SCP-055 is an "antimeme" – it erases itself from memory when observed

16 pointsposted 14 hours ago
by rcpt

8 Comments

pndy

an hour ago

Sounds like something influenced by Doctor Who's the Silence

nicbou

13 hours ago

The book "There is no antimemetics division" is about the team fighting an SCP antimeme. It's a really fun read and a bit of a mindf*. I strongly recommend it.

Aaargh20318

12 hours ago

Unfortunately it's no longer for sale. IIRC the writer has gotten a book deal for it, and the existing self-published version was removed from sale while the new version is being edited. According to Amazon the new revision is up for pre-order and will be available on November 11th.

idbehold

12 hours ago

You can still read it for free according to the author: https://qntm.org/scp

Aaargh20318

10 hours ago

I'll wait for the re-release regardless. No need to jump through any hoops to get it on my Kindle plus the author gets paid for their work. Plus, I imagine it'll benefit from the work of an editor.

xg15

2 hours ago

This reminds me of the strange way that memories of dreams behave:

Sometimes you still remember bits from a dream right after you've woken up - but this memory somehow vanishes rapidly and is gone a few minutes later. This despite you already being awake at that time and consciously having a memory of having had that memory. Only the memory itself is gone.

(Unless one had training and could capture the memory, e.g. in a dream journal)

Makes me wonder if this hints at some interesting neurological processes: It seems there is either some process in the brain that actively erases dream memories, or that dream memories are somehow stored differently in the brain than regular memories and only appear as the same thing to the consciousness. (Sort of like some part of the directory tree being mounted on a different file system)

tuatoru

13 hours ago

> All of these facts are periodically rediscovered, usually by chance readers of this file, causing a great deal of alarm. This state of concern lasts minutes at most, before the matter is simply forgotten about.

So, not much different to most activist causes, then.