"HISTORY" By: Mark Merlino, September 14, 2005	Mark Merlino - Home page
The past is much less significant than human perception of the past. Of the vast amount of stimuli that bombards each person in each moment of his or her life, only a small portion is ever preserved. Most stimulus is never preserved in human memory, let alone in any other measurable way. Historical sources which do survive then necessarily have to have been preserved as a result of their significance. Each person determines the significance of what they choose to preserve with some subjective criteria, a human decision. Not one word is written or any memory preserved without some sort of bias. For this reason, the aim of history should be to analyze perception of various perception of the past. The objective past is necessarily beyond human grasp. But portrayals of the past demonstrate an attempt to make sense of all of the collective stimuli that can be called history. History then is a reflection of both what people choose to remember and what people choose to teach others.