Five versions of one sentence
“I went to the shop.” “You told me you went.” “I read that you planned to go.” “I inferred that you went.” “I intend to go tomorrow.” They all contain a shop and a person going there. Only one reports the speaker’s completed action. The last reports an intention whose outcome is still open.
What the missing source costs
Suppose the visitor says, “You were there with me.” A system that merely read the visitor’s account may agree because the event is in its record. Now the account of their relationship has quietly acquired a shared experience that never happened.
Or suppose a plan says “call on Monday.” On Tuesday, a source-blind summary says “called on Monday.” The person may lose the very reminder the plan was meant to provide. A later actual call belongs beside the intention, not in its place.
Pause here: If you could see only the sentence “We discussed it,” what would you still need to know before trusting the we?
Let an event keep its owner
PHS’s Engram design calls for links among planned, witnessed, reported, and completed occurrences while preserving who owns each account. Later interpretations can be added without making the original witness say something new. That structure offers a way to check both memory and correction.
My answer: A memory’s source is part of its meaning. Without that source, a useful record can become a false autobiography, a completed errand, or an undeserved certainty.