Unformed thoughts: the article about memory access and retention (can't quote page or specifics right now as Herself is reading the copy) posits a specialised braincell or cluster thereof, which is given the interesting name "engram cell". This is apparently to do with preserving accurate memory of an event.
Now that word "engram" has a specific, specialised, usage elsewhere and to be honest this is the only other context in which I've heard it.
In Scientology, the "engram" has a specific meaning as -and I'm quoting from possibly imperfect memory here, which is ironic - as a sort of "permanent record" of every experience the individual person will have experienced, and gaining perfect control and access to the Engram is a step towards being more like the perfection which is L. Ron Hubbard.
And here's the word in a legitimate scientific context.
I'm wondering. Did Hubbard borrow a word already present in legitimate science and use it as a hook to construct his pseudoscience around?
Or - is this a way the Scientologists have exploited to get some of their specialised argot into the wider consciousness? Some otherwise very bright capable people have been drawn into the paramilitary cult which is Scientology; they might include scientists, neurobiologists, et c, who have seen an opportunity. (People can compartmentalise their minds to be totally rationally sane - but still find headspace for some really strange ideas that they never really question).
Or could this just be some scientist with a sense of humour, who knows full well what an "engram" is to the LRH people, doesn't believe their stuff for one second, but sees an opportunity for a deeply embedded intellectual joke here?
