This works as a general guideline, but sometimes you aren’t able to write the code in a way that truly self-documents.
If you come back to a function after a month and need half an hour to understand it, you should probably add some comments explaining what was done and why it was done that way (in addition to considering if you should perhaps rewrite it entirely).
If your code is going to be used by third parties, you almost always need more documentation than the raw code.
Yes documentation can become obsolete. So constrain its use to cases where it actually adds clarity and commit to keeping it up to date with the evolving code.
The point is not the difference between a fake memory and a real one (let’s grant for now that they are undistinguishable) but the fact that positive experiences are worth a lot more than just the memories they leave you with.
I may not know the difference between a memory of an event that I experienced and a memory of an event I didn’t experience. Looking back on the past, they’re the same.
But each moment of pleasure that I only remember, without having experienced it, was essentially stolen from me. Pleasure is a state of consciousness and only exists in the present.