The Artificial Memory of Mr. Polly: Memory Simulation in Databases and the Emergence of Knowledge

Human memory may be characterized by five dimensions: (1) large capacity; (2) associativity; (3) diversity of memory systems; (4) change over time; and (5) a unified memory experience. The organization and multidimensionality underlying memory can be represented with set theory. This offers a new mathematical perspective, which is the foundation for the cognitive memory architecture Ardemia. The authors present a relational database implementation of Ardemia that supports the creation of the artificial memory of Mr. Polly, the main character in H.G. Wells’s novel The History of Mr. Polly. In addition to the implementation of Mr. Polly’s artificial memory using TimeGlue, his memory is probed with a collection of everyday memory queries that are related to temporal and schema knowledge. The investigation of Mr. Polly’s knowledge suggests an alternative representation of schemas; rather than fixed structures or explicit associations, it is possible to model schemas as the results of the interaction between existing knowledge and remembering.