Given that most 3-digit Major Systems have at least two lists (one for people and one for objects), wouldn’t it be more efficient to memorize 10 binary digits per image?
Binary numbers could be divided in the following way:
3 - 3 - 3 - 1
If the last digit is zero, use the 3-digit people list; otherwise, use the 3-digit objects list.
On the Art of Memory website about Binary Number Memorization Systems, there is no mention of this method when discussing the Major System. Doesn’t anyone use this strategy?
I’d just invert how you read it as 1-3-3-3. By setting the “person” or “object” indicator first, you very quickly allow yourself to focus on that particular list, then the set of 3-3-3 lets you drop down into specifics as you go.
1-3-3-3 thought process for 0111001101 would be:
0 is first so it’s a person, person number 7xx… 71x… 715… This way right from the jump, your brain is in “person mode.”
Vs. reading person/object at the end for 1110011010:
So its a person or an object for 7xx… 71x… 715… And its a 0 so… PERSON. Person 715!
May be a minor thing, and is probably just an individual preference but I just like being able to eliminate half the list with first digit to immediately narrow the focus.
Great idea, again!
Although, I’m not sure that “MOST” people who use a 3-digit number system have full PO lists for it. The most common iteration that I’ve seen is a single list with combinations of people and objects. The time commitment for building and learning 2000 images may be looked at as “not worth it.” With your ideas for double2block cards and 2blockbinary it may start to make it more appealing, though!
That was my initial idea as well, but before making the post on the forum, I wanted to see Lance Tschirhart’s system for binary. I encountered this post of his:
In the original Shadow System post, I described the rules for a theoretical 10-digit binary system in the form of
1-3-3-3 or 0-3-3-3. If the first digit was 0, you would use the original image. If the first digit was a 1, you would use the shadow image.
To use it, you would have to build the full 2704 shadow system, so it scores no points over the Ben System in that respect. The reading of the 1’s and 0’s is so hard to get out of your mind that for as long as I practiced it, which wasn’t very long I admit, I couldn’t help but read 4 chunks of information instead of 3. In short, it was vastly inferior to Ben’s formulation
After reading this, I thought leaving the 1 to the end would fix the problem he experienced, but I honestly didn’t even understand what he meant to begin with. Have you experienced his problem during practice?
Me too. Just his post that made me apprehensive.
Thanks, Tim! It’s funny that every time I got a good idea, you were already applying a similar one, haha
Oh, I didn’t know that at all. I thought most people who created 3-digit lists were trying to expand their PAO, but it seems that it’s out of fashion these days.