Learning Is Remembering

> There is simply just too much information we're expected to know nowadays. You could argue that the amount of information we have to cram into our brains in such a short amount of time makes it very difficult to build good long term memories.

I would also argue that the time we spend memorizing "facts", of questionable utility, takes away from the time that could be spent on learning better methodologies for thinking.

This is definitely true. The snowball effect and the networking of information helps a lot.

I'm trying to look at the problem with a wider lens, however. For example, if learning that language is actually something we want to do in opposition to all the things you could be doing. In the context of public education, since this is the theme the author focuses on, we don't just study certain topics, we study a certain spin on some topics that is determined by a range of government officials.

In other words, you have to deal with severely limited energy and interest compared to all that is available in life so cutting chaff is probably even more important than boosting your ability to remember. In fact, selecting what to learn is life, just like a sculptor removes the parts of the marble that aren't in the end result.

I would point you to two different motivating examples:

* Childhood development. A child who has had early childhood adverse experiences mind is effected. A fMRI or chemical detection can see physical differences in the brain. But the brain is plastic (it can change) over time. Works on this subject have been published by Dr. Dan Siegel https://drdansiegel.com/books among others. The key insight here is that academic learning is not significantly different at a core aspect then behavioral learning.

* Physical sports/martial arts depend on a reaction time much smaller then what is afforded by going through the full frontal cortex. "muscle-memory" isn't real (it isn't "memory" as you think of it). What you have in these cases are "short-circuits" (this implies structural changes) that are able to act before you are consciously aware of what is going on. The same applies to math facts and other fundamentals, you move things away from memory that needs to be retrieved and into reaction. Reading C-syntax for programmers or signing your name is something that has been turned into structure that doesn't need "memory".

I think your initial premise is correct. We have limited memory. How do we overcome that? We write. Writing is important because with it we can overcome our natural memory limitations. You cannot think about complexities (well or clearly) if you cannot write.

The danger of writing is that you can produce something that is both irrational and nearly impenetrable to the casual reader. For example:

> Foucault's use of the concept is descriptive, that is, analytical and explanatory, and at the same time normative and critical: he describes the grip biopolitics have on individuals through technologies of power in a way that makes manifest the repression at work in these biopolitical processes.

The above, taken directly from an "academic" published journal, could be said to have meaning. Unfortunately, each one of these words has an alternate meaning that is not normative to English, making the entire (actual) meaning opaque. "contecpt" "analytical", "explanatory", "normative", "critical", "biopolitics", "individuals", "technologies", "power", "manifest", "repression", "processes" are all defined differently then a standard English dictionary. So even if you can get past the convoluted sentence structure, the intended meaning will still elude you.

But the answer to memory limitations is clear writing using common definitions of words. I bring this up because as you extend your memory beyond what it innately has, the more likely you are to fool yourself (and others) with sophistry.

This is the worst possible example.

Learning basic QM is 90% complex differential equations and 10% physical intuition.

There is a reason why you generally don't get to introductory quantum mechanics until second year after (or while) you're doing calculus, differential equations and linear algebra.

To quote a lecture I once saw: the deepest point of any state is a mine shaft somewhere. You don't find that shaft by gradient descent.

As someone who has been using Anki for the past 4 years to learn Japanese and now Chinese, I've recently found that the initial "learning" step is not that hard. (i.e., given 辞書, I remember "dictionary") What is hard is keeping the content I've learned, _learned_, for more than a day.

So now I'm wondering, is my initial "learning" process wrong? Since definitions are fairly simple and I find them easy to remember at first but hard to hold onto. And my process in Anki for New cards is to rep them like reviewed cards until I pass the card; so really, I'm just staring at the kanji + definition until I remember it.

This brings me to my question: is there more Anki can do when it comes to learning new cards? Is there something we can do when learning new information that will help make it "sticky"? Especially in regards to "simple" facts, like basic kanji -> definition mappings, where there are no mechanics to understand, just simple mappings.

Edit (an addition):

Also, I love SRS, but I don't understand how it can be advertised as completely different than rote memorization. When you learn a new physical flashcard, you're learning it the same way as you would be when learning a new Anki card. The only difference is that Anki will show it to you again at a more efficient time in the future, rather than at some regular interval.