Memory techniques for the faux superhuman!

[Keya]

I was never taught in school HOW to remember things. In retrospect this seems like quite a big oversight in my education?!?
We were simply taught to learn by repetition ... do something enough, over and over again, and you eventually remember it even though it's become so mindnumbingly boring. As we all know this is slow and not very efficient!

Another thing ... the worlds best "memory athletes"??? ... it turns out they're just NORMAL people with NORMAL brains! They're not all savants or people who had a seizure and woke up with photographic memory, they're simply normal people who use TECHNIQUES/SYSTEMS.

I thought wow... then even I can do this. So i've spent the past few days watching lots of youtube videos and reading various tutorials and articles... there's some really interesting stuff out there! And most of the systems are actually quite easy to use - some you can pick up pretty much straight away, and some just need a wee bit of work at the start but its well worth it.

Systems of particular interest include Method of Loci (locations), aka The Journey Method, aka Memory Palace .... PAO system (Person-Action-Object) ... linked method (like doubly-linked lists in comp. sci.)

One thing they all seem to share in common is they encourage you to SET YOUR MIND FREE, LET IT RUN WILD ... the more vivid and weird and the more senses we use the more neural connections the brain makes. The world of memory systems is a world where Albert Einstein spinkicks Chuck Norris. 8x world memory champion Dominic O'Brien refers to the recipe as: location, association, imagination.

Does anyone here use any memory techniques, or is everyone still a simpleton like moi? (im working on it!)

To get your taste here is a 20 minute TED talk "Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do" where he explains one of the main systems used called Memory Palace ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0OmIO18-8

There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it, including him.

I plan to become comfortable enough with the systems to amaze my family at Christmas time with my newfound seemingly-superhuman memory heehee

[tj1010]

If there was a more time-conservative way to learn things than forced-repetition I think school systems and government would be rushing to it to save money and have more productive citizens..

Also.. There are people out there who learn in three years what most people take a decade to learn. People are different in a lot of ways including their genetically coded ability to retain information at a certain speed..

Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman is a great example of how genetics dictate abilities..

Another example: I've been reverse engineering with SoftIce, IDA Pro, and OllyDbg since the 90s. I know 24 year olds now who I can't compete with and who learned in a fifth of the time..

EDIT: Forget all of that. If it was a mere case of time and will/ambition there would be no poverty and fast-changing hierarchy.. On top of social factors like looks and communications the ability to retain information and build strategy dictates the most. Charles Darwin and John Von Neumann actually developed some science that I think is way more important than all that universe and practical physics garbage.. How are we going to use black holes when we can't even master economics and psychology?

[Keya]

tj1010, yes but these are things that anyone can do, even dumbies like me (dumbies? dummies? see?). And it's not a $$$product$$$ btw just to be clear - you can do all this for $0 as i am as all the information is readily available. Three days in and i can comfortably recall 30 numbers backwards and forwards and starting at any position, not very fast yet but that will come with practice heehee i will also expand 30 to 50 soon, its just a simple matter of adding more visual locations to my personal Memory Palace that i walk through when recalling. Very easy, it almost feels like cheating my brain, like as if i'm smuggling long-term items into my memory bank by disguising them as images
and of course it's certainly not a replacement for schoolwork, it's a complementary tool.

ps. as the nearest black hole to Earth is at the center of the Milky Way i dont think we'll be finding a use for it anytime soon that's within reach

[tj1010]

I'm a autodidact who hasn't had decent capital most of his life, so I know the hassle of learning first hand and did most of it the hard way through libraries and the internet and practice.

Good luck using loci with something like abstract algebra or nuclear chemistry.. It's proven to be genetic programming that dictates the rate we build long-term memory.. This stuff probably worked when if you could do basic geometry you were an architect or calculus II level stuff an engineer..

[Keya]

Good luck using loci with something like abstract algebra or nuclear chemistry.

You're right, i'll need to use more than just loci to help remember aspects of nuclear chemistry. Gee i better give it up then!

[tj1010]

Good luck using loci with something like abstract algebra or nuclear chemistry.

You're right, i'll need to use more than just loci to help remember aspects of nuclear chemistry. Gee i better give it up then!

No just be realistic. I got up to college level pure-chemistry once just using a $20.00 used text book that supposedly was one of the best ever published; and cheap chem kits.. I did it by beating each chapter in to my long term memory for 1.9 years..

Doing stuff like that I actually like, but I can't really allocate the time for it anymore.. I was going to try and reach college writing curriculum recently but still haven't been able to focus on it because I have to go make things to generate revenue to sustain a life..

Painting&Art&Graffiti skills are probably the hardest. They were the first I ever tried to retain and spent seven years trying..

