On: Calculating Pi: My Attempt at Breaking the Pi World Record

[begemotz]

the Guinness world record is over 70k digits set by Rajveer Meena: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-pi-p...

[imglorp → begemotz]

Such an awe inspiring achievement, to store that much structured data accurately. What else is the brain capable of doing?

[Ma8ee → imglorp]

Structured?

[imglorp → Ma8ee]

Lossless, ordered set of symbols with no errors.

It's much different than remembering a story or a travel route or an image.

[Ma8ee → imglorp]

Yes, but structured is in general in opposition to random, which the digits of pi seem to be. No one knows of any structure in the digits of pi.

[athriren → Ma8ee]

But pi defines its structure. By being seemingly random and irrational, it has created a specific ordered set of symbols and imbued that set with meaning because it has a referent: we call it pi.

[Ma8ee → athriren]

It’s not random, but that doesn’t mean it is structured. And there’s absolutely no difference between the digits of pi and a completely random sequence for anyone trying to memorise them.