characters.

Why is this interesting? Because it brings up one of those pesky questions about memory. Is my remembrance of a fact about Jaleel White an actual memory, or did my brain just make it up? When I guy I knew in high school reminds me that he went somewhere else for his Junior and Senior years, I don't remember it at first. Only later does the memory spring on me full force. Yes, I do remember that. Yes, that is the way it happened. One of the philosophers I've read about recently, I don't remember which one, claimed that all knowledge was a matter of memory. The teacher's job was simply to cause his students to remember the knowledge that had been obscured. Was it Plato or Socrates? I'm certain that one of my friends must know without even having to look it up. I don't think that knowledge really does work this way, but it is an interesting idea to play with. Someone ought to write a sci-fi story with this as its theme. Probably someone already has. If anyone reading this has read such a story please let me know.