[HN Gopher] An ultimate guide to memory palaces
___________________________________________________________________
An ultimate guide to memory palaces
Author : scher
Score : 166 points
Date : 2021-09-24 10:00 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (metacognitive.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (metacognitive.me)
| jklinger410 wrote:
| I have an awful memory, and I experimented with the memory palace
| concept for a while. The funny part is, although I haven't used
| it in months (years) my memory palace is still perfectly intact.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| Does aphantasia affect the ability to create an effective memory
| palace? I find that my ability to visualize things in my mind's
| eye is diminished and somewhat low-resolution. Has anyone here
| with mild or total aphantasia been successful in building a
| memory palace?
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| It's not true that you don't understand/learn by "storing raw
| information". The Human brain is incapable of not understanding
| information. And even if there is nothing to understand in the
| data we try to memorize, we rather make something up to memorize
| it rather than forget it (what you have to do in order to use the
| memory palace on numbers, for example).
|
| In many subjects, rote memorization is the only route to real
| understanding. I'd like to name medicine, biology, law and
| languages. Only be memorization, over weeks and years of
| relentless learning and just as much forgetting, the mental
| infrastructure of an expert is forged.
|
| I can't cite it off hand, but there are even studies that
| compared understanding between students using a memory palace
| technique and those without. The former understood more.
| musingsole wrote:
| Define "understood"
| prestonbriggs wrote:
| Has anyone used this approach to memorize music? E.g., for
| playing an instrument.
|
| I used to be able to remember plenty when I was young and
| practicing a lot. And certainly professionals can remember
| significant amounts (and not just the music, but performance
| details, fingerings, etc).
|
| Seems like a different mechanism, relying less on visual and
| spatial associations, more on hearing. But perhaps it's similar
| in that you learn a structure and attach details to it.
|
| Or, having developed a good memory for music, can we use it to
| help memorize random facts? Perhaps associating them with places
| in a song.
| mrock wrote:
| In the renascence there was a standardized system of memorized
| hand symbols to recall music. For guitar you can memorize
| fingerings by creating a person action object system in a way
| that tells you the fingering, the string and the fret number in
| one image. You can then use this to memorize classical music.
| With music you are going from conscious to unconscious
| procedural memory. But you can "double encode" using memory
| palaces and systems for a "backup". (It can actually help you
| learn it faster because you can get rid of sheet music)
| mandmandam wrote:
| The circle of fifths can be studied (and often is) with the
| loci method. Visualising the circle of fifths, with the
| relative minors, as a real space that can be moved around in is
| very helpful.
|
| Music theory is full of little mnemonics, and is itself a sort
| of system of mnemonics:
|
| Instead of an infinite gradation of frequencies, they are
| reduced to 12 repeating notes within each doubling, so that a
| 440 Hz vibration is an A, as is a 220 and an 880 Hz vibration.
|
| If instead of doubling a frequency, we add a half to it again
| for a 2:3 ratio, we get a perfect fifth. By repeating this
| process (with some fudges) we end up with twelve notes, the
| circle of fifths, and the vast majority of Western music.
|
| Rather than simplistically giving these 12 notes 12 letters,
| they get 7, in a clever system that allows for all 24/30 major
| and minor scales to have one of each letter A to G.
|
| The 7 notes in any particular major or minor scale can be
| combined with each other to form chords. Major and minor chords
| each share a root and a fifth; the third is different by a
| single semitone. The combinations of three notes that sound
| nice together are thus greatly simplified.
|
| Once the circle of fifths is internalised, all 24 (or 30 - ask
| Wooten) major and minor chords can be constructed, transposed,
| and played with.
|
| So, when an experienced musician hears a song they can put all
| of that background to work. Instead of remembering each
| indivudal note played, the notes are chunked into chords, hich
| are chunked into keys and progressions. Once contextualised
| with similar pieces the memorisation becomes easier and easier.
| By the time all of that contextual data is assimilated, with
| music that is _felt_, there isn't much need (I'd imagine) for
| good musicians to use memory palaces for fingerings or
| performance details. I'd say a lot of that knowledge is in the
| hands, the breath, and the whole body.
|
| Disclaimer: I am not a very good musician (yet).
| tpoacher wrote:
| As someone who, back when I used to play (semi-professionally)
| I preferred to memorise all my music, I would say that
| memorising pieces for me was "effortless", and thus needed no
| technique, provided that when I would first study a piece, the
| intent was specifically to memorise it, rather than, say, to
| sight read, or analyse it.
