An ultimate guide to memory palaces • Hacker News Board

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#41

Post by mrock » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

adiamond4 wrote: post #38

I am creating a personal knowledge management platform called Memory Maps that enables users to build and maintain spatial mnemonics alongside their notes. -It is built on Google Maps and allows you to create memory journeys anywhere in the world where there is Google Street View coverage. -It will include an AI based copilot that can learn from the images you create, autosuggest good encoding images, and remind you…

Great idea. I do this in a notebook. Left page: a list of items to recall, right page: a quick sketch of the palace. Rooms are simple squares. If I can't go back to the palace, then I paste in some printed photos.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#42

Post by ltr_ » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

Been using old quake 1&3 maps that I used to play in when younger to form palaces, so far it's working great

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#43

Post by JshWright » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

rolisz wrote: post #40

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With aphantasia, you simply cannot "visualise" the way other people "visualise". But you can still "visualise". Not using images but using the other mechanisms you developed. Many people with aphantasia are unaware of it because they can function just fine and have workarounds that fills almost all their needs. They simply cannot add an image to it. Personally, I can make memory palace work fine. There's simply no im…

Exactly. I can't visualize visual stuff, but for example, I can imagine and "see" code very well. I have a graph in my head of how various functions call each other or how data flows through the program. Sometimes the connections have different flavours/colours, such as build time, compile time, run time, frontend/backend/network call.

That's still visualization though... The idea of my thoughts having color or taste makes no sense to me.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#44

Post by boneitis » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

ltr_ wrote: post #42

Been using old quake 1&3 maps that I used to play in when younger to form palaces, so far it's working great

Genius. It never occurred to me that I have a huge pool of palaces available in Counter-Strike maps.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#45

Post by 99_00 » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

mrock wrote: post #10

I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does your experience of the world change when every place you find yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories? I also wanted to get more out of reading. I…

How did you start training your memory? Is there one helpful book or website? Or did you just take the basics ideas and start applying them and get better with real world practice?

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#46

Post by dhimes » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

joverholt wrote: post #27

Another good resource is The Memory Book[0]. It covers a few different systems that cover different scenarios, such as lists, like in the article, names and numbers. It uses techniques like the article, but also expands on them in interesting ways. If you put the practice time in, it does work! [0] https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/...

Excellent resource, especially for numbers.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#47

Post by dhimes » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #26

andy_ppp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I found this link that looks like a promising starting point: https://artofmemory.com/wiki/Mnemonic_Peg_System/#:~:text=A%... .

I found the best ones turned numbers into phonetics, which created words, which you then linked to what you wanted to remember. Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system it's not the system I used, but the DOS program I learned from isn't online anymore.

This is the number system explained in The Memory Book linked by joverholt above.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28642747

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#48

Post by ai_ia » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

mrock wrote: post #10

I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does your experience of the world change when every place you find yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories? I also wanted to get more out of reading. I…

I was into memory training after reading "Moonwalking with Einstein" (Excellent book btw). But it gets a bit cumbersome at some point.

> I used to read a book, maybe take notes and hopefully take some new action. Next year it's gone, maybe I recall 3 ideas. How could I get more out of reading? So I memorized books.

I built something that exactly solves this problem:

1. You read book or watch video lectures

2. 1 year later, you remember less than 5%

I propose using a conversational learning system, that forces learners to respond. Their responses then act as "memory breadcrumbs" which helps to retrace the entire context. Think like your own chats on Whatsapp or FB. It's not a perfect system, but it works.

You can read my comics-based blogpost on the same: https://primerlabs.io/comics/memory-breadcrumbs-comics/

And if you want to try out, I have released two free courses on Conversational Learning Platform:

1. Python

2. Fundamentals of Computing.

You can try out https://primerlabs.io (No signup is required)

We create self-paced courses to teach yourself computer science and it's an excellent way to do that, IMO.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#49

Post by swman » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

This is so cool!

I do something quite similar, so I'll memorize certain references like where in a book/movie/source something is, and what it is.

Then, sometimes years later, I might be working on a problem or discussing something and not only do I have the topic in mind, I also remember the exact place I found it.

Maybe this is due to the rote memorization techniques I practice in my youth as a Indian kid, by age 6 I know my times tables to 30x12.

My colleagues also think its funny that I remember IDs, because they'll be fishing in their history for some ticket or article, and I'll just recall the url or item ID.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#50

Post by paulpauper » Fri, Sep 24, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

mrock wrote: post #10

I've trained my memory over the last ~5 years. I became fascinated with oral cultures. How could they transmit enough knowledge to survive and basically confer PhD level knowledge of survival without books? How could they remember it all? How does your experience of the world change when every place you find yourself is (mentally) chock full of (your most prized) memories? I also wanted to get more out of reading. I…

I wonder if this has more to do with IQ than the alleged efficacy of memory palaces

IQ vs. ability does not scale linearly, so the difference between 100 an 140 IQ is not 40% greater performance but maybe many multiples for certain tasks.