Smelling Memories

What would life be like if we didn't have memory-storage capabilities?  All of our senses rely on our memory to a great extent, and without memory, life would probably be perceived as a chaotic, unpredictable tragedy of fragmented, unrelated events.  Evolution would likely not have been possible to produce the complex life forms that we see today.  Olfaction and pain sensory alone contribute a vast amount of information from the environment to the organism that serves to increase its survival.  It only seems natural that certain events that elicit pain would become associated and imprinted in the organism's memory to prevent such an event from happening again.  The same mechanism would apply for specific scents as well.  For example, we commonly associate certain scents with our surroundings or specific events, such as the aroma of grandmother's house from her terrific cooking or the aversive odor of vomit from that time you ate undercooked chicken.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that olfaction and pain sensation has evolved across many, if not all, species in order to confer a selective advantage.  Surprisingly enough, even the sperm cells of many organisms find their target ovum through a process of "chemical smelling" called chemotaxis.  Olfaction, apparently, is a prominent part of life even before fertilization.

This video illustrates some of the complexity involved with olfaction and its ties to memory:

Individual differences also play a significant role in the formation of associations between certain scents and memory.  It is important to remember that not everyone may have the same emotion elicited by a specific scent because most people experience different things while immersed in the same scent.

It's interesting to me how different situations can create vastly different consciousnesses.  It's almost as if each of us is meant to peer through every corner of the universe and experience things differently.  Every memory has a smell to it, whether you acknowledge this fact or not.  All of this information is stored in your brain, and for what?  Why so, if we lose it all in the end anyway?  Why do I have to remember that the smell of roses reminds me of the first time I pricked my finger while I was learning gardening techniques from my grandmother?  Does this information only serve a purpose in the time being, or does it go beyond to realms unknown?