Carry It Forward- Memoria ex Machina

On the nature of memory. There is no soul (not bound and defined by matter). Everything must have some physical manifestation. Our emotions, our thoughts, our memories. How are these manifested in our brains? Moreover, how is that this physical storage of memory effected by the nature of the memory itself. It is rather well known that memories with strong riveting emotions tend to last longer. But why? Are they branded in the mind so that they take time to fade? Is it an evolutionary survival attribute? It makes sense that organisms should remember life-threatening situations so that they can continue to survive. Are periodic and habitual actions thus also saved, like in the migratory flight of birds and the periodic tinkering with an alarm clock?

While we speak of physical manifestations how is intelligence manifested? Do smarter people perceive things as being slower, have a faster rate of thinking? If a smart person saw things through a stupid person's eyes would walking appear to be running? The important thing is how can we find how this speed of thought is determined within the brain. Can we engineer how smart we are? Can we give some humans a near infinite speed of thinking, so that they have near infinite amounts of perceived (by them) time to solve humanities problems? Can we make ourselves more intelligent?