
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - rfreytag
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books/Personal/Moonwalking-with-Einstein
======
zoba
I'd like to know more about remembering things that I don't put forth effort
to remember. Does anyone know about this?

For example my mom asked who the angry chef on TV is and somehow I immediately
knew "Gordon Ramsay!" even though I don't have cable TV, never purposely
worked on remembering his name, and am generally terrible at remembering
names. Being able to remember things without trying is what most folks would
really want when considering improving their memory.

I have found success with methods that call for imagining a 3d space and
placing objects in that space and using it to recall things... However,
designing such a space takes time/effort which is difficult when you're trying
to learn and comprehend stuff on the fly.

I do wonder if it is a memory issue or a recall issue here...perhaps I
actually know the information but can't access it as necessary.

~~~
TomAnthony
This is exactly my question. These techniques seem great for memorising (with
effort) certain pieces of structured data that you know you'll need to recall
later.

However, what about the things you don't realise you'll need to recall, or for
things that you don't actively trying to memorise.

Basically - does it improve your 'base' memory, or are they just tricks you
can use in certain cases.

~~~
bennesvig
Based on my understanding from the book, it's just a tool to memorize certain
information. It wouldn't improve your everyday memory by much, if at all.

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fab1an
The memory grandmaster who trained Foer, Ed Cooke, runs a phenomenal startup
that brings described techniques online to help you learn vocabulary:
<http://memrise.com>

Highly recommended for anyone looking to expand their vocabulary in a variety
of languages, including Mandarin.

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krickle
This is probably the right crowd to ask: all the memory techniques that I have
seen seem to be for memorizing sequences. Are there any techniques for
remembering factual information more powerful than SRS? Like for the main
points of a technical paper or similar?

~~~
watty
This is in the QA:

Q: How is your memory now?

A: Ironically, not much better than when I started this whole journey. The
techniques I learned, and used in the memory contest, are great for
remembering structured information like shopping lists or phone numbers, but
they don't improve any sort of underlying, generalizable memory ability.
Unfortunately, I still misplace my car keys.

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goblin89
> When you're reading a book, you don't sit there and say, "Well, what does
> that word mean? What does that word mean?" After many sightings of the words
> in your vocabulary, your recall is immediate and very, very good.

But there's still ‘inner speech’, which appears to slow down meaning recall.
It seems to be a habit of many people, although I don't have hard data to
support this. I've heard that unlearning sub-vocal reading in favor of visual
reading helps increase reading speed and remember the information. Haven't had
much success with this myself so far, it needs some patience.

(I suppose phonetic writing system also adds to the problem. How cool it would
be if you could read the meaning from symbols, instead of doing letter
combination matching.)

~~~
neeee
>(I suppose phonetic writing system also adds to the problem. How cool it
would be if you could read the meaning from symbols, instead of doing letter
combination matching.)

Isn't this what visual readers already do, by recognizing whole words, or even
groups of words at the same time? Observing myself reading, it seems like
that's what I do.

~~~
goblin89
Thanks for correcting, I'm not sure how I arrived at that point—it seems to me
I too recognize word at a time. However, I'm not a visual reader as I
understand the term: unless I consciously attempt to suppress my inner speech,
I silently “pronounce” each word, which slows down the process.

I'm trying to imagine using a writing system in which how a word is written
has no connection to its pronunciation, representing only meaning. That would
pretty much make inner speech impossible, among other things.

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defdac
"Never memorize something that you can look up." [Einstein]

