To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget • Hacker News Board

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#101

Post by kuwze » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

That is an exact description of "Soy Sauce" from the "John Dies at the End" series.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#102

Post by jlebrech » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

I'd like to take a pill that helps you forget movies so I can rewatch them.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#103

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

jlebrech wrote: post #102

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

I'd like to take a pill that helps you forget movies so I can rewatch them.

But then you also wouldn't know which ones to not bother rewatching...

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#104

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

jeffwass wrote: post #15

Relevant convo between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (My choice of Italics highlights). Below excerpt from A Study in Scarlet , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887. —— My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled…

The flaw in the attitude of Sherlock Holmes is that he does not consider the, for the lack of a better term, "compressibility" of knowledge. Then again, Shannon wouldn't do his thing for another half century, so it would not be fair towards Sir Doyle to expect him to have taken this into consideration.

The brain actually does a lot of lossy compression tricks to remember things together, plus I doubt that knowledge about the Solar system takes up any significant amount of space in the brain, since physics works with models. Very "compressible" information, really. But if we look at how much lore people remember about modern pop-culture trivia, like comics or TV series or games, it's a different story. The amount of mental effort and "mind space" that fans dedicate to remembering, say, World of Warcraft lore is mindblowing to me at times.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#105

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #63

Minor and probably not that interesting anecdote: I always struggled to remember sequences of numbers. Even if I had looked at the number just a fraction of a moment ago, they were gone. I would have to do things like repeat them over and over or remember two numbers at a time. I was always buzzing in my head anout remembering the numbers and that produced a noise that I think made me forget. Then I started cleaning…

A similar thing: for the longest time I could remember my Dutch phone number only if I was "thinking" in Dutch. So if I was having a conversation in English when someone needed it, I basically had to mentally "switch" languages. Which proved so hard that the only way to do so was to say my number out loud in Dutch, listen to myself and write down the numbers, then read the numbers again in English.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#106

Post by thx11389793 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

jlebrech wrote: post #102

adriand wrote: post #17

I remember sitting at a bar in a distant city in some other country one night, and the person next to me, who I had just met that day, suggested that we do a shot together. Now these shots were big, and it had already been quite the night, and I remember thinking, "If I do this shot, it's probably the last thing I'll remember tonight." It was, but that's not the point of this anecdote. This experience gave me the ide…

I'd like to take a pill that helps you forget movies so I can rewatch them.

commonly accomplished by smoking a largish joint beforehand.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#107

Post by golergka » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

jeffwass wrote: post #15

Relevant convo between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (My choice of Italics highlights). Below excerpt from A Study in Scarlet , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887. —— My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled…

It reminds me of a story about Seymour Cray (founder or Cray super computer company). I've read it multiple times from different sources, copying it from first search result now.

He also invented the now-famous algorithm for buying cars: you go to the dealer closest to your house, point to the car closest to the door, and say: "I'll take that one."

The algorithm wastes the least time on unimportant things (like buying cars) to leave you the maximum time for doing important things (like designing supercomputers).

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#108

Post by ehnto » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #82

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried remembering the number as a picture rather than a list of digits? Works for me.

I'm not the grandparent, but after doing "Learning How To Learn" course on coursera[1] (very good), I finally realised I suffer from Aphantasia, where I don't see images in my imagination. Even though I'd tried loads of memory techniques over the years as I have a very poor memory, I'd never really understood people actually see images. I thought they meant that they were, like me, simply listing the properties the i…

I worked with a graphic designer with aphantasia! If you will excuse the wordplay, I could never imagine what it was like inside her head, as her process would surely be very different to mine. But she was very skilled and had been doing it for years. She also didn't realise until she was in her 30s that it was something she had.

She was capable of fluently talking about changes and the effects they would have on the design and so the fact that this could all happen without ever picturing the changes was super interesting.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#109

Post by foxyv » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #104

jeffwass wrote: post #15

Relevant convo between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (My choice of Italics highlights). Below excerpt from A Study in Scarlet , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887. —— My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled…

The flaw in the attitude of Sherlock Holmes is that he does not consider the, for the lack of a better term, "compressibility" of knowledge. Then again, Shannon wouldn't do his thing for another half century, so it would not be fair towards Sir Doyle to expect him to have taken this into consideration. The brain actually does a lot of lossy compression tricks to remember things together, plus I doubt that knowledge a…

I think a significant portion of my brain (Similar in size to the knowledge from my Bachelor's degree) was dedicated to remembering every quest and map up to WotLK. It's surprising how much I still remember from 7 years ago.

Re: To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget

#110

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

foxyv wrote: post #109

vanderZwan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw in the attitude of Sherlock Holmes is that he does not consider the, for the lack of a better term, "compressibility" of knowledge. Then again, Shannon wouldn't do his thing for another half century, so it would not be fair towards Sir Doyle to expect him to have taken this into consideration. The brain actually does a lot of lossy compression tricks to remember things together, plus I doubt that knowledge a…

I think a significant portion of my brain (Similar in size to the knowledge from my Bachelor's degree) was dedicated to remembering every quest and map up to WotLK. It's surprising how much I still remember from 7 years ago.

Funny enough, that might also reveal something about how human brains store information: locations on a map sounds suspiciously compatible with the method of loci (aka "memory palace", thanks to a more recent incarnation of Sherlock Holmes)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci