"Intangible Memory" is a replacement neologism for an obscure phenomenon anachronistically called iozone.
Iozone is related to the input/output ports of early 8-bit programmable home computers or game machines. These systems often had less than the maximum 64K of memory and hardware appeared between different types of memory which could often actually be visualized by reprogramming the video system to work outside the video image storage buffer memory. (video RAM) Iozone arbitrarily included nonexistent RAM memory, which often had unexpected behavior when it was accessed for reading what would be stored in it if it existed. It was not defined but something happened. Some kind of data would come from nowhere. On some 8-bit machines, Iozone in the undefined region would appear almost random, but may have been residual data from the dynamic RAM refresh cycle. APPLE II Iozone provided unexpected information about the video output that was useful for producing mixed graphics configurations that were not among those designed to be produced by the hardware, such as putting a text window in the middle of Low (and/or High) Resolution Graphics instead of as usual only on the lowest lines of the screen. Iozone was associated also with "white noise" produced by a tube TV that is not tuned to an active channel. This white noise appeared where nothing was expected to be. Iozone therefore is a chaotic kind of nothing. The TV in the movie Poltergeist is a prime example of the Iozone Nothing concept. The concept was extended to hypothetical or simulated universes that had no stability, an idea probably formed by intentionally crashing a video game, so that the characters could escape the screen, eat the game program, and upset the video processing, so that the game character could step off the edge of the installed memory bank, and into the missing memory, which looked somewhat chaotic and might dissolve the character. Every byte of the possible 64K of memory was numbered from 0 to 65535 but formed rows and columns, a screenful, a 2-dimensional space, and the altered state of the video processing permitted direct viewing of the memory with bits as square pixels, corresponding to an old concept of a memory map and a world inside of the computer, a concept used in the 1982 movie TRON and perhaps also Max Headroom and The Matrix. The arcade game PAC-MAN had a form of Iozone due to a bug, on the 256th maze, where half of the screen was mixed up and malfunctioning, and if you got to that maze you effectively beat the game. The Iozone concept also extended to what you see in the dark. It should be blackness but may normally resemble the Poltergeist TV. If there is bad air or one is intoxicated or otherwise in abnormal health then that person may see an unusual and modified darkness. Children may see colored patterns if they close their eyes and put pressure on them with their lower palms, and that would be Iozone. Iozone therefore is any dynamic appearance of nothing, or information appearing out of nothing. Phospheme is a dictionary word related to visual "Iozone" phenomenon.
Intangible Memory is a less chaotic nothing from which information may be obtained with reproducible results.
A spigot function or math that generates specific digits of transcendental or irrational numbers based on a digit enumeration pointer (n as in nth digit) would qualify as intangible memory.
The function for the nth digit of Champernowne's Constant is an example of an omniscient intangible memory, so that a monkey might learn it and then type Shakespeare. This is merely a philosophical idea.
A function capable of plotting points on a plane or a 3D topography would also be an intangible memory. A virtual reality landscape could be visited by simulation, such as the mandelbrot set fractal, which is vast, yet generated by the function z=z^2-c. These small simple mathematical entities that generate infinite information are primary examples of possibly useful intangible memory. It is possible to design a small function to read out a large amount of information either all at once or one part at a time, although it may not be a small enough function in many situations to be convenient.
It would be simple to create an Intangible Memory Function that plays tick-tack-toe (and less simple for checkers or chess) using numeric digits as symbols representing a current state of a board which would be transformed into a new state of the board in which a best-possible-move was made by the function, however the function would be incapable of learning and be defined by all knowable states and best moves. It could play an indeterminate number of simultaneous games against many players and wouldn't recall nor anticipate any other moves played, yet play a hypothetically perfect game. Intangible Memory functions are used in game AI for Chess, and probably explains how electronic chessboards played well with only about 4K of total memory around 1980.
An associative memory, based on an Artificial Neural Network and even the human mind itself may be Intangible Memory. A hologram can also be used as an intangible memory, although the mind is more intangible than the Neural Network or the Hologram, since the materials obviously learn but in all three cases the information learned is not visible in the form of the matter unless it is actively recalling one thing. I have observed ANNs being overtaught and thus inventing unexpected responses to ambiguous information, recalling "monsters" that it never learned. I've seen a simple associative hologram which knows two objects and will respond to the presence of one object with an image of the other, and I wondered, how would it respond to a different example of an object. If it knows a spoon and a chess king, how would it respond to a spork or the other chessmen?
Associative memory anomalies are also related to another kind of obscure phenomenon: ambiguities
This obscure phenomenon and similar types are related to my own idiosyncrasy and creative process of invention. It is not unique to myself, since upon discussing it with other people they try and do experience similar phenomenon, but it is so subtle and not obviously useful to most people that they may not have noticed it, nor considered it worth any contemplation.