[Keya]

but again, memory techniques are COMPLEMENTARY tools, not a replacement.
i find it strange how you're so adamantly opposed to it, like you have a chip on your shoulder about it or something, simply because it's not how you taught yourself.

[Demivec]

@Keya: There are also methods of converting more abstract things like numbers into objects that can perhaps be easier to remember than the digits of a number. The method I am familiar with uses sounds (such as consonants) that correspond with a respective digit. Once you have an arrangement of sounds, words can be composed. Once words are composed then you can remember what the word represents.

You do the reverse process to transform and object to a word then to sounds that correspond to digits (in sequence).

For instance 3.14159265358 = m t r t l p n (soft ch) l m l k = motor tail punch lime lick = (create your own imagery here).

You just do the reverse and you've memorized the first + 11 digits of pie.


It definitely requires a little practice.

Here's the breakdown of sounds (only consonants) I used for each digit:

• 0 - z/s
  1 - t/d
  2 - n
  3 - m
  4 - r
  5 - l
  6 - sh/soft ch/j/soft g
  7 - f/v/ph (pronouced as f)
  8 - k/hard ch/hard g
  9 - p/b

Vowels are added as needed for word formation and don't correspond to any digit.

[tj1010]

The "chip on your shoulder" is because I see the memorization and intelligence markets being where the fitness markets were before 2010.. The net and media are full of people wanting to sale you a product that is going to make you a genius.. None of it really passes the burden of proof and is like selling color TV to starving people..

When the guy who works at Burger Kind realizes after four years of using services and techniques that linear-algebra is still confusing he's probably not going to be very happy and be out hundreds of dollars.. He'll be even more depressed and go out and get a gun and or knife and be another bad person who is just anti-social..

[Keya]

tj1010,
i'm not sure which parts of "$0" and "COMPLEMENTARY" you're struggling with
Again, all this information is available for FREE, and system ideas are shared, discussed, improved, and shared again. I've spent $0.00 and that's enough for me.
I don't buy any late-night-commercial voodoo either!
I don't even intend to buy any books about this, there's more than enough publicly available for free plus i've already got enough Linux + Mac books to read lol

Demivec,
ahhh yes the MAJOR SYSTEM!!! It took me about 20 minutes repetition but eventually it all made sense, it was just a matter of finding the associations... ie. "n has 2 downstrokes, m has 3 downstrikes... p is like 9 upside down" (etc -- you know exactly what i mean lol - and yes i use the exact same encoding as you). And then when it clicks... ahh
Im still slow as im so new but it's easy for me now to see how it becomes automatic for people after they've practiced for a while
Ive also been looking into the Dominic System but i think i prefer Major

Im still trying to find my feet with all this to find out which system is best suited for me (its great how its all so personalizable!). I'm wondering perhaps Person-Action-Object PAO system combined with Link System combined with Memory Palace

[tj1010]

tj1010, i'm not sure which parts of "$0" and "COMPLEMENTARY" you're struggling with
Again, all this information is available for FREE, and system ideas are shared, discussed, improved, and shared again. I've spent $0.00 and that's enough for me.
I don't buy any late-night-commercial voodoo either!
I don't even intend to buy any books about this, there's more than enough publicly available for free plus i've already got enough Linux + Mac books to read lol

Demivec, ahhh yes the MAJOR SYSTEM!!! It took me about 20 minutes repetition but eventually it all made sense, it was just a matter of finding the associations... ie. "n has 2 downstrokes, m has 3 downstrikes... p is like 9 upside down" (etc -- you know exactly what i mean lol - and yes i use the exact same encoding as you). And then when it clicks... ahh
It's easy for me now to see how it becomes automatic for people after they've practiced for a while
Ive also been looking into the Dominic System but i think i prefer Major

Time is free? I didn't see that inspirational video. It must of came on in the same time slot as the immortality..

You'll have to excuse me I'm one of those idiots who thinks most people only get around 70 years to try things..

[Keya]

oh gosh
I have no idea how you learned programming in no time...
Anyway try the other side of the bed tomorrow

[tj1010]

You have to realize when people find out they can't reduce the time it takes to build long-term memory they are going to start buying products that promise to with money they don't actually have..

You might as well be here talking about turning muscle to fat with pills..

Go on insulting me because I actually know the facts behind the science driving your eureka moment that is going to change the world with 1,500 year old information that was even wrong then...

[Keya]

far out you keep going back to "buying products". Ive mentioned exactly zero products, and yet again which part of $0 don't you understand???
Brick walls.

Go on insulting me because I actually know the facts

...

[tj1010]

far out you keep going back to "buying products". Again which part of $0 don't you understand!?!?
Brick walls.

You made a thread promoting techniques that claim to improve something that strongly dictates social assimilation.. Again,,, diet pills

In philosophy there is something called "the burden of proof" too..