|
| I always found it extremely odd that, if the memorisation
| intent was not there, no amount of exposure would lead to
| effective memorisation. E.g. I could sight read an
| accompaniment 50 times and I would not remember most of it;
| once I decided to study specifically with the intent of
| "memorising" the piece, typically a handful of passes would be
| enough.
|
| Scott Adams recently said something similar in one of his
| coffee podcasts. He made an experiment with himself: he has a
| short "skit" he always starts his show with, and he made a bet
| with himself how long it would take, if ever, to memorise that
| skit, simply by reading it, with no intentional effort to
| memorise it.
|
| So far it's been over a year afaik :)
| prestonbriggs wrote:
| Yes, memorizing everything (all the music) helped hugely in
| practicing. I used to believe it was because I didn't have to
| read the music, and could focus on fingers, etc. But maybe
| the memorization effort (and it wasn't hard, as you
| mentioned) was enough to establish a framework, and the bulk
| of my practicing was hanging new details onto the framework.
| xooxooxo wrote:
| I use a mnemonic technique to remember song forms when I'm
| playing drums. I draw a map of the song, each measure is a
| square. Squares are arranged in lines in such a way that it
| makes sense musically (usually 4 squares per line). The parts
| of the song (verse, chorus, etc.) are separated. The squares
| are mostly empty, except when they contain something important
| to remember.
|
| The drawing takes up more space than the typical informal
| drummer notation (for example: intro 4 bars; verse 8 bars;
| chorus 8 bars, etc.), but it is much easier to remember (at
| least for me).
|
| If I'm learning a song that isn't recorded yet, I sketch this
| map during rehearsals. Before each rehearsal I try to visualize
| the maps of all the songs.
|
| If I'm learning a challenging song from a recording I use a
| simple python program that draws the map from a given text file
| and allows me to play a loop over selected measures. This way
| my brain starts constructing a map of the song without
| conscious effort.
|
| This sort of maps are some kind of constructed memory palaces
| in 2 dimensions. I personally wouldn't use an existing memory
| palace to remember a song, because the songs already have
| enough structure.
|
| I need this technique only to remember the big picture. When I
| need to learn the changes or the melody, I try to rely more on
| music theory and "audio memory". If you are interested in
| learning jazz standards, you might want to check the book
| "Insights in Jazz" written by John Elliott.
| jamesash wrote:
| Moonwalking with Einstein de-mystified memory for me. As mrock
| described, in the beginning it was a lot of work building palaces
| and making associations, but like a muscle, things quickly got
| easier. In time, memorizing a list of 30 or so became pretty
| easy. I was able to memorize a list of 875 North American bird
| species and then recite it from memory. Took about 35 min to read
| it all back.
| mrock wrote:
| That's awesome. Did it change your relationship with or
| experience of birds?
| mrock wrote:
| I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became
| fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough
| knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of
| survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does
| your experience of the world change when every place you find
| yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories?
|
| I also wanted to get more out of reading. I used to read a book,
| maybe take notes and hopefully take some new action. Next year
| it's gone, maybe I recall 3 ideas. How could I get more out of
| reading?
|
| So I memorized books. Convert a book into 100-250 bullet points,
| memorize them in a memory palace. If I don't practice recalling
| my palaces, at least once every 6 months or so, I'll forget it.
| However, this isn't a negative. When recalling you can ask
| yourself questions about the knowledge. How is the relevant to my
| life right now? How can I apply this? How does the world look
| using this knowledge as a lens? How does this compare or contrast
| to other things I've memorized?
|
| At first this was an enormous effort. But with all training it
| gets faster. We've all spent thousands of hours learning to read.
| Now reading is unconscious, you see a word and instantly you know
| the concept behind. My first book took about 4 hours and
| reviewing it took an hour. Now reviewing a book (250 items) takes
| under 15 mins, and I can do it while making dinner or driving.
| People can memorize a deck of cards (52 facts in order) in two
| minutes. Eventually, I believe it's clearly possible to be able
| to memorize at the speed of speech (250 words per min).
|
| At the moment, I develop software. I decided to memorize the
| packages of the python standard library. Why? Is it going to
| help? It provides a link to attach concepts to. When I find a
| better solution than something in the standard library, I attach
| that memory to the standard library. Like when I think of
| argparse, I automaticaly think of clicklib and fire. Before
| coding I review the software development palace. I can hold it
| all in mind... because those packages have become one chunk in my
| mind.
|
| With all this training, my ability to visualize has just gone
| through the roof. At the end of the day, I can mentally re-watch
| my whole day and catch interesting, things that I missed in the
| moment. It feels like watching a vivid (albeit dreamy) movie.
|
| Anyways, like anything the deep end of this mind training is
| totally amazing and unlike the initial "lifehack" quick wins.
| philipswood wrote:
| This sounds awesome! Makes me want to have a look at memory
| palaces again.
|
| In your experience:
|
| Do you ever "refactor" you maps to show updated understanding?
| Or do you find that this happens naturally?
|
| Do connections between different areas stand out or form?
|
| Do you have examples of notices patterns or structure in
| knowledge because of it?
|
| Thanks
| mrock wrote:
| > Do you ever "refactor" you maps to show updated
| understanding? Or do you find that this happens naturally?
|
| Yes. I often add on things. So let's say I read a book and
| years later I realize that the author omitted something very
| important (IMHO). Then, I just add that knowledge to the
| appropriate room. I naturally remember what was or wasn't
| part of the book. With these systems you're training your
| mind to think a specific sequence of thoughts (in the act of
| recalling the experience of your mind palace). With training
| even the recall becomes fast. However,... you can't easy
| delete (not after rehearsing something for years). It's about
| as easy to delete something as it is to change a bad habit.
| It's just easier to make new habits (or add new information).
|
| > Do connections between different areas stand out or form?
|
| This is one of the coolest things that happens. A kind of
| thinking becomes possible that isn't available without the
| "whole topic" loaded in mind. You can see broad expansive
| connections. One fun activity (that you can do right now with
| two decks of flash cards) is to compare and contrast
| different books. Mentally walk both of them simultaneously
| forwards and backwards. You'll see how the connect and
| differ.
|
| > Do you have examples of notices patterns or structure in
| knowledge because of it? Sure
|
| First with encoding... _where_ things occur in your memory
| palace is "free" information. So some people when learning
| foreign languages store different genders in different
| cities. Say you're trying to recall the gender of Boot (boat
| in German). You think, "where is that boot shaped like a
| boat?" instantly you know it's in a cafe in Williamsburg
| which is where you put all the "das" verbs making it "das
| Boot".
|
| You say you're encoding the periodic table, if you put all
| the columns in the same room, you know instantly that you
| could replace your Gallium doping with Indium in your Si
| wafer (in this toy example).
|
| If you want to learn the party trick of knowing which day of
| the week someone was born on. You can either get good at
| mental math and learn the equation and calculate it. Or, you
| can make a system of rooms in which you stick people who
| represent all the possible years to "cache" part of the
| calculation. Then the problem reduces to addition of small
| numbers.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Have you seen this?
|
| "Ancient Australian Aboriginal Memory Tool Superior to 'Memory
| Palace'"
|
| https://neurosciencenews.com/aboriginal-memory-technique-184...
| mrock wrote:
| Yes. There have been many follow up interviews with these
| researchers. It's an early "is this interesting" proof-of-
| concept study. But, they are getting funding for a study
| which should generate more reliable data.
| philipswood wrote:
| Do you have a source with more detail on the actual
| technique? They are a bit sparse on details.
|
| It sounds like combining the spatial map with narrative
| stories, right?
| mrock wrote:
| If you want to learn more about indigenous memory
| techniques read: "Memory Craft" by Dr. Lynne Kelly and
| "Sand Talk" by one of the authors of the experiment in
| question.
| 99_00 wrote:
| How did you start training your memory? Is there one helpful
| book or website? Or did you just take the basics ideas and
| start applying them and get better with real world practice?
| mrock wrote:
| I started by working through: "How to Develop a Brilliant
| Memory Week by Week: 50 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory
| Skills" by Dominic O'Brien. It's got 50 short doable
| activities. That's a great way to start. After that check out
| Lynne Kelly and Nelson Dellis
| yawn wrote:
| Do you use the same memory palace for different "groups" of
| things to remember? If so, do you ever get items confused
| because they are at the same location in the palace?
| mrock wrote:
| I've tried both approaches. Some palaces are one topic only.
| Others have been reused >5 times. With the reused palaces,
| with intention you can sequential recall just that topic.
| It's the same as having a party at your house. You don't
| confuse what happened at the party versus what happened when
| you were just cleaning your flat.
