The Mandela Effect

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 4:54 am

Who has heard of this? Some say it is evidence for parallel universes. Apparently some people remember things differently. The common ones I remember it as history says. The big one, and the one it is named for, is apparently a large number of people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s - and remember things like live coverage on CNN, riots, protests, etc - but don't remember his 1990 release and eventual becoming president of S Africa or actual death in 2013. Other ones are mostly more mundane - "Jiffy" peanut butter rather than "Jif", "Berenstein Bears" rather than "Berenstain", a movie with the Comedian Sinbad called "Shazaam" which never existed (though one with Basketball player Shaq called "Kazaam" did - in the 1990s. Curious George having a tail (he didn't) and a few others. Not sure why, but unlikely that's the reason, but what would cause such mass false memory? Another is in Star Wars Return of the Jedi Darth Vader saying "Luke I am your father" - actual line was "No - I am your father." Even James Earl Jones who spoke the line remembers it wrong!

dancer_rnb · Post by **dancer_rnb** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:41 am

I wonder if people weren't conflating Nelson Mandela and Stephan Biko.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:58 am

I know an autograph collector who insists his Dick Van Dyke is more valuable now that Dick is deceased.

Nobody I've mentioned it to agrees with me that there once was a TV series titled Wally and the Valentines.

Sey · Post by **Sey** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:47 am

delete

Sey · Post by **Sey** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:51 am

Memory's not like a film or digital recording. It's not fixed, and it's malleable. Parts get deleted, parts get added and every time a memory's recalled, it's altered. It deteriorates, like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox, and is sometimes 'repaired' or corrected with best guess, suggested or desirable patches.

Peez · Post by **Peez** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:37 pm

[quote=""MattShizzle""]Who has heard of this? Some say it is evidence for parallel universes. Apparently some people remember things differently. The common ones I remember it as history says. The big one, and the one it is named for, is apparently a large number of people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s - and remember things like live coverage on CNN, riots, protests, etc - but don't remember his 1990 release and eventual becoming president of S Africa or actual death in 2013. Other ones are mostly more mundane - "Jiffy" peanut butter rather than "Jif", "Berenstein Bears" rather than "Berenstain", a movie with the Comedian Sinbad called "Shazaam" which never existed (though one with Basketball player Shaq called "Kazaam" did - in the 1990s. Curious George having a tail (he didn't) and a few others. Not sure why, but unlikely that's the reason, but what would cause such mass false memory? Another is in Star Wars Return of the Jedi Darth Vader saying "Luke I am your father" - actual line was "No - I am your father." Even James Earl Jones who spoke the line remembers it wrong![/quote] `...what would cause such mass false memory?` Two obvious factors: Memory is imperfect and is modified over time, with people having far too much confidence in it. Some patterns (e.g., quotes) just seem more appealing, with certain ideas being re-enforced through communication.

Certainly human error seems a much better explanation than some sort of ill-defined multi-universe hypothesis.

Peez

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:07 pm

There is also seemingly a number of people who remember Billy Graham dying while GWB was president, and him attending the funeral (he's still alive at 99.)

Sey · Post by **Sey** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:29 pm

Memory's as easy to alter as a photoshopped picture. People develop false memories all the time.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/ ... dnt-commit

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:16 pm

At the old IIDB/FRDB I started a thread asking why my coworker remembered terrorists bringing down a passenger jet over/near Chicago. Members there brought up aviation incidents that actually did happen, and I decided she was probably conflating two separate incidents and kind of "averaging them out" to form a fictitious incident.

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:56 pm

The weird thing though is so many people, from different places, remebering it wrong in the same way.

dancer_rnb · Post by **dancer_rnb** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 10:08 pm

People may remember something happened, but not the details. Then someone else tells them a misremembered version of what happened.

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:47 pm

[quote=""dancer_rnb""]People may remember something happened, but not the details. Then someone else tells them a misremembered version of what happened.[/quote]

But in some cases it's something that never happened...

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:47 am

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" was first said by ________?

In 'Rocket Man,' Elton John sang, "Burning ________________________"?

