Hi, Rodent
Your post is one of the best on this forum, in my opinion, not only because it tackles the subject I am most interested in, but also because it is one of the rare that attempts to do it objectively. So I thank you upfront for sharing it.
I am very familiar with the writings of Piotr Woźniak and it was by reading him that I got into spaced repetition. The image below shows my usage of Anki in the past year: very lacking with respect to what I wish I had done, but that’s life.
I have used mnemonics sparingly throughout the year, so I can’t make as detailed an analysis as you, I am afraid. However, I have been memorizing entire books during the last couple months, so I might be able to collaborate a little on your inquiry. In fact, I have been willing to make a detailed post about “my method” here since I came back to the forum, but haven’t found the time yet: this is going to be a “short” version of it, one more geared towards simply fostering the discussion with you (and with others, of course).
If I understand you correctly, you don’t follow one of the most important precepts of Woźniak’s system of flashcard creation, and I believe this has made all the (positive) difference for your learning endeavor. By following his “minimum information principle”, one makes many more cards, and these cards are much easier to remember. However, they are much more geared towards fact retention than the “combination of thinking and recalling” that you mentioned. I believe that by sticking to full questions (possibly quite complex ones, if I am correct with respect to what you did) you better fostered your understanding of the subject-matter than by adhering 100% with the “20 rules”.
For science in general, I believe your method is one of the best ones there is. For history and philosophy (especially if one likes to situate all philosophy in time as a “history of ideas”), an integrated system of “mnemonic knowledge” seems best to me. Moreover, as you amass huge amounts of scientific information, even if they are not sequential or time-based, the organization of the information into an integrated structure for quick (mnemonic) review seems to me to be of great value. As others mentioned and you accepted the possibility, a combination of your method and mnemonics is probably the best alternative for any subject. Anyhow, I’ll keep my discussion now on how to create such an integrated system of memories in a feasible time. This is what I have been doing with books, meaning I memorize an entire book in roughly (but not necessarily) the same order as it is written. But any kind of knowledge can be memorized in the same way, provided you spend the necessary time first organizing the information.
Like you mentioned in your post, the memory palace technique is too slow and with limited scalability, because (i) it demands the creation of images, and (ii) it demands the accumulation of loci (real or otherwise). While (i) is unavoidable in mnemonics (it is its very essence), (ii) should be minimised for two reasons:
1 - the effort dispensed in creating/finding loci is totally unrelated to the understanding of the subject-matter to be memorized;
2 - scalability being limited, it will either prompt you to spend even more time “forcing” trips or video-game playing or whatever other methods you use for loci gathering, or it will have you create all sorts of artifices, turning your memory palace into a mess of imagined/real locations with little rhyme or reason, ultimately making it hard to remember. Moreover, most advice on memory palace formation presupposes that you will organize the information to be memorized beforehand so that rooms/objects conform to the subject-matter headings or data points, etc., but we all know that knowledge on any given subject is an evolving thing.
For massive knowledge accumulation, I see no other way than NOT relying on memory palaces. I should stress here before advancing that I see little doubt that the memory palace is the most effective way of remembering anything. The ability to “see” images placed at a given locus is real and one of the most impressive feats of the mind. Memory champions wouldn’t display sub-20 second speed-card records if that weren’t the case. But, for the aforementioned reasons, I believe they should be used sparingly, e.g., one locus for an entire book, and more like a general organization tool than as an indispensable need for actual memorization.
That said, what I have been using is a combination of layered reading, binary trees, and mnemonics. Perhaps by stating this way it sounds like an innovative and elaborate system, but in truth this has been commented upon in this forum and in many books in one way or another countless times — I just selected the main techniques that work best for me and combined them into a repeatable modus operandi that has been working really well so far.
(Using your style) Short overview:
You skim the book and create initial images for representing its main divisions (beginning with the title). Note that each of these images functions as a summary of the corresponding portion of the book it symbolizes, based on the level of understanding you currently have (you can and should always improve the images as you reach a better understanding). You then speed-read the book, taking note of the main facts you want to remember and, most importantly, of any metaphors that show up in the text (and which are related to points you want memorized). Now, you create this new level of images making use of the metaphors you found and any other you can come up with. Image formation can be done in any way you wish: word substitution, sound resemblance, etc., but I strongly advise on using metaphors based on meaning (in a memoria rerum style) every time it’s possible. At this second “reading layer”, you also mark the difficult/important passages which you’ll read again more carefully during a third pass. You then create more levels of images until your desired level of detail is reached. Then you link all the images into one single super-structure using the binary tree technique (more on that in the postscript) and put it into a spaced-repetition regime for constant review. As you also noted, it is important to hard-code your images somehow, so that you don’t lose information, and also for recall testing purposes, so I use a simple tree data structure in the R programming language to do it quickly and to display it at will. Finally, you create flashcards for specific types of information such as word-for-word quotations you don’t want to completely memorize but would be nice to keep in mind, and for any complex question you think is important.
I am a slow reader and, of course, this entire method makes reading much slower. But I have been (finally) able to memorize all the books I read, which is like a dream come true, in a speed of around 100 words-per-minute, all included. It is a very active and tiring way to read, but extremely worthwhile. A further advantage is that a breadth-first-search traverse of the tree gives you summaries of the entire book with increasing detail as you get deeper, whereas combining it with a depth-first-search traverse of the tree allows you to quickly get to any desired section of the book.
If there is interest in this method, I will write a “long overview” in a later post. This has already become exceedingly prolix.
Thanks again.
Best,
M.
P.S.: This Wikipedia link shows how any arbitrary hierarchical tree can be turned into a binary tree using the “left-child, right-sibling” method. This means that if we are able to create mental “triple links” (very doable, believe me), which are just one more link (not two) with respect to the usual linking method everyone does, then we can maintain huge knowledge trees in our minds, trees that can be easily traversed, appended, trimmed, or modified in any way. If large sections of the tree (or one whole tree corresponding to, say, an entire book) are kept at loci, then you have a powerful system.
P.S.2: For a fantastic reference on layered reading (and a complete study method, for that matter) see “The Manual”, by Rod Bremer; and for the best info on speed-reading, in my opinion, see the classic “Break-through Rapid Reading”, by Peter Kump.
EDIT: I (hopefully) clarified the second sentence of the “Short overview”.