Not sure if this is the right board for this sort of thing, and unfortunately there isn’t really an /edu/ board to post to. But recently I read ‘Moonwalking with Einstein’ and it’s really fascinating stuff.
What’s IQfy opinion of this and actually implementing it when studying? Has it worked well for you?
I've always thought it was garbage. It has never worked for me, and if your intention is memorizing shit for the sake of repeating it, you might as well take notes, look it up in a book or the internet. The whole idea of learning is not to fill your memory with garbage, which you will end up forgetting when not used, it's to make reasoning and link one concept with the other, having present some parts of it to make a bigger idea that is easier to remember, generalize and extrapolate when needed. This is why when teaching math schools require that people learn to prove instead of memorizing shit.
Yet focusing on proving shit is not the right approach to teaching either. Not everyone will use the proving skills, but when someone needs to analize a unique problem they would benefit more from having a notion of how the concept was discovered, elaborated, or can be derived from other more accessible knowledge.
On the other hand, even though I am a doctor, I can't remember shit about treatments. Whenever someone comes in I know how to diagnose because I systematically think about whatever is malfunctioning, then I look up the treatment. Doctors are pretty much indexes.
yes
If you read moonwalking with Einstein should remember that the author concluded that it was a parlour trick for remembering decks of cards and whatnot but not actually useful for everyday life.
The real takeaaay from the book is that you can train (improve) your memory. I have a very good memory, the kind where I don’t take any notes but ace exams sort, and people have looked at me like it’s a superpower. Well, no, but it’s something you work on. I remember well BECAUSE I don’t take notes. Remember what Socrates said: the invention writing enfeebled the intellect . So just compare writing notes to constructing a memory palace and you see what territory we are venturing into.
Like said, you could train your memory, but I don't know at what extent and which types of memory.
You can train operational memory, which helps to do mental arithmetics.
However, OP. I think it's a lot more valuable that you try to remember your own life in regular periods. If you do not reminisce, you will forget most of what you have lives. We end up grieving for our loved ones because we end up forgetting the life we had with them. Personally, I couldn't give a single frick about all the medicine knowledge of the world, all the history of the world, random languages etc. All of that is documented, your life is not, and neither is your legacy. Remember what is important to you, you could even do it in birthdays.
Let go of the ego, do not hold on to yourself. No good comes of it
>care to take a waltz through my memory palace, m'lady
I can't imagine anything more nerdy. If you're studying it helps to connect a new piece of information to something you already know, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a mind palace. More important is repetition at various intervals, study it again every day for the next week, once a week for the next month and so on. There is no trick or hack, your dumb monkey brain needs time.
Exactly this. The key to memory is repetition and nothing else. Read a book on a subject, you’ll remember some of it; read another book on the same subject; then another; then another. Now your brain is packed with information you will never forget, it’s self-sorting you don’t need to intentionally visualize, frankly if you aren’t a zombie this is happening automatically
>here is a far less efficient method which takes more time.
thank you
Did you read the book?
No. I just know all the IAM champions use Ioci method.
The point is that that is *all* they can do. It’s a technique that you learn to win a specific kind of competition. It does not serve a purpose in any other arena. It’s a trick to remember a limited and consistent data set (playing cards). Ask Rhodes scholars or jeopardy champions how they remember stuff: they aren’t walking around in a memory palace.
I don't think that's true.
You already admitted to haven’t read the book. Why would I waste my time arguing further?
All the world champions of mnemetics use it so yes.
Unless you live in a classical Indo-European society where people believe that rhetorical ability comes from the Gods and their agents giving you words on the fly or are a secular academic in Medieval Europe and need to memorize huge passages from Aristotle there are precisely zero situations where anyone who matters would prevent you from just writing something down. There are niche uses, such as if you do in person discussions with randoms people on the street or via streaming or something, but otherwise you can just write something down. The Romans perfected the Memory Palace because it was bad form to have written notes in a courtroom, today there is not a single country on Earth where a lawyer wouldn't be expected to have written notes that he reads from.
Having said that, knowledge is power, and you need to know how your own mind works. Additionally, it's REALLY helpful in those niche uses where it's useful, like tests in academia. So, know how to do it so that if you do ever need it then you can come up with it.
>a classical Indo-European society where people believe that rhetorical ability comes from the Gods and their agents giving you words on the fly
That's definitely not the case in roman or greek society. Which one worked like that?
That is exactly how the concept of genius worked in those cultures
I feel like gooning too much destroys ability to comprehend/memorize, that or general apathy for intellect