|
| With "random access" memory within a multi-use palaces, then,
| there is a little mixing. Sometimes you are thinking about a
| topic, the mind "goes" to the appropriate palace and then you
| recall maybe all the various unrelated topics, but your mind
| focuses on what matters. In the mixing, topics take a
| mythological feeling because the characters within them are
| involved in so many stories. Like fables or comic books.
|
| Augustine of Hippo (later Saint Augustine) from 354 AD:
|
| And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory,
| where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into
| it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses. ... When
| I enter there, I require what I will to be brought forth, and
| something instantly comes; others must be longer sought
| after, which are fetched, as it were, out of some inner
| receptacle; others rush out in troops, and while one thing is
| desired and required, they start forth, as who should say,
| "Is it perchance I?" These I drive away with the hand of my
| heart, from the face of my remembrance; until what I wish for
| be unveiled, and appear in sight, out of its secret place.
| Other things come up readily, in unbroken order, as they are
| called for; those in front making way for the following; and
| as they make way, they are hidden from sight, ready to come
| when I will. All which takes place when I repeat a thing by
| heart.
| ai_ia wrote:
| I was into memory training after reading "Moonwalking with
| Einstein" (Excellent book btw). But it gets a bit cumbersome at
| some point.
|
| > I used to read a book, maybe take notes and hopefully take
| some new action. Next year it's gone, maybe I recall 3 ideas.
| How could I get more out of reading? So I memorized books.
|
| I built something that exactly solves this problem:
|
| 1. You read book or watch video lectures
|
| 2. 1 year later, you remember less than 5%
|
| I propose using a conversational learning system, that forces
| learners to respond. Their responses then act as "memory
| breadcrumbs" which helps to retrace the entire context. Think
| like your own chats on Whatsapp or FB. It's not a perfect
| system, but it works.
|
| You can read my comics-based blogpost on the same:
| https://primerlabs.io/comics/memory-breadcrumbs-comics/
|
| And if you want to try out, I have released two free courses on
| Conversational Learning Platform:
|
| 1. Python
|
| 2. Fundamentals of Computing.
|
| You can try out https://primerlabs.io (No signup is required)
|
| We create self-paced courses to teach yourself computer science
| and it's an excellent way to do that, IMO.
| mrock wrote:
| Cool idea. I'd love to check it out just to see how your
| concept works.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I wonder if this has more to do with IQ than the alleged
| efficacy of memory palaces
|
| IQ vs. ability does not scale linearly, so the difference
| between 100 an 140 IQ is not 40% greater performance but maybe
| many multiples for certain tasks.
| mrock wrote:
| What is "this" that you're referring to?
| theptip wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I find this stuff quite inspiring.
|
| How much time would you say you spent on training over the
| years? (Hours/week when you were building this up, or whatever)
| mrock wrote:
| Getting started phase: was 15 min a day. Over-hyped phase:
| for some memory "projects" maybe 30 min a day. Now: I just
| use memory tricks all day long without really training.
| However every day, for the last 30 min of work I try to
| recall everything that was important that day (free recall).
| At the start of the workday I recall the top-3 things to work
| on.
| coremoff wrote:
| so many questions :)
|
| > So I memorized books. Convert a book into 100-250 bullet
| points, memorize them in a memory palace
|
| do you have one palace per book? Many bullet points per
| location? Very big memory palaces?
|
| do you memorise as you read, or do you take notes and learn
| those?
|
| any guides that you found particularly useful?
| mrock wrote:
| > do you have one palace per book?
|
| Yes. Some people chain together small locations that in
| aggregate serve as a large palace
|
| > Many bullet points per location?
|
| At first I used the "roman room method" which put 10 items
| per room. Later, I store "memories within the memories" which
| is like zooming into a single item that itself serves as a
| mini-palace. For example, maybe Mr Rogers is in a room. I can
| zoom into him and he could have something on his head, in his
| mouth, on each hand, etc and he could store an additional 10
| ideas.
|
| > Very big memory palaces?
|
| They are places I've been like houses with 5-10 rooms. I
| tried using the British Museum because it has google street
| view.
|
| The key to memory is link ideas to what you already know
| well.
|
| >do you memorise as you read, or do you take notes and learn
| those?
|
| I've tried both. If it's a "concept book" then I read it
| once, take short short notes of only 3-5 bullet points per
| chapter, then memorize those at the end.
