Hello, forum. I’m already celebrating my 7th year of familiarity with mnemonics. I would like to make brief notes at this point.
Purpose: to provide real knowledge, and a kick in the ass to the mnemonics parasite.
// my progress:
=> 2 courses (4 sessions of exmens + final) memorized only by mnemonics and reading books. Answered on automatism from memory, even looked for a micro-earpiece but didn’t find one.
=> experimented with different sciences that I liked to study. Found the best options for learning and the place of mnemonics. This is summarized below.
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Mnemonics is a skill that can be practiced in 50 hours (14 days) and expanded beyond that. The task of a mnemonist is not a sport, but a life. Sport is only the initial training phase of volume, speed of binding, speed of encoding. They are usually beckoned to beginners by “”“coaches”“” .
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Your memory is healthy (not bad or good). Your brain is a neural network (AI has little to do with this, nor will it be invented - don’t be fooled);
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99% of books, courses and information about mnemonics is a huge garbage dump.
Read and work your way through GMS (Kozarenko). You don’t need anything else. No primitive and pops super-memory.
If you need sport, then Dominika flip through and read Kozarenko’s newsletters + come up with your own. -
Sports mnemonics is primitive and a fun waste of time. Your job is to learn how to quickly encode complex data and memorize patterns from books, in life. Facts are rarely needed, tables are rarely needed either.
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In life, you quite rarely apply mnemonic SCIENCE.
I read books 2 ways. 15-30 times fluently, without comprehension, to lower the threshold of entry and then understand everything necessary.
Or I read in depth, usually. I take notes. I rarely memorize. Important patterns go and work themselves out. It’s not always necessary to load up on facts. Optimize! -
Never buy subscriptions or courses from mnemonics. The waste is not justified. Euphoria may say otherwise. Kozarenko has done everything and his pdf can be found on the Net.
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Images are static and stable. No animation, emotion or movement. Otherwise, it is a waste of energy and only hinders you on long distances.
There were many who disagreed with this who were involved in sports. But they were nerds in mnemonics itself. The threshold for sport is minimal. The method of Simonides (I call him Cicero, but Simonides was the first) and figurative codes for 00-99 or maps, other things. It’s all static, not animations in the imagination. Optimize -
Your main task in mnemonics is to code. Memorization is simple. The stimulus is a reaction. You memorize encoded information and decode from your brain. There are different kinds of symbols, words, images, but brains don’t care what to memorize. It’s a neural connection! There’s no difference there between a table of hieroglyphics or topology (a section of math).
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A systematic approach of education is important. THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH MNEMONISTS. No one will ever tell you about it, the chance is extremely small.
System - objects that give a new property. Constructs. Any science, craft or otherwise, should be studied systematically, not chaotically. A set of facts won’t make you better. You need to know how and what came from where. Regularities. Cause and effect relationships. Otherwise you’re doing something wrong and it can hinder you.
The main problem is that mnemonists don’t know how to learn. 1-2 years ago I tried to write a course of systemic education (for everyone) and there was a separate section for mnemonics. That is: I explain life principles, how to make education and labor correct, and only then the mnemonic skill, which perfectly lays on the right ideas.
Not a single mnemonic trainer, not a single course, not a single author (they only copied what others copied for money) - did not tell me how to learn. More precisely how. They did, but it’s total garbage. A walking encyclopedia is a bad choice.
Please learn the right way. Systematic approach, patterns, don’t spread yourself too thin and don’t hope for freebies. Learning is a serious business, but it should go enjoyable (this does not mean you have 0 loads, work and work!), that is proper rest and work regimen. -
Don’t waste your time on silly things. 95-97% of the forum does it. Percentages are arbitrary. But you’ll know from the threads that the community:
8.1 doesn’t understand the basics of the skill
8.2 doesn’t know about training and serious mnemonic loads (in life, not sports)
8.3 looking for easy solutions, freebies, which is a trap for themselves. Do not repeat
8.4 Offers wrong solutions to problems to beginners. If you start to analyze every point, it is disrespecting your time, because there are a lot of them here.
Also. You can read my old posts on this forum. I would have rewritten and updated them, but there are many correct things about mnemonics there. (To compare materials).
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Knowing mnemonics is easy, but explaining it to beginners is harder.
There are a lot of primitive books and methods, which are also part of mnemonics, but ineffective and no one in their right mind will memorize books or theoretical tasks for exams + life in this way.
Look around, people. There is misleading information all around you in this place. Don’t look for freebies, don’t be stupid. Admit mistakes and consider studying something challenging where you are 0. Competently build a system. -
Mnemonics are great in foreign languages, but are not an absolute panacea. Again, eliminate flash cards, cartoon pictures of images and work with static that connects.
Dictionaries! Grammar. Mnemonics have proven better here than in other sciences. Because there are heaps of separate information, grammar is easy to memorize - small volume. In fact, everything is easy to memorize when the skill is practiced. Just try it. -
There’s no point in reading Giordano Bruno today. But for the sake of familiarising yourself with the story, read it. Shadows are images. This will make reading easier for you.
(Image = image in the mind, neural connection. We memorise with images. It doesn’t mean a picture.)
There was a bloke here who said something about Bruno, but he didn’t agree with me about his biography and his treatises. However, it’s elementary there. And the other part is not given to description - nobody has dealt with it (Song of Circea).
To summarise. Bruno criticised his contemporaries, who ridiculed mnemonics as well as today + !!! offered primitive practices and myths about memory.
If you read the books of the 18-19th century, there are repeated the same thing and what we have now. Charlatans have found a way to make money on suckers and sell bad mnemonic books, courses. And real mnemonists and teachers criticise them.
Conclusion. Mnemonics are good in languages. In life, it is not used as often as expected by beginners. The right work and mnemonics will become a tool that gives you an advantage if you know how to do it. You can know and remember about mnemonics, but barely apply it for 2 years except for little things, and then dramatically get up to speed and memorise a large body of information in months without forgetting.
I know there will be a lot of dissatisfaction and defenders and rebuttals here. But ask, ‘who benefits dude’?
Modern mnemonics is in stagnation. There is no new information, except distorted information. There is no real new presentation. Either courses or books filled with dilettantism and myths, because of narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding. It has been going on since about 2012, 2014.
Thank you all.
