TLDR I know how to use latex and took calc 2, I want to look smart on the internet.
Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
11–20 of 173 posts
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#12there are only a limited amount of things you can memorize because your lifetime is also limited.
Piotr Wozniak the creator of supermemo, the first spaced repetition program, talks about it on his site:
https://supermemo.guru/wiki/How_much_knowledge_can_human_bra...
this guy is a genius in my opinion.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I don't use spaced repetition. The danger of becoming a black hole is just too high. Forgetting things is well known to be highly evolutionary advantageous, because all the critters that remember everything and turned into black holes stopped reproducing. Very dangerous stuff to play with.
Ha! Certainly none of us will get anywhere close to this bound, no matter how much time we log in Anki. But the OP asked "Would an infinitely-long-lived, but forgetful person be able to recall an infinite number of facts using this method?", and the answer is a surprising "no, you turn into a black hole".
Sometimes even just one piece of knowledge can turn you into a black hole. It’s why nobody remembers every digit of Graham’s (phone) number.
;)
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I don't use spaced repetition. The danger of becoming a black hole is just too high. Forgetting things is well known to be highly evolutionary advantageous, because all the critters that remember everything and turned into black holes stopped reproducing. Very dangerous stuff to play with.
Ha! Certainly none of us will get anywhere close to this bound, no matter how much time we log in Anki. But the OP asked "Would an infinitely-long-lived, but forgetful person be able to recall an infinite number of facts using this method?", and the answer is a surprising "no, you turn into a black hole".
I know we're all playing around here, but surely the answer must be that there's a limit rooted in the specific biological/chemical implementation of memory in the brain that our hypothetical "infinitely-long-lived, but forgetful person" would hit before the Bekenstein bound (probably long before) and therefore it's impossible to turn a brain into a black hole via that mechanism.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#15This is false if memory's are stored physically in the brain. Unless there is an increase in brain volume, this process will eventually hit the Bekenstein bound. I don't care if the upper bound is "effectively infinite," that's not what the proof claimed.
> "effectively infinite,"
This is what I have been thinking. If whatever you can remember is bigger than all experiences and lessons you could remember, then your memory is effectively infinite. I don't know if having a continuous effectively infinite memory is good or bad. As someone who play the classical guitar, having a better memory would do wonders for me.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#16This is false if memory's are stored physically in the brain. Unless there is an increase in brain volume, this process will eventually hit the Bekenstein bound. I don't care if the upper bound is "effectively infinite," that's not what the proof claimed.
> I don't care if the upper bound is "effectively infinite," that's not what the proof claimed.
Very interesting. Do you typically process all claims as literally as you just did for this one, notably when you're interacting with people outside of the Internet? In which case, do most people react positively to your behaviour, or do they get annoyed because "you know what I meant"?
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#17I was anti-memorization until I went back to graduate school for mathematics. I had forgotten (or never learned) a lot of things needed to pass qualifying exams. At some point I ran across the spaced repetition idea (maybe from the Wired SuperMemo article [0]) and I gave it a try. I ended up using it to memorize large portions of baby Rudin and Munkres' Topology, as well as some algebra and a bunch of qualifying exam questions.
The qualifying exams were difficult until I reached some "critical mass" of knowledge. Then I could regurgitate proofs and even attack novel problems easily.
There's an analogy here somewhere to the "leetcode" style of software engineer interview. On one hand qualifying exams and leetcode questions are a stupid gatekeeping mechanism, but on the other hand the best researchers/engineers I know have a huge number of facts and examples memorized and ready at their fingertips. I didn't think I needed to do so, but perhaps there is something to suffering through the rote memorization phase to make what comes next that much easier.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#18It kind of reminds me of what I used to say about 9-ball pool: You can play with an infinite number of players but not everyone will get a turn.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#19I was anti-memorization until I went back to graduate school for mathematics. I had forgotten (or never learned) a lot of things needed to pass qualifying exams. At some point I ran across the spaced repetition idea (maybe from the Wired SuperMemo article [0]) and I gave it a try. I ended up using it to memorize large portions of baby Rudin and Munkres' Topology, as well as some algebra and a bunch of qualifying exam…
Memorization is powerful only if you memorize the right stuff like Machiavelli's Prince instead of a phone book.
Incremental reading (supermemo 18) to dissect books is even better I think.
Re: Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall
#20This is false if memory's are stored physically in the brain. Unless there is an increase in brain volume, this process will eventually hit the Bekenstein bound. I don't care if the upper bound is "effectively infinite," that's not what the proof claimed.
Proofs rely on assumptions. In this case, they state outright:
> We first posit that the number of days T that a fact can be retained before it needs to be reviewed grows as a power-law in s, the number of times it’s been reviewed so far, ...
Obviously this assumption will be false in our physical universe, but that doesn't make the proof itself invalid (edited).