One type of memory is consciously perceived by us in a language spoken in our thoughts, or an image we see, while other types of memory are subconsciously remembered--like how to walk or speak. For an example of consciously perceived memory: Pay attention to your mind as I ask you a question, then listen carefully for the answer in your mind, listen carefully, ready....Where were you born?

What happened in your mind? You "heard" a voice say the place where you were born. That is a common way to receive a memory. Now, what is required for that sequence of events to occur the way it just happened?

1. You read and understood the question. 
2. Your memory system perceived the question. 
3. Your memory system understood the question. 
4. Your memory system searched for the answer. 
5. Your memory system found the answer. 
6. Your memory system delivered the answer to you in your mind--by a voice in your mind speaking it to you in a human language. 
7. You "heard" that voice in your mind. 
8. You understood what that voice said.

Let's go through each step of the process and see if a neuron or any other cell can do what actually transpired.

1) You read and understood the question

How did you understand the question? At some point in your past you learned the English language, now you have memory available to you which gives you the ability to comprehend the English language to some degree or another. What is the actual biological mechanics involved in the process of the question being seen by your cognitive awareness, then understood by the memory of English comprehension, enabling you to comprehend that question? No one knows how that occurs. 

2) Your memory system perceived the question

I asked the question in the English language. However the memory system functions it needed to be able to perceive the question I asked you. Do cells in your brain have the ability to perceive these words? Your perceptual awareness perceives these words because you are conscious. Are cells conscious? How do cells perceive anything? Cells are unconscious automatons, they are mechanical. They cannot consciously perceive anything because conscious perceptual awareness is only a property of self-aware consciousness. Cells perceive things through chemical or electrical activity. But the cells themselves do not perceive anything because they are unconscious, they display an illusion of perception in the same way that your computer displays an illusion of perception. In both cases there is no actual perceiving going on. Chemical y affects x which then changes it into chemical xy which then causes chemical z to heat up chemical n, etc. There is an illusion of perception between the chemicals because they are reacting to each other, but those are mechanical chemical reactions, there is no perceptual cognition at any stage in any cell. So, no cell has the ability to perceive anything, yet your memory system was able to perceive the question on this page.

3) Your memory system understood the question

The only way for a conscious entity to comprehend what it perceives is through education/experience, which leads to intelligence, which is based upon memory of education/experience. Cells do not have self awareness or consciousness, therefore no perceptual awareness, therefore no education/experience is possible, and therefore no creation of intelligence based upon memory of education/experience. If cells cannot comprehend anything - how did they comprehend the question I asked?

4) Your memory system searched for the answer

In order for some process to search for something, whatever is doing the searching needs to have the ability to search. Cells communicate with each other by chemical or electrical reaction. But, it's not communication between sentient intelligent entities. It's communication by reaction, e.g. chemical x touches and changes chemical y causing it to change into chemical xy which changes it's property and causes it to bond with chemical n, etc. That is how cells "communicate". Can that process search for memory information? Can mechanical machines which function based upon chemical and electrical reaction make an intelligent search in a split second based upon a question you just read or heard? What would they need? They would need knowledge and comprehension of the information they are looking for, they would need knowledge and comprehension of where that information is, they would need knowledge and comprehension on how to access that information. What would cells need to have the ability to do those things? They would need a very complex communication system, with a database of information that could be easily and quickly accessed and understood and used. Basically, cells would need the ability of a computer. But, cells do not have that ability. They do not have the abilities of a computer to work with and search a database of information. Even if they did, still they would be unable to use it anymore then a computer can do anything without a conscious endeavor by a person using a computer. Cells are mechanical machines, they do not possess initiative, they function based upon reaction to physical stimuli, not intellectual awareness.

5) Your memory system found the answer

Whatever memory system process found the answer to my question, it needed to have a memory system of it's own in order to recognize the information it was looking for. If a cell was looking for the information of where you were born, it would need to know that the data it finds is the correct answer. How would it know unless it has information at its use that enables it to distinguish one piece of data from another? In order for your memory system to find the answer to my question, it would need to comprehend that the question being asked is associated with a specific data set. What would it need to do that? Since my question was in the English language and the answer you received from your memory was in a human language, at the least your memory system would need to comprehend and search in English and human language. What would it need for that? A database of English word meanings, grammar comprehension, rules of linguistics, and the ability to perceive and utilize these things like a computer with voice based recognition. Which cells have those abilities? It's like expecting your bicycle to start talking to you.

6) Your memory system delivered the answer to you in your mind by a voice in your mind speaking it to you in a human language

What would be needed for that to occur? After finding the correct answer your memory system delivered it to your cognitive awareness in a human language through a dialogue in your mind. When I asked you where you were born, in your mind you heard the name of that place. In order for that to happen your memory system needs to be able to transport the information it found from it's storage place to your mind in a voice or dialogue in human language. If cells were doing that, they needed to store that data somewhere in the first place before they could access it. They needed to transform intellectual information, thought information, into physical bits of data in order to store it, then they needed to transform that physical data back into thought, and then present it to your cognitive awareness as a voice speaking to you in your mind. That is an extremely complex and sophisticated process which cells simply are not capable of doing. Cells cannot speak to you.

