ABSTRACT
J orge Borges tells a ctional story about a man with the extraordinary ability to remember specic details of everything that happened to him. This ability came at the detriment of experiencing each instance of an object, person,
or category as completely distinct. Every time he saw a dog (even the same dog), he was incapable of drawing inferences based on his past experiences because he saw each instance as a different entity. Such an extreme case, although unlikely, elucidates the importance of abstraction and generalization in how one interprets the world. These mechanisms organize objects and events into useful concepts and categories, allowing us to understand our environment and extend predictions to new experiences. Without this ability, everyday occurrences would lack coherence and a grounding in terms of what could be learned and generalized.