|
| With "course/class/do-it" books where you're learning by
| doing and spending a long time with the book, I paper clip a
| folded sheet of paper in the book and do it on the fly.
|
| > any guides that you found particularly useful?
|
| I'll share some below. One point to share is that this is a
| skill (like bike riding). So studying the method (at first)
| is almost useless. Just try it, learn by doing. Answer your
| own questions by doing the experiments yourself. Start with
| memorizing something you actually care about. You will
| totally suck at first, and rapidly improve. :)
|
| Links:
|
| https://mullenmemory.com/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/punknellis14
| coremoff wrote:
| one more question, if you'll indulge me: do you keep a
| number of empty palaces ready for when you'll next need
| one, or do you create them on demand?
| mrock wrote:
| I used to try to do that. Now I keep a list of potential
| palaces and do everything just-in-time.
|
| Preparing a memory palace is just yet another skill. At
| first it seems like a big "job" to do. Later, it's like
| nothing, you float through it once, done. Especially if
| you reuse systems like Roman room because that makes a
| lot of decisions by rules.
|
| Also because you're trying to link knowledge to what you
| know well you don't need to have amazing recall of the
| place. Just a sense of a room that you know about,
| eventually will be enough. If you can recall furniture or
| whatever, then use that it will help. But if you're
| straining to recall... you might not get much additional
| benefit by trying to photographically document the space
| in your mind.
| coremoff wrote:
| thanks again.
|
| > photographically document
|
| I have aphantasia, so it's a little more abstract for me,
| but I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to
| them :)
| aix1 wrote:
| > I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to them
|
| Thanks for sharing. I'm really curious about what that
| experience is like for someone who has hard time
| visualising things.
|
| Especially: if not visually, how do you maintain that
| link between an "abstract" place and a thing that you
| "pin" to it in your mind.
| coremoff wrote:
| many thanks, that's really useful - I've been
| wanting/trying to sort out my memory for a while (I did use
| PAO for a while before it fell out of use, and I've used a
| small palace for trivial things like shopping lists), and
| this will really help, particularly:
|
| > Later, I store "memories within the memories"
|
| This is such a good idea - I had been thinking about many
| many different points in a single palace, which is a lot of
| work; this would make everything much more manageable.
|
| thanks again
| [deleted]
| adiamond4 wrote:
| I am creating a personal knowledge management platform called
| Memory Maps that enables users to build and maintain spatial
| mnemonics alongside their notes.
|
| -It is built on Google Maps and allows you to create memory
| journeys anywhere in the world where there is Google Street View
| coverage.
|
| -It will include an AI based copilot that can learn from the
| images you create, autosuggest good encoding images, and remind
| you of what you have already used.
|
| -Spaced repetition based active recall practice is built in and
| optimized for mobile.
|
| Check it out! https://www.memorymaps.io/
| mrock wrote:
| Great idea. I do this in a notebook. Left page: a list of items
| to recall, right page: a quick sketch of the palace. Rooms are
| simple squares. If I can't go back to the palace, then I paste
| in some printed photos.
| swman wrote:
| This is so cool!
|
| I do something quite similar, so I'll memorize certain references
| like where in a book/movie/source something is, and what it is.
|
| Then, sometimes years later, I might be working on a problem or
| discussing something and not only do I have the topic in mind, I
| also remember the exact place I found it.
|
| Maybe this is due to the rote memorization techniques I practice
| in my youth as a Indian kid, by age 6 I know my times tables to
| 30x12.
|
| My colleagues also think its funny that I remember IDs, because
| they'll be fishing in their history for some ticket or article,
| and I'll just recall the url or item ID.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Mildly out of context question: Has anyone tried those virtual
| memory palaces available for VR headsets?
|
| I feel like this would either hack it and make it instant and
| available for all or fail miserably without helping memory.
| iambateman wrote:
| If you liked this article, check out the book Moonwalking with
| Einstein.
|
| I doubt it will revolutionize your life but it's a fun read.
| AnEro wrote:
| Yea it really shows it's a skill not some weird hack that will
| change your life in one sitting.
| floverfelt wrote:
| Agreed! I finished it recently and it did a good job explaining
| how to make the memory palace really work instead of just
| explaining the technique.
| yuvalr1 wrote:
| I find it interesting to hear what kinds of information people
| find usable to memorize. If there are people here that utilize
| the memory palace (or any other memorizing method): what do you
| put inside the palace?
