Memories and Experiences

The challenge to comprehend time, place and memory has been taken up by scientists and artists alike throughout history including Eratosthenes (born 276 BC) the first geographer, Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein and Stephen Hawkins; Freud and Bruno Bettelheim; Homer, James Joyce and Marcel Proust to name but a few. Destruction of Rheims Cathedral during WWI lies in contrast to the accidental burning of Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in 2019. Memory, consciousness and direct experience are intertwined, and hence the importance of phenomenology, the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. This is pertinent as to how each generation experiences sites of memory and commemorations.