They say goldfish have only a three-second memory. This is based on the observation that it takes three seconds for a goldfish to make a complete circuit of its bowl, after which it forgets all about it and does it again.
This observation says more about the observer than the fish. Because it could be that the fish has outstanding recall, and every three seconds he comes around the bowl, looks out and says “Oh bother, you again,” and has to go back around again just to shake out the willies.
According to the goldfish’s jailer, the goldfish with the three-second memory is seeing the world afresh with each circuit. Similar conclusions include the notion that lobsters don’t notice when they’re dropped in boiling water, and my own contention that my mother liked doing laundry. (I based this on the fact that she did laundry.)
The fact is, people like to feel superior to the fish in the sea and the fowl in the air and all that creepeth upon the earth so they can have proper dominion over them, and so have seized upon the three-second goldfish as an inferior creature. Three seconds is considered a pitiful performance, especially as compared with the interval between when a human shuts off his phone and swears up and down he will not get back online, and the time he goes back online (5 minutes).
Of course, there is plenty of research behind the Dumbass Goldfish Thesis, “research” hereby defined as anything that can be found and shared prolifically on the social media whilst sitting on the potty.
For instance, a team at Stanford, positing that maybe the goldfish remembers things but just wants a little exercise, decided to plant something more critical in their bowls: they placed a tiny set of car keys in the little castles. Sure enough, the goldfish nosed the car keys and went right back around the bowl and found them all over again instead of just making a note where they were.
Russian investigators tried giving the goldfish a four-digit number to remember but once again it just came back around in three seconds gaping like a big dummy. Upon peer review, it was suggested that four-digit numbers are not important to the species but subsequent trials produced the same result with the fish’s mother’s maiden name, which it totally should have remembered.
A frenzy of goldfish-related internet activity ensued. A small but growing number of facebook users reported being able to train goldfish of ordinary intellect and were subsequently challenged by a vocal Macedonian guppy contingent. “Videos or it didn’t happen,” came the provocation, and soon youtube was swimming with genius fish able to nose up to a card with the correct name of owner’s first pet, oldest sibling, and last six of their social security number.
But there are darker rumblings yet on the internet. A certain percentage of goldfish sold in Petco stores, known to be secretly owned by Billionaire Jew George Soros, are spy goldfish engineered by the Deep State to report back on whether you leave the water running when you brush your teeth, which even now is resulting in hidden fees, public debasement, and a slide toward Communism.
Reputable mainstream sources denounce this as a baseless conspiracy theory, which is exactly what would be expected from the media tools of Big Conservation. The number of believers is growing, however, as is easily tested by the introduction of a meme instructing concerned goldfish owners to put black electrical tape over the front-facing portion of the bowl just in case.
The data on compliance are harvested from the Ninja Spy Canaries across the room.
Maybe the goldfish are actually quite intelligent, but they’re just fucking bored being in a tiny bowl! What else CAN they do but swim around and around?
We have goldfish in our backyard pond, and they obviously remember things. They know that when a raccoon comes around — hide! They remember the carnage from previous visits.
Yeah, I don’t actually put too much stock in that bad-memory thing. Although certain individual goldfish are no doubt less bright.
I would dispute that myth. When we still had an aquarium, when we went to the corner from which we fed them the fish would ‘come arunning’. And no, we didn’t feed them every three seconds.
I hate the way humans disparage the intelligence of other creatures. My parrots are amazingly canny; much more so than other humans. Max can read our emotions and will worry about stuff right along with us. Petey knows the signs that we are going out, and will say “Bye-bye!” And Mikey ALWAYS somehow keeps track of the time — even when it goes back and forth in the Spring and the Fall. She know when it’s time for breakfast, lunch or supper or bed. If everyone had “bird brains”, this might be a smarter world. (Especially crows! They’re awesome!)
And also, people are always excited about crows, but most of what they get credit for applies to just about every bird. In my opinion. Studley for SURE.
Word!
As I mentioned, this myth says more about the mythters than the fish.
Most goldfish are better at being goldfish than almost any other fish. When I speak of the intelligence of critters I often get a return look that reminds me of a lobotomized goldfish. I actually get that look when I speak of many things. Why do you suppose that is?
One thing that I found FASCINATING about goldfish: they are the only creature whose vision goes from slightly into the ultraviolet… into the spectrum that WE see… and slightly into the infrared! How cool is that!?
Dim light, Jono? Profiling?
On an entirely different note, last week someone mentioned a contest for a name for followers-of-Murr. I said I would give my mind to it (ala Eeyore), and I have. You can probably do better. What about SubMurriners? Demurrcrats?
Murrcenaries?
We get paid? I vote for this one. By mail. Hundreds of times.
I like that one! It makes us sound like we got swagger!
Murrons.
Love that!
Much better than Real Amurricans!
Uria aalge (the common murre)? I confess I’ve no idea how to pronounce it.
I asked my know-it-all friend Google how to pronounce it. Sounds like: YOUR ē a alge. It’ll never catch on. And anyway, Murr isn’t common; she is unique. Just like the rest of us. 😉
So true! And thick-billed, or Brünnich’s, murre (U. lomvia) is really no better.
I agree that goldfish certainly are not stupid. They just need a bigger tank and more things to swim over, under and through to make their lives a little more interesting. Our tropical fish used to come speeding to the food corner when we tapped the lid of the tank and the black mollies would come and swim between our fingers if we waggled them in the water. None of the other fish would do that.
Now that I find interesting. That the mollies acted different. Isn’t that cool.
My goldfish would solicit food. When I was in the room, they’d swim down to the side closest to me and splash around until they got my attention. Definitely more than a three second memory.
Shit, Bruce, I don’t even have more than a three-second memory. What?
In my 2015 poem “Fisherman’s Line” I wrote:
When I told him the bluegills
in Whiskeytown Lake
saw through my every move
and bit everything but the hook,
he laughed, “Everything’s got a brain!”
Thank you!
My favorite use of the goldfish myth is in a song by Ani DiFranco about her endlessly repeated mistakes:
“The say goldfish have no memory
I guess their lives are much like mine
And that little plastic castle
Is a surprise every time.”
It’s kind of like the 2001 movie Memento Mori, in which the main character has retrograde amnesia, resulting in short-term memory loss. It is told backwards in time. I seem to remember him getting tattoos of things he has to remember. Really good film!
Yes, I liked that one too!
Our goldfish live outside in a small pond. During the summer, they are summoned at feeding time (note: corresponds to Happy Hour) by tapping two rocks together. They come right over to be fed. They clearly remember this. There is no feeding in the cold months, but as soon as the water warms up enough in spring, a few taps on the rock, and here they come! Mr. Freckles, Maybelline and the gang of nameless dozens.