All about our collective memory

A pioneer in the fields of Physics, AI and social and behavioural science, César Hidalgo fuses data science with cultural theory to explain one of humanity’s most mesmerising questions: why do we remember what we remember? At Brain Bar, he laid out a framework for understanding how fame, memory, and cultural relevance emerge - and decay - over time.

Drawing on large-scale data from Spotify, Wikipedia, book translations and more, he showed that memory is not just a matter of merit or meaning. What we remember as a society is filtered and distorted by deeper forces: the ticking of time, the borders of language, and the media through which we communicate. Together, they decide which stories echo through history - and which quietly disappear.

Make sure to watch his talk to learn how exactly these factors impact societies' collective memory.