HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from The Man With The Seven Second Memory Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

The Man With The Seven Second Memory

Real Stories
Documentaries
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this documentary2 months2020–2026 score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN points to it as the extended documentary on an extreme case of amnesia whenever memory loss or consciousness comes up.

A documentary on Clive Wearing, a renowned musician whose brain was damaged by a virus in 1985, leaving him with a memory spanning only about seven seconds. It follows his life and condition.

“For another incredible case of retrogade amnesia, check the story of Clive Wearing” (HN, 2020)

2 recommendations · 1 citations · Documentaries

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@gattilorenz Sep 2020 Recommends
on HN thread After simple dental surgery, a man lost his ability to form new memories
Read more
For another incredible case of retrogade amnesia, check the story of Clive Wearing, the men with a few seconds of memory. Short clip: [link] Extended documentary: [this video] I learned of him through neuroscience classes. That was plenty of years ago, and I still think of his condition every now and then. One thing that amazes me is that he keeps stacks of diaries where he keeps erasing the previous entry, adding the current date and time, and writing "first entry I made consciously" ( [this video] ). But also, it seems that over time he does learn something new, somehow. For example, he can now reliably "predict" the ending of movies he has seen a great amount of times after the amnesia started, without remembering of having ever seen the movie. And, of course, it's touching to see the relationship with the wife.
Extended documentary on Clive Wearing's memory loss.
@passion__desire Aug 2024 Recommends
on HN thread There Is No Antimemetics Division (2018)
Have you seen the documentary "7 second memory man" on BBC. It is about an intelligent person who is confined to live with only 7 second memory. He keeps a diary recording his entries. As he reads past entries, he realises the predicament he is in and considers that his case would be interesting to doctors. Then forgets all about that. Rediscovering the whole thing again in the next 7 seconds for himself anew. 44:20 @ [this video]
Documentary on a man with a seven-second memory.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@Roya1jr May 2026 Cites it
on HN thread Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it
Read more
Well there is a man called Clive Wearing who has a 7 second memory, he still believes he's been "dead"/unconscious since he's illness in 1985, every 7 seconds even when they show him videos of himself from earlier in the day or things he's written down he doesn't believe it's him he believes the 7 seconds he's in is the true first conscious moment he's had, he even keeps a diary and writes the time he truly believes is the first time being conscious it's filled with multiple entries spanning decades.Whats interested he still retains knowledge of the world and other things but he has to be "prompted" in the right way to get that out of him, the only things he seems to remembers truly are some personal details like his wife, home telephone, family members and how to play music as he was a musicologist before he's illness but no true memories of any sort.His family don't seem to think he's conscious anymore they talk about being stuck in loops with him saying the same things over again and that even though there are elements of his old self there it's just bits and pieces the person he was is not there any more, even in the documentaries about him he says the same things over and over again the only change seems to be he's mellowed out about his condition as he used to get aggressive when he was discussing it with people. There are 2 documentaries about him made decades apart Prisoner of consciousness: [link] The man with 7 second memory: [this video]
Documentary on Clive Wearing.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close