Sey · Post by **Sey** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:51 am

[quote=""MattShizzle""]The weird thing though is so many people, from different places, remebering it wrong in the same way.[/quote]
But you'll also find people who remember a shared experience completely differently.

Old Woman in Purple · Post by **Old Woman in Purple** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:48 pm

[quote=""Tubby""]"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" was first said by ________?[/quote]

Irina Dunn

In 'Rocket Man,' Elton John sang, "Burning ______________________"?

...out his fuse up here alone.

Peez · Post by **Peez** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:20 pm

Tubby:
"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" was first said by ________?

A woman.

In 'Rocket Man,' Elton John sang, "Burning ________________________"?

Yes, he sang "burning".

Peez

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:58 pm

Has OWIP always believed those answers?

subsymbolic · Post by **subsymbolic** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:18 am

This sounds like two phenomena being conflated. First there's meme v memory. The very fact that there's a mechanism for collating these false memory's suggests there's a nechansm by which they could be shared. The second is our innate tendency to simplify grammar and prosody. Then there are some that are probably a bit of both - play it again Sam!

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:55 am

[quote=""Old Woman in Purple""]

Tubby;673806 wrote:"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" was first said by ________?

Irina Dunn[/QUOTE]She adapted it from some unnamed philosopher's "Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle" and scribbled it on a door of Sydney University's unisex toilet near the (recently deceased) Jacaranda tree. Underneath someone added "No use squatting on the toilet seat. My crabs can pole vault."

The tree was planted by professor Waterhouse. It was his seventh attempt. The previous six were uprooted, according to the official story by students, but everybody knows that administration regarded it as interfering with the formal design of the 19th century quadrangle, a kind of downscaled emulation of Oxford University's, and ordered maintenance staff to get rid of them. The professor persisted and in the seventh year admin gave in. Since then it has become a revered feature. Last year admin was advised that the tree was about to die. Cuttings were taken and grafted to other trees, so that the tree can be replaced with a genetically identical successor.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:32 pm

[quote=""Hermit""]She adapted it from some unnamed philosopher's "Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle" and scribbled it on a door of Sydney University's unisex toilet near the (recently deceased) Jacaranda tree. [/quote]

Americans will usually attribute it to Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem.

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:53 pm

[quote=""Tubby""]

Hermit;673920 wrote:She adapted it from some unnamed philosopher's "Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle" and scribbled it on a door of Sydney University's unisex toilet near the (recently deceased) Jacaranda tree.

Americans will usually attribute it to Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem.[/QUOTE]
Makes for a pleasant change. Americans usually attribute quotes to Twain or Einstein.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Mon Jun 26, 2017 3:14 am

[quote=""Hermit""]
Makes for a pleasant change. Americans usually attribute quotes to Twain or Einstein.[/quote]

Or if they are in my parents' generation, Will Rogers.

A coworker has seen a number of episodes of Big Bang Theory on TV, as have I. I mentioned to him that I saw one where Howard and Bernadette seemed to have a son, since I heard Bernadette say something about "Baby Howie."

"Nah, I don't think they have had a kid yet," my coworker said.

My home page just recommended an article on Season 11 of that show. It mentions "baby Halley," so it seems I was partly correct. They've had a daughter, which my coworker didn't know, and my awful old ears misheard the name as "Howie," which I took to be a son, Howard Jr.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 6:12 pm

I read in a book that women did not publicly burn their bras in the 1970s. Instead, they protested by throwing unburnt bras into a trash barrel on camera.

If you thought otherwise (as I did), it was probably a matter of conflating the bra protests with the public burning of draft cards by males at anti-war demonstrations in that same era.

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 6:52 pm

I was unborn - 5 years old in the 70s but remember reading about it having happened.

Jobar · Post by **Jobar** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 9:57 pm

I thought Gloria Steinem made that remark, and I thought the Elton John lyric went "burning down and in, I'm here and gone."

But in neither case was I totally confident that I was recalling correctly, and I would have checked before I bet any money. I *know* my memory is only an approximation of the past.