~~~
pawelwentpawel
I haven't got the book yet but I'm planning to get it soon. As written in Q&A
- _The techniques I learned, and used in the memory contest, are great for
remembering structured information_ \- this might be great for learning
languages. I remember grabbing a lot of new vocabulary by studying by heart
lyrics of songs, quotes, jokes or whole sequences of dialogs from movies.

~~~
bmelton
Just a head's up, this books reads more like a novel than a How-To. There are
other books that are better for actually learning the memory techniques
discussed in _Moonwalking_.

I don't mean to imply that _Moonwalking_ isn't worth buying; I think it's a
really good book and was a very fun read, but at the same time, it was FAR
less instructional than I had expected (though I did learn while reading it).

For a basic primer, I'd recommend this to get started with the memory palace
technique: <http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palace>

And for a much more comprehensive instruction, Higbee's "Your Memory and How
to Train It" was the most referred to me:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Y35JI0/ref=docs-os-
doi_...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Y35JI0/ref=docs-os-doi_0)

------
sillysaurus
_Most of us will have to practice for months and months and months._

This isn't true. I've used this technique to memorize and recite the alphabet
backwards. I also use it to memorize trig identities (I keep them in my
silverware drawer, mentally). It's not "easy", but it only took one (entire)
night of practice to recite the alphabet backwards. If I can, then almost
anyone can.

Imagine the biggest house/apartment you've lived in. The only important
criteria is that you've spent enough time there to have a clear, crisp picture
of every room without physically being there or looking at photos.

Now look around. Take note of each "container" -- bins, cabinets, drawers, and
even furniture like chairs, tables, and couches (because you can set things on
them).

Memorize a specific path through your house. It sounds hard when I phrase it
like that, but it's not. Just start at your front door and mentally walk
through your house, opening cabinets/drawers and visiting rooms in a specific
order. The order is all that matters.

As you go along, imagine what it would look like if there were literally an
alphabet in your house. Starting from the front door, a big red hairy "A" is
blocking your path, so you go around it. Then as you pass your hallway closet,
you notice a shiny blue "B" isn't doing a very good job of being
inconspicuous. And so on. (It helped me to make them distinctive, so I use a
lot of color and tactile imagery like hairy/furry/velvety/shiny. Even smelly.
Just use your imagination.)

Remember -- you have to make sure you always are traversing in a specific
order. The room with the "A" to the room with the "B" etc.

Since most of us don't have 26 different rooms, you'll have to use your
containers too, and also cram a few letters together into one area. (Never
more than three in a bin, though, unless you're better at this than I am.) So
in your livingroom, maybe S T and U are siting on your couch watching The
Office, whereas X Y and Z are getting freaky in your bedroom. (Shocking
imagery is easier to remember than the mundane, and you can use this to your
advantage.)

So. Got your path memorized? A to B to C etc...? Good. Now it's very easy:
walk the path backwards. Z to Y to X...

Speak the letters out loud as you go, and presto, you now possess a new
(entirely useless) talent.

It becomes much more useful for pretty much anything that benefits from rote
memorization. (Just don't apply it to math very much otherwise you won't have
more than a superficial understanding of the underlying concepts and
connections.) It's quite handy for presentations.

~~~
Evbn
I find that creating a simple song is easier. I sing the alphabet backwards,
in the same tune as the original.

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bgallegos
I read the book. It's a great read for the story itself (guy learns how to win
memory contests) ... but the memory techniques, in my opinion, do not really
work for everyday situations. I did learn how to memorize the sequence of a
random deck of cards though, which is pretty cool.

~~~
bennesvig
I enjoyed the book as well. How long did it take you to memorize the deck of
cards?

~~~
bgallegos
Took me a few weeks ... although I carried a deck around with me and pulled it
out to practice periodically throughout the day. I found that the key is to
not be afraid to be really creative with imaging the visual representations of
the cards. The more 'out there', the better.

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daveman
Josh Foer gave a good TED talk about this topic, you can watch it at

[http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html)

After seeing this I actually was able to use his technique to help remember
all the parts of a long wedding toast I had to deliver. It definitely worked
in this situation, though I'm not sure how applicable it would be for
cataloguing every day information you may or may not need to recall.

------
quinndupont
If anyone is interested in the historical development of these practices (as
Gates mentioned), they are known (in Latin) as ars memoria. They were
extremely common in ancient Greece, but (ostensibly) came under attack the the
development of writing (Plato complained bitterly about it). They were
revivified in the Renaissance, and were connected to a whole host of
linguistic studies, including the development of "universal" or "artificial"
languages, and, interestingly, cryptography.

------
jcfrei
short summary from the book in order to recall _sequenced_ information:

walk down a path in your mind, that you can recall well from your memory and
then place images of the items/words you try to remember along this path.

in general: the more numerous the set of associations you have with a certain
word the more likely you are going to remember it. For example, when trying to
remember the name Baker of a person, don't think of it as a surname but rather
as the profession "baker".

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fratis
I read this book well over a year ago, and I still remember nearly the entire
list of items he used as an example in the book. The techniques described
really work, though the book is more of a memoir than a guide.

Here's what I remember, for the record: pickled onions, cottage cheese, peat
smoked salmon, six bottles of wine, three pairs of socks, hula hoop, scuba
diver, dry ice(?), Sofia Lauren.

