When I heard the Dean of UCLA Anderson mention Moonwalking with Einstein, I was caught off guard. The title was definitely unusual, and I had no idea what it was about. I knew it was about memory and psychology, and I figured it was worth a shot.
I was definitely in for a treat. The book follows the story of the author, who was a journalist in his twenties and got randomly into the "memory training circuit" and decided to give the techniques a shot by trying to see how well he could improve his memory. He ended up doing quite well: winning the US Memory Championship and making a lot of deep friendships with Mental Athletes (MAs) around the world.
The book was a really fun read, and I definitely learned a lot about memory and the history of memory techniques. In addition, I loved the philosophical discussions about the role of memory and how important it is to develop and cherish it for our human nature. It's also inspired me to look into a lot of the primary sources mentioned within it and to perhaps try to train myself similar to how the author did. The only question is when I can find the time to do that....
Below are my main notes on the text. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology, memory, and general displays of awesomeness and freakish nature.
Ch. 1: The smartest man is hard to find
I was definitely in for a treat. The book follows the story of the author, who was a journalist in his twenties and got randomly into the "memory training circuit" and decided to give the techniques a shot by trying to see how well he could improve his memory. He ended up doing quite well: winning the US Memory Championship and making a lot of deep friendships with Mental Athletes (MAs) around the world.
The book was a really fun read, and I definitely learned a lot about memory and the history of memory techniques. In addition, I loved the philosophical discussions about the role of memory and how important it is to develop and cherish it for our human nature. It's also inspired me to look into a lot of the primary sources mentioned within it and to perhaps try to train myself similar to how the author did. The only question is when I can find the time to do that....
Below are my main notes on the text. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology, memory, and general displays of awesomeness and freakish nature.
Ch. 1: The smartest man is hard to find
- US memory championship
- Brains harder to quantify than braun
- Ben Pridmore was reining memory champion
- Experience is sum of one's memories
- Wisdom is sum of one's experience
- Better memory => better person
- Pridmore said it's just technique that anyone can learn
- Mental Athletes (MAs)
- Use the "Memory Palace" technique developed by the Romans
- Tony Buzan marketed mind techniques
- Simonides developed "method of loci"
- Food intake affects brain
- Memorizing as a mental workout
- "Brain gyms" software
- At first, memory was stored inside and considered important; now it's in books and computers and seen as less important
- The Mind of the Mnemonist book
- Study of people with abnormal memory skills
- Normal people: the "curve of forgetting"
- Picture recognition test: memory for images excellent among all
- Photographic memory is a myth
- Study Subject in study had automatic synesthesia
- Memory is pattern of connections between neurons
- Memory not searchable; just accessible by cues
- Study Subject's memories were stored and organized linearly
- Install memory images along a real street
- Study Subject was crippled by inability to forget
- London taxi drivers have intense memory and test requirements
- Cabbies' brains changed and reorganized to adapt to job; "neural plasticity"
- Superior Memory book
- Brains of MAs had same IQ and same structure as control subjects in fMRI; difference was that different parts of brain used when memorizing (using visual and spatial navigation parts of brain)
- Consciously converting data into images placed on mental roadmap
- "KL7" club: Knights of Learning
- Manufactured synesthesia
- Turn names into visual joke on name/sound
- Got a coach named Ed
- Learned about chicken sexing industry: determining gender of chickens is a bit deal; technique requires intuition to quickly and accurately work
- K. Erickson developed "skilled memory theory"
- Tested experts
- Tested author for baseline memory skills and followed him as he trained to see if his memory could improve
- Erickson studied experts. Found it takes 10,000 hours of training to become expert that can process enormous information in sophisticated ways and get past "magic 7" number (short-term memory limit).
