An ultimate guide to memory palaces

In your experience:

Do you ever "refactor" you maps to show updated understanding? Or do you find that this happens naturally?

Do connections between different areas stand out or form?

Do you have examples of notices patterns or structure in knowledge because of it?

Thanks

Music theory is full of little mnemonics, and is itself a sort of system of mnemonics:

Instead of an infinite gradation of frequencies, they are reduced to 12 repeating notes within each doubling, so that a 440 Hz vibration is an A, as is a 220 and an 880 Hz vibration.

If instead of doubling a frequency, we add a half to it again for a 2:3 ratio, we get a perfect fifth. By repeating this process (with some fudges) we end up with twelve notes, the circle of fifths, and the vast majority of Western music.

Rather than simplistically giving these 12 notes 12 letters, they get 7, in a clever system that allows for all 24/30 major and minor scales to have one of each letter A to G.

The 7 notes in any particular major or minor scale can be combined with each other to form chords. Major and minor chords each share a root and a fifth; the third is different by a single semitone. The combinations of three notes that sound nice together are thus greatly simplified.

Once the circle of fifths is internalised, all 24 (or 30 - ask Wooten) major and minor chords can be constructed, transposed, and played with.

So, when an experienced musician hears a song they can put all of that background to work. Instead of remembering each indivudal note played, the notes are chunked into chords, hich are chunked into keys and progressions. Once contextualised with similar pieces the memorisation becomes easier and easier. By the time all of that contextual data is assimilated, with music that is _felt_, there isn't much need (I'd imagine) for good musicians to use memory palaces for fingerings or performance details. I'd say a lot of that knowledge is in the hands, the breath, and the whole body.

Disclaimer: I am not a very good musician (yet).

Yes. I often add on things. So let's say I read a book and years later I realize that the author omitted something very important (IMHO). Then, I just add that knowledge to the appropriate room. I naturally remember what was or wasn't part of the book. With these systems you're training your mind to think a specific sequence of thoughts (in the act of recalling the experience of your mind palace). With training even the recall becomes fast. However,... you can't easy delete (not after rehearsing something for years). It's about as easy to delete something as it is to change a bad habit. It's just easier to make new habits (or add new information).

> Do connections between different areas stand out or form?

This is one of the coolest things that happens. A kind of thinking becomes possible that isn't available without the "whole topic" loaded in mind. You can see broad expansive connections. One fun activity (that you can do right now with two decks of flash cards) is to compare and contrast different books. Mentally walk both of them simultaneously forwards and backwards. You'll see how the connect and differ.

> Do you have examples of notices patterns or structure in knowledge because of it? Sure

First with encoding... _where_ things occur in your memory palace is "free" information. So some people when learning foreign languages store different genders in different cities. Say you're trying to recall the gender of Boot (boat in German). You think, "where is that boot shaped like a boat?" instantly you know it's in a cafe in Williamsburg which is where you put all the "das" verbs making it "das Boot".

You say you're encoding the periodic table, if you put all the columns in the same room, you know instantly that you could replace your Gallium doping with Indium in your Si wafer (in this toy example).

If you want to learn the party trick of knowing which day of the week someone was born on. You can either get good at mental math and learn the equation and calculate it. Or, you can make a system of rooms in which you stick people who represent all the possible years to "cache" part of the calculation. Then the problem reduces to addition of small numbers.

I always found it extremely odd that, if the memorisation intent was not there, no amount of exposure would lead to effective memorisation. E.g. I could sight read an accompaniment 50 times and I would not remember most of it; once I decided to study specifically with the intent of "memorising" the piece, typically a handful of passes would be enough.

Scott Adams recently said something similar in one of his coffee podcasts. He made an experiment with himself: he has a short "skit" he always starts his show with, and he made a bet with himself how long it would take, if ever, to memorise that skit, simply by reading it, with no intentional effort to memorise it.

So far it's been over a year afaik :)