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An ultimate guide to memory palaces

metacognitive.me

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Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#51

Post by mrock »

99_00 wrote: post #45
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?

I started by working through: "How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 50 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills" by Dominic O'Brien. It's got 50 short doable activities. That's a great way to start. After that check out Lynne Kelly and Nelson Dellis

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#52

Post by mrock »

paulpauper wrote: post #50
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.

What is "this" that you're referring to?

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#54

Post by mrock »

ai_ia wrote: post #48
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…

Cool idea. I'd love to check it out just to see how your concept works.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#55

Post by aix1 »

coremoff wrote: post #39
mrock wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to try to do that. Now I keep a list of potential palaces and do everything just-in-time. Preparing a memory palace is just yet another skill. At first it seems like a big "job" to do. Later, it's like nothing, you float through it once, done. Especially if you reuse systems like Roman room because that makes a lot of decisions by rules. Also because you're trying to link knowledge to what you know well you do…

thanks again. > photographically document I have aphantasia, so it's a little more abstract for me, but I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to them :)

> I can still walk around spaces and pin concepts to them

Thanks for sharing. I'm really curious about what that experience is like for someone who has hard time visualising things.

Especially: if not visually, how do you maintain that link between an "abstract" place and a thing that you "pin" to it in your mind.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#56

Post by philipswood »

I tend to eschew memory techniques. Often I find forgetting is a feature and not a bug - garbage collection of the memory system if you like: a sign that (given the current presentation) the data doesn't seem relevant enough to retain.

But as a child I was an avid reader and I scoured the libraries of my youth and naturally built up spatial memory maps for them.

I'm in my 40s now, but I still have a sense of where and in which library certain books and certain topics go.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#57

Post by prestonbriggs »

Has anyone used this approach to memorize music? E.g., for playing an instrument.

I used to be able to remember plenty when I was young and practicing a lot. And certainly professionals can remember significant amounts (and not just the music, but performance details, fingerings, etc).

Seems like a different mechanism, relying less on visual and spatial associations, more on hearing. But perhaps it's similar in that you learn a structure and attach details to it.

Or, having developed a good memory for music, can we use it to help memorize random facts? Perhaps associating them with places in a song.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#58

Post by code51 »

Isn't there a "no free lunch" about remembering as well? Yes, memory training is probably a good idea but how do you pick what to store there in the first place? Forgetting things -properly- is an underappreciated skill in my opinion.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#59

Post by scher »

philipswood wrote: post #56

I tend to eschew memory techniques. Often I find forgetting is a feature and not a bug - garbage collection of the memory system if you like: a sign that (given the current presentation) the data doesn't seem relevant enough to retain. But as a child I was an avid reader and I scoured the libraries of my youth and naturally built up spatial memory maps for them. I'm in my 40s now, but I still have a sense of where an…

Learning something is different than using a memorizing technique. The former is for understanding and the latter is for putting impractical information. However, we may utilize the techniques to speed up or enhance the learning process.

Re: An ultimate guide to memory palaces

#60

Post by philipswood »

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 works really well.

I remember winning a bet about who could retain a 30 (or 20 ?) digit number the longest - I won.

I also used this in primary school to memorize schoolwork for exams, etc.

Despite not using it actively for years I can remember the phonetic alphabet and can still "transcode" numbers to words to images and back well enough. I suspect I might be using a snatch of it here and there for a bit of a memory boost once every few months or so.

I'm the end I abandoned the technique, because it felt like I was "polluting" my memory with extraneous and distracting information.

Reading about memory palaces now make me think of trying them out again, it sounds like they bypass the noisy/distracting aspects of transcoding the information to nonsense associations to make them stand out.

I've taught the loci system to my son in the original Greek context to memorize speeches and they work well.

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