What's worth remembering?

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We like to think of memory as a record of the past. But that’s not really what it is. Memory doesn’t keep the past — it can also remake it. It stitches fragments into stories, and those stories — true or not — are what we end up calling our life, and sometimes, our collective history. Sean’s guest today is Charan Ranganath, a neuroscientist and author of a book called Why We Remember. The two discuss the strange alchemy of remembering and how the stories our minds create end up creating us. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist and author of Why We Remember We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here is a big existential question for every media company today. Do they fight the AI
0:07.3	tech overlords or do they just take their money? So far, most of them are taking the money,
0:13.0	but a few are fighting. One of them is Zip Davis. This is Peter Kafka, the host of channels.
0:19.6	And on this week's episode, I'm talking to Zipf Davis,
0:21.7	CEO of Vec Shah, who tells me he's kind of optimistic about the media business and why he's taking
0:27.0	on the people behind chat GBT. That's this week on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite
0:32.3	podcasts. Hey, it's Sean here. If you're a fan of this show, do me a favor and consider becoming a Vox member.
0:40.0	If you do, you can get this podcast without ads. That's right, no ads. There's also a member
0:46.8	exclusive newsletter. And you'll help Vox in the show, which is good news for all of you
0:52.5	philanthropist out there. If you sign up now,
0:55.1	you'll save 20 bucks on an annual membership. That's more than 30% off. Go to vox.com
1:01.1	slash members to join. Now here's the show. Close your eyes. Think of the first voice you ever loved.
1:14.0	The smell of a room you can't quite place.
1:18.7	Or think of something much simpler,
1:21.6	like the last time you took a walk on a sunny day,
1:24.7	or that last company Christmas party
1:26.9	where you're absolutely positive your
1:29.3	dumb joke offended the CEO sit with those memories for a moment the feelings they evoke the
1:38.3	sensations they bring back are you actually remembering all that or Or are you inventing it?
1:47.0	We think of memory as a record of the past, but remembering is also an act of creation.
1:53.0	And it's possible that the next time you remember taking a walk on a sunny day,
1:58.0	you'll also remember that you were listening to this podcast episode,
	...

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