I heard anything could be a memory palace, a book covers, picture on the wall, so I asked chatGPT then let’s see if we could define the bare minimum requirements for one.
So I thought the first factor would just be a background of some sort. Bare minimum just being only the color white, or only the color blue.
ChatGPT said that could be used as a memory palace, and I said, but what about blur when reusing it over and over again?
Then it claimed if there’s different furniture/micro station, or whatever you want to call it, then the background doesn’t matter. So that claim seems very questionable, so just reducing the background to an interspace with only the locations of objects on it mattering, and scaling up infinitely with different arrangements of micro stations on the same interspace background it lays on. What do you guys think about this?
Also when converting a mind map into a memory palace, how would you approach that? Mnemonics are already made on the mind map correct? So could that be used as furniture/micro station itself?
I would say a memory palace is anything that uses your brain ability to orient yourself in space and find stuff in space.
The background doesn’t matter. What matters is how YOU see the space and how YOU organise it.
My flat becomes a memory palace if I place things in each room.
A flower, which is simply a pretty image, becomes a memory palace if I place things on the stem, petals, pistil, etc.
Chemical elements have been organised to create a memory palace: the periodic table. It’s also using space and navigation in space: for example I know I need to “go” to the last column on the right to find the noble gases.
Any artwork becomes a memory palace if I choose a path through/on it.
Preachers used to deliver sermons always with the same structure so that people could remember the main ideas easily (here the space isn’t physical/visual)
Do you find that when making a peg system, or memory palace out of things like a flower from your example, that the flower still sits on a background of where you originally saw it?
i’m wondering even if I use a book cover, or anything as a painting, whether your mind sfill builds the general area around it.
Even viewing unique images on your phone screen/monitor, whether when recalling it to use it as a memory palace if your mind still rebuilds space that the monitor originally was in and the digital image was seen.
I think that’s the layer i haven’t find an answer to.
Unless it affects recall, why do you care? Your brain sure isn’t going to care (it’s constantly reconstructing our interpretation of reality, with the smallest energy expenditure possible, so it remembers the main point and reimagines the rest around it).
If it doesn’t make any difference for the mnemonics/story to happen on a white or blue background, it doesn’t matter and there’s no reason for you to spend brainpower trying to remember the image exactly.
The point of memory palace is to help you recall the information you put in it. Whether what you visualise corresponds to reality, or if what you visualise stay exactly the same doesn’t matter. As long as the hooks/anchors on which you put the memories are similar enough to recall what you need, everything else is fluff.
I would even say that it doesn’t matter if the flower was originally a peony and I remember it as a poppy flower (which could happen since I don’t really know flowers well, you’ll notice that I named it only “flower”), as long as the journey in this memory palace stay the same and no information I was learning is lost.
I only care so I get definitions, and truth around what I see as undefined currently, because I am still attempting to make that small scalable system of what are the fewest parts that make up a memory palace, and how could I make seemingly infintie amounts from that.
That’s why I am trying to see if using individual items in a larger locatiom will lead to any problems, or have to have that environment reconstructed, because I want to avoid blur. Whether a unique image on a phone screen actually is enough, or if your mind reconstructe the environment it was in, and blur happens with other images potentially.
Earlier you said about making your own mnemonics instead if using chatgpt if I remember that correctly. I agree with making your own mnemonics, but maybe chatgpt could create the location for me to have anchors/furniture/micro stations to store the mneomics, which would just be a memory palace.
So that’s what i’m wondering, would those problems of blur arise with approaching individual objects, digital images as the memory palaces?
I’ve nothing against ChatGPT on principle, but the idea of the memory palace is to link something you don’t know well, to something you already know well (the location).
So if you need to learn the memory palace first, because someone else imagined it for you, you adding a step (and cognitive load), and you’re losing a big part of the advantage of the method, don’t you?
So it would probably be more useful to ask AI for ideas for mnemonics actually.
Each person is a bit different, so the best way to find “your” definition is to try different “options” of memory palaces and see what works best for you.
