41–50 of 62 posts
The article says the forgetting point is different for everyone, and is different for different sorts of info. Does the software somehow find the right point? Or is the variance not enough to worry about?
Wozniak is an interesting and respectable guy; I have the feeling that he tries to remember everything, or something close to it. This strategy works well for declarative memories, but does not generalize with the same efficiency for other memories. SuperMemo is an ingenious program with a rotten UI. I have been looking for better ways to do this and would be interested in speaking with anybody else with similar inte…
Maybe this technique could apply to other kinds of memories when combined with lifelogging. I could video tape all the time and then choose certain portions of video to retain in memory by review.
However, a video taped portion of your life contains memories encoded in many different modalities (as opposed to, say, information on flashcards, which is, for the most part, factual). This mixture of memories makes an algorithm specifically designed for a certain type of memory a suboptimal one. That's not to say it's not useful, but there is a lot of improvement to make in this area (and I would very much like to be a part of it! :-) )
fascinating article. wonder if it also applies to correcting wrong memorization -- ie to break a mental habit, space it out according to this formula.
Reinforcing the right one can be spaced, but breaking the habit is harder. One study involving OCD patients achieved this via a staged process. I forgot the details, but essentially, you train yourself to use your bad habit as a cue for another behavior, which diverts yourself from the result of your bad habit. Something like, if I wanted to stop washing my hands obsessively, I would put a message on the faucet that said "take a walk!" Then, every time I get the urge, I would take a walk, etc. It's obviously not this simple, but that should illustrate how reshaping old behavior is different from creating new ones.
Those 7 pages cannot be necessary. Could someone sum it up in a paragraph with wikipedia references?
Those 7 pages cannot be necessary. Could someone sum it up in a paragraph with wikipedia references?
I agree. Those 800 pages of Anna Karenina couldn't have been necessary either. Fortunately, I was able to aquire the Cliffs Notes.
Those 7 pages cannot be necessary. Could someone sum it up in a paragraph with wikipedia references?
Isn't this really good for route learning? Which outside of a limited few situations (vocab, exams) is the most useless type of learning there is?
For example, learning a new programming language (once you know how to program in general) is at least 50% vocabulary. It's learning the keywords and syntax, library functions, etc. Likewise for most kinds of skills. Sailing is largely knowing the names, the knots, and the laws (plus practice). Driving is laws, and a few basic automotive concepts. Law is lots and lots of cases. Medicine is lots and lots of anatomy. All of these things are memorization, and that memorization is a barrier to expertise.
Memorization is clearly not the most useless type of learning. It's core to almost every skill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solve this problem automatically, and you have a viable startup!
While we're waiting, zapreader ( http://zapreader.com ) solves half the problem.