- Chunk in order to remember more
- Use associations in long-term memory to see world differently
- Story of severe documented case of amnesia
- Monotony compresses time; novelty expands it
- Creating new memories stretches psychological time
- That's why it's so important to travel, do interesting work
- Life speeds up when becomes less memorable as we grow up
- Hippocampus converts short-term to long-term memory
- Unconscious
- Declarative/explicit vs. non-declarative/implicit/unconscious memories
- Unconscious memories don't require hippocampus
- Semantic/concept memories vs. episodic memory in time and space
- Ribeau's Law: memories not static; they change as we age and with events
- Sleep consolidates memories
- Infantile amnesia: brains maturing quickly, neocortex developing in first 3 years, lacks language and schemas
- Elaborative coding
- Brains aren't adapted to current information age
- Simonides invented art of memory
- Rhetorica ad Herenium book
- Natural memory: hardware
- Artificial memory: software
- Method of loci
- Memory palace
- Populate intimately familiar place with images
- Start with house you grew up in and arrange items along a path
- Add multiple senses to each image you put down
- Add inappropriate images so it's funny and lewd
- Walk around and rediscover old places and know them very thoroughly
- Need 12 memory palaces to begin; grow to hundreds
- Memory training about growing as a person; learning old texts gives us guidance
- Memory training was huge in old civilizations
- Americans greatly behind Europeans on memory training
- For memorizing poems, put image of each topic not each word (due to efficiency and stability)
- "Topic" comes from Greek word for "place"
- That's the root of the phrase "in the first place"
- Brains better at remembering meaning than verbatim text
- Homer's works were a collection of oral bards' memories
- Cliches are memorable, repeated, visualized phrases; critical for memorability
- Jingles hard to knock out of head
- Song is the ultimate structuring device for language
- For abstract words, imagine similar sounding word
- Break word into syllables and find images that start with same letter
- Men's technique for poem memorization: just images
- Women's technique for poem memorization: understand how poem feels, associate parts of poem with emotions
- Break lines into beats with different emotions (Method Acting technique)
- Quirky subculture of memory only in Oxford competition (small group)
- Golden age of memory died
- Before writing was invented, everything had to be preserved in memory
- Now, we remember very little because of calendar, GPS, photo albums, speed dial, etc.
- 1/3 of Brits can't remember their home phone number or more than 2 friends' birthdays
- History of writing: printing press, word spacing, table of contents, indexes in books
- Training memory classically was to build index of all we have read
- External memory: online and electronically
- Even more futuristic: Microsoft Lifelog
- Memorize random stuff around you
- "Major System" to remember numbers
- "Person Action Object" system (PAO) for longer numbers: converts numbers to images
- Online Brain Club forum
- 52 cards mapped to PAO images of 3 so it's just 18 groups of images to memorize
- Expertise improvement: speed-typing plateau
- Run on autopilot at some point: "okay plateau"
- Top achievers keep out of the okay plateau and do deliberate practice
- Technique, goal oriented, constant feedback
- Have to practice failing
- Put yourself in mind of someone better and see difference between you and them
- Start going at pace quicker than can go by 10-20%, make mistakes, but improve
- Barriers and records constantly get broken because psychological, not physical
- Memory like a musical instrument; can learn and improve
- Set up spreadsheet to track practice sessions, metrics, progress, graph everything
- Enforces mindfulness and attention when trying to memorize names or details
- Is all this a form of mental peacocking or useful?
- There's a private school in the Bronx that teaches based on memory techniques; it is much better performing than other schools
- In education, rote memorization got replaced with experiential learning
- Tony Buzan was Inspired by the Major System by a prof in his college
- Wanted an "operator's manual" for how to run his brain
- Realized education has the wrong definition of smart
- Invented "mindmapping" notetaking technique
- Said invention is a product of inventorying and indexing
- Use your head book
- People do 20% worse in memory competition than in practice
- Met Daniel, who was called the "Rain Man" (big memory and language capabilities)
- Rain Man film
- "Savantism" disease
- Single skill vs. general talent
- Savants often accompanied with disability
- Born on a blue day book
- Effortless memory of his; no technique
- Met with Daniel
- Found him to be actually ordinary
- Synesthesia disorder
- Asberger syndrome: high-functioning autism
- Resources: World Wide Brain Club, Memory Circuit Stat Server
- Kim Peek another savant
- Damage in left brain common
- When left brain damaged, right brain opens up hidden inner skills in all people
- TMS technology can zap left brain and turn on savant skills in people
- Author was skeptical Daniel might not be a savant, maybe just trained mnemonist
- In 19th century, savant was great term
- But now became freak condition
- For practice, wore ear muffs and horse blinders/painted safety goggles to keep concentrated
- Relax one week before
- Got new record in speed cards by doing 3 cards at a time
- Won memory championship
- People later just wanted to see him do tricks
- Went to World Memory Championship; finished 13th place
- Offered KL7 membership; had to drink 2 beers, memorize 49 digits, kiss strange woman's knee 3 times to be inducted
- Got retested in Florida by expert researcher
- Improved memory skills but still kept misplacing car keys
- Working memory still was limited
- Software upgraded but hardware still the same
- Practice makes perfect, but must be deliberate practice
- Key is time and commitment
- Learned to be more mindful of world around him
- Hard to find occasion to use old techniques
- How we perceive world is based on how we remember
- Memories are the seeds of our values
- Memory training is about nurturing our humanity
- Experiment was over; says he's done competing
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