| latexr wrote:
| > If there are people here that utilize the memory palace (or
| any other memorizing method): what do you put inside the
| palace?
|
| Your memory palace won't store information indefinitely. Not
| unless you keep reviewing it, at which point it might be best
| to instead consult your notes.
|
| A simple use case is memorising a shopping list for an hour and
| letting it fade. In addition to utilitarian, it can be fun as a
| creative exercise because you invent interesting visual
| combinations.
|
| I recommend the book "Moonwalking with Einstein"[1] if you're
| interested in the subject.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein
| musingsole wrote:
| > what do you put inside the palace?
|
| That's the question. You have to want to collect something. I
| tend to collect random connections between disparate things
| (i.e. the answer to an everpresent "how does this affect the
| price of rice on Sunday?"). The other side of it that
| complicates it all is that your brain works this way normally.
| The mind palace is just a frame you can use to access a
| particular subgraph of thoughts. Once you do it long enough, it
| becomes second nature and you realize your normal,
| undisciplined thoughts are just residents of a different
| palace.
| scher wrote:
| I used to store:
|
| - Casual thoughts and ideas to review and ponder about them
| later. In case I didn't have a smartphone or notebook near me,
| I could put them into a palace, into the so-called "random
| room"(a place that you should review periodically to sort the
| remaining things out, i.e. categorize, put images into other
| places). However, it's simpler to spend time looking for a
| notebook to write the ideas down.
|
| - Phone numbers. In cases such as losing my phone, to call my
| relatives, friends.
|
| - Information about people I met. Sometimes there were a lot of
| people I met in a day/week at university. I wanted to remember
| their names, some general info. The problem with names is they
| may repeat. One may use an image of a known person with this
| name and add a few more images to describe the person better.
| E.g. a place where you've met, hair color, a hobby, other
| peculiarities.
|
| - First medical aid.
|
| - Books' summaries.
|
| Rather fun to store than useful in real-world situations:
|
| - Bus numbers and their schedule. Also, a schedule for a local
| airport and railway station. E.g. where this man with luggage
| is going to? It's winter, yet he wears a Panama hat. Let me
| check the possible routes...It was fun to guess. p.s. I didn't
| haunt people.
|
| - Birthday dates.
|
| - Other random information, e.g. historical dates.
| lawn wrote:
| You can use it to accelerate language learning. So you'll put
| in the words you want to learn (and have explanations or
| pronunciation hints attached to it) and you'll use this as a
| base for reviewing and learning words.
|
| I'm told you can reach a speed of +200 words/week with this
| approach.
| rolisz wrote:
| I use flashcards to memorize things. Sometimes I use mnemonics
| to memorize flashcards. I used memory palace once, to memorize
| something for a Romanian language exam back in highschool.
|
| Things that I memorize now: Bible verses (I've memorized all of
| Galatians and I'm working through Ephesians right now), a
| couple of important phone numbers, credit card number (I don't
| want to save the details on every website), and some
| programming concepts that I use on a roughly monthly basis -
| frequently enough to save time by memorizing, infrequently
| enough so that I can't memorize them purely by using them.
| code51 wrote:
| Isn't there a "no free lunch" about remembering as well? Yes,
| memory training is probably a good idea but how do you pick what
| to store there in the first place? Forgetting things -properly-
| is an underappreciated skill in my opinion.
| scher wrote:
| There are 2 types of information for me:
|
| - For fun. Often not relevant and not practical. It's easy to
| forget because I don't use it. Though, I may intentionally
| review the information to "beat" the forgetting curve. Thus,
| this kind of information will be stored for more time.
| Artificially forced.
|
| - For practical use. This kind of information is easier to
| retain because it's not raw: a practice will add more "missing
| dots" and solidify what's learned.
|
| A forgetting process is a good filter of what we use and what
| we don't. The retained information indicates what things one
| should keep in mind.
|
| The memory palace technique is more about forcing even
| impractical information to retain. I'd say one should define
| what kind of information should be remembered in this case.
| joverholt wrote:
| Another good resource is The Memory Book[0]. It covers a few
| different systems that cover different scenarios, such as lists,
| like in the article, names and numbers. It uses techniques like
| the article, but also expands on them in interesting ways. If you
| put the practice time in, it does work!