Is that something that you fear can happen or something that happened?
And does this blur affect recall? Because if it doesn’t, there’s no reason to try to avoid it. Wouldn’t it be rather a sign of efficiency? (Your brain cutting out unnecessary fluff)
Edit: what I’m maybe not expressing well is: if it doesn’t affect recall, then it is not an essential part of the memory palace (since the memory palace = tool to remember things) so not part of the definition.
Any factor that is a quantity not clearly defined (big/small, clear/blurry) is not a good element for the definition, because it doesn’t really tell you anything precise: how small is “too small”? Small compared to what? How do you measure blurriness? At which point does it becomes a problem? It will vary from person to person, depends on how well you know the space already, how you decide to structure it, also probably depends on the difficulty of the subject matter, etc.
A definition should apply in all situations so (by definition) it’s going to be very broad and won’t tell you “the exact specs” of a memory palace that will work for you. There’s always going to be experimentation involved to discover that. Not to mention that, by practicing, you’ll become better at using the technique, and what doesn’t work well for you now, may well work in the future.
Blur hasn’t happened, because I haven’t applied this system i’m brainstorming about to memorizing anything yet. I’m attempting to make it for long term learning, lot’s of information. So that’s why I look at blur as a very possible emergent factor. By blur I mean mneomics blurring into the same space, and where long term the location you used as a background/memory palace isn’t memorable enough to recall. Just attempting to apply it and experiment would probably be useful, but i’m trying to get a lot of perspectives, and define exactly how memory palaces work, so i’m brainstorming from what is true about them.
It varies from person to person, with different and growing ability, but what i’m trying to do specifically is attempt to find the answer to what is the absolute bare theoretical minimum that creates a distinct memorable location to recall, without mneomics blurring into each other, regardless of one’s own ability. What is possible.
So that’s what originally led me to saying could I use a white piece of paper as a memory palace, then account for mneomic’s blurring into each other, and the information in the memory palace becoming blurred into each other causing it to be confusing.
I don’t want to rely on AI for making mnemonics images. I would only want it to generate a location or distinctive picture/background that is unique enough to put my own mnemonics onto it. The mneomics part is easy for me, the only difficulty is the background/interspace/memory palace location. Having enough actual memory palaces.
My honest opinion is that you need to start to try things out as soon as possible.
Memory palace scarcity is a very common beginner’s fear (I wasn’t immune either). But the truth is, like any creative activity, the more you use it, the more material you find. The less you use it, to keep the good ideas/memory palaces for later, the less you have. With a bit of experience, you’ll find that so many things/places can be a memory palace that there’s no point worrying.
Right now you’re losing time (procrastinating?) because you don’t actually know what problems you’re really going to have. You absolutely need to practice first. If you’re set on making AI creating memory palaces for you, then do it! That way you will know if it’s a good idea, and what you’ll need to refine it, because you’ll have real problems to solve.
Any system you create is going to evolve with practice. Like for any skills your first tries are probably going to be crappy. You absolutely have to practice to already have made the most errors and have some experience of the technique, before you actually use it for something important.
That’s typically a question that absolutely will ALWAYS vary form person to person.
If you read the examples on this forum, some people report not being able to zoom in at all (somebody said max. one locus per object), somebody posted an image of about 20 stations on one apple, and if you’re a microbiologist or something you may be comfortable to zoom in to the cellular level… memory depends on YOUR brain and YOUR experience. The basic principles are universal but the specifics are never going to apply to everyone. It’s highly personal and that’s not going to change!
So if the question doesn’t give you rest, make a hypothesis (take a shot in the dark if you must) and test it! Try it out, then correct your hypothesis, and try again. And again. There really isn’t any other way to know than actually taking action.
If your mind map is vividly imagined you can use it as loci.
Never need to overcomplicate.
Usually i see those terms used interchangeably- palace implies loci where map implies map of the loci. For me they’re the same. I dont have a map of my liminal space it exists as loci