Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious, I've learned English to a nearly native level without memorizing a single word.
How does one learn a language without committing it to memory (the meaning of memorizing).
conscious vs unconscious memorization
In Praise of Memorization
71–80 of 152 posts
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#72Understanding that memorization should be key for the reasons laid out in the article, would it be better to forgo note centered workflows such as Zettelkasten or Wiki for flashcard centered workflows such as Anki or Supermemo? What gives the most value? I'm going back and forth between these two workflows and I feel like progressing at a steady rate before getting bogged down, not because I have difficulty with the…
I've been working for the past few years on an app that attempts to combine the two (Zettelkasten / wiki + flashcards / Spaced repetition). [0] I personally really like the zettelkasten method and it's the only note-taking method that has really worked for me. Being able to then take a subset (or all) of those cards and put them into a spaced repetition review schedule makes them even more useful.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#73Disclaimer: Anecdata. I volunteer tutor high school kids in my local community. Particularly math and history. The biggest differentiator between the students who scale up quickly and those who scale up a bit more slowly is their aptitude for memorization. Recent history curricula and pedagogy in HS has placed an emphasis on “analysis” and “critical thinking.” But the students who struggle all struggle for the same r…
I have dyslexia (specifically a weakness in memory) and agree with everything you say. When not armed with a decent computer I can use as a crutch for my memory I'm noticeably weaker at critical thinking given the time spent recollecting fundamentals.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#74I memorized half of If when I was younger. It seemed especially impressive to certain people. These days I combine mnemonics with memory palace journeys. In a few hours of practice I went from being able to memorize 6 digits to around 70. My penultimate challenge is to memorize texts verbatim. I haven't been able to find a straightforward method. My next thought is to research theater performers' methods and Hafiz me…
To memorize text verbatim, you might find value in learning GMS. Mattias Ribbing has a course (search on coursio.io for his name) called "First Steps to a Complete Master Memory" and a follow-up course. This course is like the abridged version of GMS. To summarize in one sentence: GMS has you make palaces/journeys constructed from objects and their parts and you attach mnemonics to the parts. It is effective, but requires a decent amount of training. There is a second course called Pmemory (phenomenal memory) that has disappeared from the internet except for certain torrent websites. GMS (via Pmemory) was brought to the English-speaking world by an "interesting" character, but it was not invented by this character. I would suggest digging into the Pmemory material if you are serious, even though it can be a little confusing and overly prescriptive. But yes, I was able to memorize theorems and mathematical formulae verbatim. The time/energy cost was too high to maintain in my schedule, but I look forward to returning to the system in the future.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#75I guess it depends on what is meant by "memorization." I feel like I have a good memory but I suck at memorizing things. I would say I have knowledge but when it comes to dates and quotes I am terrible. I can remember things that happened and my friends and I usually do well at pub trivia. However, in school there were two times we were supposed to memorize poems and I sucked at it. I screwed it up both times. When we would take a test and afterwards people would ask what I got in question 4, I would have no idea.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#76Disclaimer: Anecdata. I volunteer tutor high school kids in my local community. Particularly math and history. The biggest differentiator between the students who scale up quickly and those who scale up a bit more slowly is their aptitude for memorization. Recent history curricula and pedagogy in HS has placed an emphasis on “analysis” and “critical thinking.” But the students who struggle all struggle for the same r…
> Good memorization skills are a huge leverage and it is something that can be learned and practiced. Any recommendations in how to get better at memorization?
I've been working on an app [0] for the past few years that attempts to synthesize note card style note taking (a la zettelkasten method) with spaced repetition flash cards. Spaced repetition is the single most effective tool for efficient memorization that I've discovered.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#77Convenience kills. The Art of Memory by F.A. Yates is still a nice read. In the article, the engineers admired by the author were intel ops who were stuck in an airgap and had to use their minds. That's a principle I try to use in life - to some extent deliberately making things hard for myself. As with all exercise, what was impossibly hard becomes commonplace. Part of this discipline is knowing what not to do (yes,…
Here's some stuff about how The Art of Memory, Memory Palaces, and the Method of Loci relate to adventure-like games, and some apps I developed along those lines, which I discussed with Scott Adams when he dropped by HN (the kind and brilliant old school text adventure game developer, not to be confused with the terrible Trump loving misogynistic troll and right wing nut job cartoonist who was outed for using sock puppets to gushingly praise and flatter himself on Metafilter and Reddit, and who besmirched the original Scott Adams' good name):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29330901
>How do you think Adventure games are like the Method of Loci, or Memory Palaces, in that they can help you remember and retrieve vast amounts of information geographically?
Scott Adams (game designer):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams_(game_designer)
Not to be confused with Dilbert creator outed for using sock puppets on Metafilter and Reddit (reddit.com):
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#78When encountering a new concept (a definition, a theorem) memorization is more important than understanding. Yes, you can spend time trying to crack the meaning, but you won’t unless you spend enough time contemplating examples and trying to imagine counter-examples. It’s a struggle. A more efficient way of gaining understanding is, first, to have things you do not (yet) fully understand memorized to the letter, and…
This comment makes the point in far fewer words and more effectively than TFA.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#79One of the big advantages of memorization is that you can work on problems in your sleep.
Sometimes when I have a very difficult problem, I will memorize all the information related to the problem and then go to sleep. Many times, I have woken ip in the middle of the night with a solution to the problem.
Re: In Praise of Memorization
#80Convenience kills. The Art of Memory by F.A. Yates is still a nice read. In the article, the engineers admired by the author were intel ops who were stuck in an airgap and had to use their minds. That's a principle I try to use in life - to some extent deliberately making things hard for myself. As with all exercise, what was impossibly hard becomes commonplace. Part of this discipline is knowing what not to do (yes,…
Speaking of airgaps, here's David Beazley's wonderful classic PyCon talk about using Python as a secret weapon while locked in a secret vault with no internet connection or floppy disks allowed:
>David Beazley: Discovering Python - PyCon 2014
>So, what happens when you lock a Python programmer in a secret vault containing 1.5 TBytes of C++ source code and no internet connection? Find out as I describe how I used Python as a secret weapon of "discovery" in an epic legal battle.
>Slides can be found at: https://speakerdeck.com/pycon2014 and https://github.com/PyCon/2014-slides