It turns out one of my crazy ideas has some basis in science

   

Over the years I've been known to come up with some harebrained theories for various aspects of life. Among them was this:
     As we grow old we face what has been called and laughed at as memory loss. Every time we can't recall something from memory there is an instant of panic when we wonder, "Is this it? The beginning of the long decline?"
    Well it hit me one time that it's not memory loss at all. Over an extended lifetime we gather large amounts of information that we store somewhere in our brains. When it comes time to remember something it takes longer and longer to sort through that growing body of knowledge to find the specific item we're looking for.  In short, it's not a memory problem, it's a data management problem. Oh and the short-term memory problem? Well that's all the new stuff that's like still on the desk and hasn't been filed yet so it doesn't show up in a regular search. It's the stuff you will get to sooner or later.
     That's the short version of the theory. The full thought process is in the second link below.
     It sounds outrageous, right? I mean, I proposed it more for the humor of it and as a response to some younger person's idea of a joke than for any real belief such an idea could have merit.
     Well, guess what. It turns out there's some scientific basis for that being the exact problem. Some folks at the University of California Berkley (where else?) have studied the phenomenon and concluded that there is some scientific basis for the data management theory and it does in fact take those of us who have lived long enough to gather all the information we do, to have some difficulty sorting through the recollections of great aunt Tillie's second husband and how to frame a wall for an 8-foot picture window to figure out where we left our keys.
    Advice? Don't panic, relax, sooner or later your mind will find what you were looking for, maybe later today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, but it's there and it will show up sooner or later.
     Meanwhile if you stop, look around a little or retrace your steps you will figure out why you came into the kitchen.
     And, oh boy, am I going to remember this vindication. One of my outrageous theories actually has some solid foundation even if I came to it without the slightest background in any facts. Now, do you want to hear my numerous theories on how to troll for silver salmon?

Here's the Berkley report
The original data management post