I know there are a few more, but I think I covered a pretty considerable
number of them.

~~~
fratis
Ope. Looks like I was actually off by a fair bit. :P Here's the actual list,
from <http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/155631525>:

Pickled garlic. Cottage cheese. Peat-smoked salmon. 6 bottles of white wine. 3
pairs of socks. 3 hula hoops. Snorkel. Dry ice machine. Email Sophia. Skin-
toned cat suit. Paul Newman film. Elk sausages. Megaphone and director's
chair. Harness and ropes. Barometer.

------
wolfhumble
NPR audio interview with the author and journalist Joshua Foer:
[http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/134003962/Moonwalking-With-
Ein...](http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/134003962/Moonwalking-With-Einstein)

------
kenferry
I read this yesterday, got inspired, and memorized 50 digits of pi starting at
11 pm. Crazy! It's really not that hard!

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greenmountin
I went to one of his book talks, and it was really exciting to hear about. I
think he mentioned how it was a one-time rise to stardom, and put me onto the
glacial blog[1] that is Climb For Memory, by the guy who has won it for the
past couple years.

[1] <http://climbformemory.com/blog/> Oh, it's moved, I guess that explains
that.

------
nicolast
Really enjoyed reading this book some months ago. Certainly worth some of your
time.

------
svasan
The ancient Indians perfected memory retention of large bodies of knowledge
(called Vedas dating back more than 4000-6000 years) with the help of very
elaborate schemes. The Vedas are composed in a language called Vedic Sanskrit
(althought similar to Classical Sanskrit, still distinct). These schemes not
only aided in retention, but also preserved the phonetic purity and semantics.
The syllables were also intonated. Loosely speaking (the reason why I say that
is I still have not found a compact and crystal clear way to convey what Vedic
intonations are there for), intonations are also representative of grammatical
case/context. So, the syllable intonation also had to be maintained. A brief
preview of some commonly employed chanting schemes are given below:

For describing the various schemes let us consider a sentence with five words
having indices 1 2 3 4 5.

Let !! - represent a termination sequence. We'll not get into technicalities,
but take it as is.

1) Krama Paatha - This is relatively easy and each of the indexed word will be
chanted as follows.

1 2

2 3

3 4

4 5

5!!

Notice that a given word is clubbed with the next word. (Forward chaining).
There are two words in a sequence

2) Jataa Paatha - This is bit more complicated since it involves backward
sequences as well.

1 2 2 1 1 2

2 3 3 2 2 3

3 4 4 3 3 4

4 5 5 4 4 5

5!!

The complexity is due to the fact that the words will have to be chanted in
reverse sequence as well. (backward chaining) For e.g. {1, 2} {2, 1} {1, 2}.
There are a total of 6 words in each sequence.

3) Ghana Paatha - This is the most complex chanting mode (also called the bell
mode of chanting). The chanting sequence is as below.

1 2 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 3

2 3 3 2 2 3 4 4 3 2 2 3 4

3 4 4 3 3 4 5 5 4 3 3 4 5

4 5 5 4 4 5

5!!

Phew!! Each sequence has 13 words made from three words. There are two word
forward/backward sequences as well as three word forward/backward sequences.
For e.g. {1, 2} {2, 1} for two word sequence. {1, 2, 3} and {3, 2, 1} for
three word sequence. The astute reader will observe that the penultimate
sequence is the same as Jathaa Paatha (and also the first six words of any
sequence constitute the same).

There are several intracacies that are involved. One is compounding of words.
Word compounding introduces changes to the pronunciation. Another is the
change of phonetic intonation due to the modified sequence of chanting the
words in a given scheme. These repetition techniques enabled the scholars to
get a "feel" for how words would be intonated and pronounced phonetically in
various circumstances.

I had always wondered why such elaborate schemes were devised by the Vedic
seers. I have come to realise that the seers knew that when knowledge was
transmitted in the oral form, it inevitably introduced corruptions in the
words. In Vedic Sanskrit, purity of syllable (both phonetic pronunciation and
intonation) is of utmost importance. Even a slight change in a syllable
(either phonetic or intonation) would completely change the meaning of the
sentence.

These techniques not only aided in error detection in chanting, but also error
correction (specifically error correction in syllable intonation). If someone
were chanting a sequence of words, one could verify if the words are being
intonated correctly (of course it would take an expert to do that). There was
a document that I read quite some time back which resorted to some abstract
algebra (group theory) based arguments for explaining the error correction
mechanism of some of these techniques.

Of course, many of these schemes (and also other linguistic aspects like word
compounding) always kept one thing in mind - the ease with which humans are
able to cognize and generate the sounds representing given syllables in a
sequence of words.

In conclusion, these methods ultimately enabled scholars/priests to be able
to: a) remember entire bodies of verses/compositions with relative ease. b)
transmit such knowledge to students with zero word corruption (yes, although I
am neither a linguistic nor a Vedic expert, I can go out on a limb to make
this claim - zero corruption).

Edit :- Minor edits for readability/spelling.

