> The brain does not retain information that it does not need.
Why do I still know how to optimize free conventional memory in DOS by configuring config.sys and autoexec.bat?
I haven’t done this in 2 decades and I’m reasonably sure I never again will
The last fast food place you went to, what does the ceiling look like? The exact colour/pattern?
The last phone conversation you had with a utility company, how did they greet you exactly?
There's lots that we do remember, sometimes odd things like your example, though I'm sure you must have repeated it a few times as well. But there's so much detail that we don't remember at all, and even our childhood memories just become memories of memories - we remember some event, but we slowly forget the exact details, they become fuzzy.
I also think the claim that "the brain does not retain information it does not need" is an insufficient explanation, and short-sighted. As an example, reading books informs and shapes our thinking, and while people may not immediately recall a book that they read some time ago, I've had conversations where I remembered that I had read a particular passage (sentence, phrase, idea) and referred to it in the conversation.
People do stuff like that all the time, bringing up past memories in spontaneity. The brain absolutely does remember things it "doesn't need".
Probably because there was some reward that you felt at the time was important (most likely playing a DOS game).
I did this for a living at a large corp where I was the 'thinkpad guy', and I barely remember any of the tricks (and only some of the IBM stuff). Then Windows NT and 95 came out and like whoo cares... This was always dogshit. Because I was always an Apple/Unix guy and that was just a job.
Probably because you learned it during that brief period in your development in which humans are most impressionable.
Now think about the effect on those humans currently using LLMs at that stage of their development.