Understanding the Science Behind Eternal Recall
Eternal Recall is built on ACT-R's mathematical framework—the same cognitive architecture used by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University for over 50 years.
If you haven't read the Science Overview yet, start there for the foundational concepts.
Eternal Recall implements the original ACT-R formulas from Carnegie Mellon research:
This equation calculates how accessible a memory is based on when and how often it was accessed. More recent and frequent access means higher accessibility.
— Anderson & Lebiere, 1998
Total activation combines base-level learning with spreading activation from related context. This is how thinking about one thing makes related things more accessible.
— Anderson et al., 2004
The probability of successfully recalling a memory follows a sigmoid function based on its activation level relative to a threshold.
— Anderson & Lebiere, 1998
Our Implementation: Eternal Recall uses these foundational equations as a starting point, with our own proprietary adaptations optimized for AI memory systems. The specific implementation details remain confidential.
Every memory in Eternal Recall follows a natural lifecycle inspired by human cognition:
New memories are stored with high accessibility and automatically categorized and linked to related concepts.
Following ACT-R's power law decay, memories gradually become less accessible over time—just like human memory.
When a memory is accessed, its accessibility increases. Frequently used memories stay highly accessible.
Memories that fade become "deep"—harder to recall spontaneously but never deleted. They can always be retrieved with effort.
In ACT-R, memories don't exist in isolation. When you think about one concept, related concepts become more accessible. This is called spreading activation.
Eternal Recall implements this with a Knowledge Graph—a network of connected entities including people, projects, concepts, files, and locations.
Related concepts become more accessible through network connections.
Based on research by Thomson, Bennati & Lebiere (Carnegie Mellon), Eternal Recall implements buffer decay—recently discussed topics continue to influence context even after moving on.
Cognitive science research shows that short-term memory influence doesn't disappear instantly. Peterson & Peterson (1959) and Waugh & Norman (1965) demonstrated that recently processed information continues to affect cognition for several seconds.
Eternal Recall implements this insight: when a topic leaves active discussion, it doesn't immediately lose all influence. Instead, its contextual priming fades gradually over a short window.
More natural conversations where context from moments ago still informs current responses—just like talking to a human who remembers what you just said.
As memories age, Eternal Recall can consolidate them—creating compressed summaries that preserve essential information.
"User asked about implementing a REST API in Flask. Discussed route decorators, request/response handling, JSON serialization, and error handling patterns. Recommended using Flask-RESTful for larger projects. User mentioned they're working on a project called 'DataSync' that needs authentication."
"Flask REST API discussion for DataSync project. Topics: routes, JSON, errors. Recommended Flask-RESTful."
When you're working on a specific project, all related memories should be more accessible. Eternal Recall implements project boosting to make this happen.
This mirrors how human memory works—when you're focused on a project, everything related to it comes to mind more easily.
AI can make mistakes. Eternal Recall automatically creates recovery points—you can always roll back to a previous state without remembering to save.
The system automatically captures your memory state as you work. No manual saves required.
Made a mistake? Roll back to any previous state instantly.
Because Eternal Recall uses persistent local storage, rollbacks are always possible. Your data exists as real files on your computer—not ephemeral cloud data that disappears.
During development, a bug corrupted thousands of memories. Full recovery took under 5 minutes—no manual backups needed.
Eternal Recall launches on Kickstarter in January 2026
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