7) You "heard" that voice in your mind

The memory of where you were born appeared in your mind in human language through a voice in your cognitive awareness of your mind. That is typically how conscious memories appear in our mind. You desire a memory and it appears in your mind as a voice speaking that memory. One time someone said to me this:

Well I don't know about others, but when I remembered what I had for dinner 3 nights ago, it didn't just come to me, I had to go through a series of steps... So counting back 3 nights... Monday night! What do I do on Mondays? Yoga...no, didn't go because I went to a friend's for dinner, and Ta Da! I knew what I had for dinner...and by the way sometimes when I wake I do have to go through a conscious process of remembering what day it is! Memory retrieval occurs through the 'button' of either the five senses or as in my case... A logical step by step process of association. It damn well feels like hard work sometimes.

I said: "You missed the point. How did any of those memories appear in your mind? They just did without you looking in a database of memories."

We don't control how our memory appears in our mind, but because people usually identify the voice in our mind giving our cognitive awareness memory, as themselves or under their control, therefore mistakenly they think they are in control of how memory appears in our mind. But in reality conscious memory data is not within our control, it simply appears in our mind without any actual conscious data search by ourselves because we don't know where nor how to find it. Yet it appears as a voice in our head and that causes people to think they are somehow in control over memory. That voice in our mind, this voice you hear as you read these words, is a device used by whatever process controls our memory system to inform our cognitive awareness or consciousness with memory information data in the form of language. How do we hear this inner voice in our mind?

8) You understood what that voice said

How do we comprehend what it is saying to us, what is the actual process of hearing and understanding what we hear in our mind? Can cells be the cause? Are cells, with their simple unconscious chemical reaction based system, capable of causing and managing the complexity of thought, intellect, mind, etc? That would be like expecting a television to put on a show by itself. The hardware of a television is needed to see the TV show, but by itself it is incapable of doing everything else. If you damage the TV you can't see the show very well or maybe not at all. But the show isn't coming from the TV. The TV is receiving the show being broadcast from something very different than a TV, e.g. a studio with actors, a sports stadium, a DVD, etc. In the same way the cells in our brains are not capable of managing our memory system, but our brains are needed for our memory to be understood because it is an interface with our cognitive awareness. We need our brain to function properly in our body for our cognition to function properly and be able to be consciously and intelligently aware of memory. But our memory system cannot be caused or managed by our cells, our memory system deals with thought, which is non-physical, our brain cells deal with physical chemicals. Cells are not equipped to deal with memory, they cannot perceive thought, communicate with thought, etc. Yet, our memory functions nevertheless

What about recent science which implants memories into mice?

They made a mouse associate a certain feeling (pleasure or pain) with a certain place after stimulating a part of their brain. While interesting, all that shows is that there is an interaction between how memory is accessed and the brain, much like how there is a relationship between a hard drive and the data flowing into it from an outside source like software or a user. We know there is a relationship between the brain and memory because for example if the brain is sufficiently damaged memory is impaired. But that doesn't show what memory is and how it functions in any way. It doesn't prove that brain cells have the power to understand what you desire, or that cells have the power to perceive and comprehend language in order to understand a person asking you a question, nor that cells can then know if you want a memory to respond to that person and proceed to then find and speak that memory in your mind to you.

If you believe that because you can feel pain when pinched that the skin is the cause of your pain, that is a faulty understanding of what actually occurs. In reality the skin is a component of your experience of the pain. In order to feel that pinch there is an extremely complex apparatus connected to your cognition via your nervous system utilizing a method you or modern science does not understand (consciousness is a mystery to them). Correlation does not imply causation. That is a basic premise of logical analysis. The brain is indeed correlated or related to your ability to perceive memory, but that shouldn’t be the sole basis of research into memory functionality. But it is. Modern science uses the fact of the brain correlating to memory as the sole basis of their search for the riddle of how memory works.

It should be obvious that unconscious nerve cells in any number of configurations lack the necessary abilities to be able to adequately perform the above mentioned tasks that our memory system performs for us. In simple terms - our memory system has to be conscious of what we experience. No other scenario is possible. Cells are not conscious. No matter how many cells you gather they will not start to perceive your desires, nor be aware and see what you need, nor will they be able to comprehend language and then speak to you. But that is what is happening with memory. Something is doing just that.

The real question modern science needs to ask is: How is memory comprehended, acquired, stored, and then made available in an intelligible way to your cognition without intelligent conscious management. The answer then becomes obvious. The reality is that memory as it functions for us - has to be the result of a conscious intelligence interacting with us at all times, who is fully aware of our every experience, and who is able to give us what we want and need to function as intelligent beings. Anything less and our memory system as it works, would simply be impossible.

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