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-
| School/...
| dhimes wrote:
| Excellent resource, especially for numbers.
| jhgb wrote:
| > Close your eyes and visualize your way to the shop in the head
|
| So I guess people with aphantasia are out of luck?
| depaulagu wrote:
| Came here just to comment this, but yes, memory palaces don't
| really work for people with aphantasia
| mrock wrote:
| Several memory champions have aphantasia
| depaulagu wrote:
| didn't know that! do you know if they use memory palaces?
| can you share info about 'em?
| mrock wrote:
| Dr. Lynne Kelley the author of The Memory Code and Memory
| Craft has it. She uses memory palaces. With aphantasia
| you still have a hippocampus so thinking about the
| concept of space to encode info works just the same. :)
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| With aphantasia, you simply cannot "visualise" the way other
| people "visualise". But you can still "visualise". Not using
| images but using the other mechanisms you developed.
|
| Many people with aphantasia are unaware of it because they can
| function just fine and have workarounds that fills almost all
| their needs. They simply cannot add an image to it.
|
| Personally, I can make memory palace work fine. There's simply
| no image, so it rely a lot on the same "path finding" the brain
| uses to allow me to walk around town without getting lost. I
| like to joke that my GPU is broken but my CPU works fine.
|
| So, for the sake of etymology I guess it would not be visualise
| but factualize or some other word.
| rolisz wrote:
| Exactly. I can't visualize visual stuff, but for example, I
| can imagine and "see" code very well. I have a graph in my
| head of how various functions call each other or how data
| flows through the program. Sometimes the connections have
| different flavours/colours, such as build time, compile time,
| run time, frontend/backend/network call.
| JshWright wrote:
| That's still visualization though... The idea of my
| thoughts having color or taste makes no sense to me.
| mrock wrote:
| > So, for the sake of etymology I guess it would not be
| visualise but factualize or some other word.
|
| In terms of the process, it's like imagining something using
| all of your senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, balance. You
| want to make the abstract concrete so you're recalling an
| experience.
| probotect0r wrote:
| Yes, that's mentioned in the article that this method might not
| work for people who have a hard time visualizing spaces.
| ltr_ wrote:
| Been using old quake 1&3 maps that I used to play in when younger
| to form palaces, so far it's working great
| boneitis wrote:
| Genius. It never occurred to me that I have a huge pool of
| palaces available in Counter-Strike maps.
| philipswood wrote:
| I tend to eschew memory techniques. Often I find forgetting is a
| feature and not a bug - garbage collection of the memory system
| if you like: a sign that (given the current presentation) the
| data doesn't seem relevant enough to retain.
|
| But as a child I was an avid reader and I scoured the libraries
| of my youth and naturally built up spatial memory maps for them.
|
| I'm in my 40s now, but I still have a sense of where and in which
| library certain books and certain topics go.
| scher wrote:
| Learning something is different than using a memorizing
| technique. The former is for understanding and the latter is
| for putting impractical information. However, we may utilize
| the techniques to speed up or enhance the learning process.
| mrock wrote:
| >the latter is for putting impractical information
|
| You can also input practical information ;)
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I could never get memory palaces to work for me, but found that
| with enough practice, Mnemonic Pegs is like a superpower.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Interesting, I found this link that looks like a promising
| starting point: https://artofmemory.com/wiki/Mnemonic_Peg_Syste
| m/#:~:text=A%....
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I found the best ones turned numbers into phonetics, which
| created words, which you then linked to what you wanted to
| remember.
|
| Have a look at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system it's not
| the system I used, but the DOS program I learned from isn't
| online anymore.
| dhimes wrote:
| This is the number system explained in The Memory Book
| linked by joverholt above.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28642747
| philipswood wrote:
| This works really well.
|
| I remember winning a bet about who could retain a 30 (or 20
| ?) digit number the longest - I won.
|
| I also used this in primary school to memorize schoolwork
| for exams, etc.
|
| Despite not using it actively for years I can remember the
| phonetic alphabet and can still "transcode" numbers to
| words to images and back well enough. I suspect I might be
| using a snatch of it here and there for a bit of a memory
| boost once every few months or so.
|
| I'm the end I abandoned the technique, because it felt like
| I was "polluting" my memory with extraneous and distracting
| information.
|
| Reading about memory palaces now make me think of trying
| them out again, it sounds like they bypass the
| noisy/distracting aspects of transcoding the information to
| nonsense associations to make them stand out.
|
| I've taught the loci system to my son in the original Greek
| context to memorize speeches and they work well.
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