S A J [J] M A M F J 2009

music

Faraquet - The View From This Tower

Anton wrote about cleaning his room, which inspired me to think about memory, cognitive efficiency, and self-organization.

Another thing is cleaning your messy computer (especially if its integral to your usual hobbies). Trashing all the leftover stuff you don't really need to save, organizing everything to where you'll know where it is. Creating systems of organizing new information, new projects, new media. Organizing history so that you may reflect. Maximizing efficiency. Maximizing computer performance; periodic reformats if necessary.

It's so weird how the effect of making the world around you neat. Your room and your computer are part of your cognition. You use them to think. The cortex is organized in hierarchies, and works best within hierarchies.

Also cleaning your motivation and priorities. Neatly organizing your projects, your goals. Making lists, plans of action. Going into greater detail; baby steps. Stimulates motivation by having everything staring at you in the face.

Also (more abstract) neatly organizing your thoughts, ideas, and memory. Many times throughout the day I am flooded with ideas. If I don't write them down they're lost. So I keep a journal with me, or a sansa. However, many times I'll write notes in a journal but never return to them, never follow through, never elaborate, never utilize, never remember. Even worse is the sansa, I rarely re-listen, or if I do I need to keep notes.

Just because my thoughts are saved somewhere, it doesn't mean they're not lost; still just as lost as they would've been. So I try to create feedback loops. Games. Whenever I write something new, I compel myself to re-read the old and add a new reflection to it.

Something I also want to try is memorization. Memorizing my journals by heart, being able to recall them word for word. This would not only train my memory, but help me organize myself, make me a stronger beacon of myself socially and introspectively. Within my thoughts, I could make faster connections among myself. To others, I could spew out wisdom or ideas or perspectives more smoothly.

Even stronger than keeping a journal is keeping an amazing memory. If you know how to utilize your memory, you become instantly more superhuman. One of the best techniques to memorize things is to use the journey method. Map out your mind like a journey. Then connect details within details, in a fractal. Use all your senses. Connect seemingly unrelated stimulus. Force synesthesia. Recognize the effects of retroactive interference. Recognize the effects of spaced repetition. (I hear that recalling things in multiplies of 5x works well)

Some savants have crazy excellent memory. I read this book by Daniel Tammet (an autistic synesthesiac savant) about how his mind works. He says the techniques he uses, anybody can do. After reading, I set out to experiment. I attempted to memorize everything I thought in a single day. From 9am, through school, to my walk home, to Lian's house at 4pm -- I memorized nearly all my thoughts -- and spoke them to her (it took 45 minutes). It was just a matter of connecting things in hierarchies of journeys, and repetitively going over everything, and remembering when I went over everything, and connecting things to what time it was, and so on. Conversations were the hardest. I think it was easiest since my day was already organized (I wasn't just free-floating about).

I recently read part of this audio book called Quantum Memory Power. The title is kind of corny, but it got me thinking about the journey method again. I think part of the process is actually listening to the dude talk. The way he paces you. The intonations of his voice. He takes you through several sets of 10 things at a time, and goes into the details. I started being able to recall all the previous sets while he articulated the current. I imagined that he was really trying to make some superposition metaphor.

I tried memorizing half a deck of cards like this, by chunking some of them in sets of 2 or 3 or 5 and giving them a storyline. That was a week ago and I still remember the order of all the cards. Next I'll try to do a whole deck. And see how quickly it takes me to memorize.

I also tried this while meditating high up in a tree. Every epiphany I had, I counted. One to nine. Each epiphany, as they came, I danced on them, as if they were made of the music of repetitious trance. At the end I went over it all. I spoke aloud to myself, taking my time slowly with each. I still remember everything I thought in that tree; the whole experience. I didn't even have to record any of it. I drew a glyph. It had nine prongs, each with relevant doodles. (I want to do this continuously and surround myself with these glyphs. Maybe around my desk, or maybe I'll hide the glyphs around my room, so thinking about them becomes itself a journey.)

My mind felt so clear and organized.

I want to do this for everything. I think often the problem with memory and cognition is that it's too much like a messy room. Thoughts come in and you throw them on the floor somewhere and stuff them in a corner. But if you self-organize efficiently you become more superhuman.