Building Long-Term Mnemonics: Strategy & Techniques (a Beau Journal)

[beau2am]

On Expanding Palace Breadth, Depth, and Traversal Ease and Speed

(not to be confused with the Cyber Mnemonics journal, which is about my mnemonics for Computer Science subjects like programming syntax and networking concepts)

[a Beau Journal]

I’ve not kept it a secret. The past couple months I’ve been deep-dive bingeing books (and other materials) from Information Sciences, Modern Mnemonics, Medieval/Post-Medieval Mnemonics to pair it up with my own troubles.

My troubles? A lot of information. A lot of palaces. But no “Global Index”, so to speak. So although I usually jump (mentally) right to the info I want, if I want to “browse”, I lack a preset and structured way to do so.

Like having a default route for a morning walk.

Considering the amount of possible combinations of paths I could take on a “morning walk”, the result has been Decision Paralysis.

And instead I do other things.

I’ve also begun sharpening up my speed skills. I used to be faster at strings of numbers and words and such, but my focus for the past few years has gone into “system” memorization, I guess it could be called. Where I’ve experimenting with developing intrinsic relationships to recall data (see: using isomorphic-ish patterns as cues, but that sounds way too fancy).

I did speed tests this morning. Random names, random words, and random numbers.

Slow.

Yesterday morning I avoided the room my phone was in entirely, and I sat with pen and paper for a couple hours scribbling out as many potential new Memory Palaces as I could muster out of my personal experiences and interests.

I probably got a couple hundred. Which surprised me. But that’s why it took a couple hours. They kept coming, so I kept writing.

I set a goal for picking at least one New palace from the list every day, and “using it” (eg, speed tests, task lists, etc).

“Picking” individual locations out of a new Palace is also slow. I timed myself and documented it.

I placed images from my 00-99 to see how many individual, ordered locations I could establish and remember in a minute.

I’ll keep working on it. Kinda shaking my head at my speed.
A lot of room for improvement.

Martial Arts, Physicality, and Dancing for Lists

Last night as I lay staring at the ceiling in the dark pining for the iPhone I left on my living room couch, an idea occurred to me that I might create a set of lists to cycle through. Not a new idea.

But my idea was to use my mnemonics for Martial Arts (Kuk Sool Won).

How would that look?

I have 6 full sets of Techniques (between 6 and 15 techniques in each set, usually closer to 15) so far, plus 4 Forms (which are longer, more methodical sequences of movements, like a dance but with punching and could be in a Kung Fu movie).

I’m going to experiment with using the each set of Techniques as my Daily To-Do list (ie Task list).

I’ll use Forms to memorize weekly-ish goals and priorities. Forms have parts. The first form, Ki Cho Hyung, is taught in 6 parts (a sequence of 6 sequences)

Fair enough, I thought. That’s up to 6 goals and for each goal there’s room for additional info.

Edit: I just thought, ah, if I do each Technique or Form plus a mirror version (e.g., instead of performing a technique with the right hand, use the left) I can double the size of the “palace” (and get some good practice).

A Global Palace or Global Index

“Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.”
The Pragmatic Programmer (Thomas & Hunt)

That quote pretty much echoes what I read in The Organization of Information by Arlene G Taylor and Intro to Indexing and Abstracting by the Clevelands.

I’ve begun experimenting with a Global Indexing system of my own devising. We’ll see how it comes along as I document it. But not in this post.

Regards,
Beau

[benediktus]

Hi @beau2am,

Really good text! I am also wondering about different strategies to make better systems and to categorize info more intelligently.

I often notice that images within a palace trigger images withingin that same palace, but not across palaces even if the topic was the same.

I am thinking about not jumping head first (memorizing) anymore before I have established at least some kind of plan or a structure and documented it. This will probably take some drawing and mental architecture.

At the same time, I think that there is some beauty in a chaotic mind palace and maybe that is something that makes things stick better.

I remember in the book “The mind of a mnemonist” the main character complained that if he needed to remember something that reminded him of one country and next something that reminded him of another country, he would need to mentally travel between the countries, which he found exhausting.

[beau2am]

Thank you, @benediktus

@benediktus

I often notice that images within a palace trigger images withingin that same palace, but not across palaces even if the topic was the same.

I notice a similar thing.

I’ll share my solution (it works quite well for me):
When I want to connect imagery/concepts across palaces, I create and memorize an index.

The index acts like a mini-palace that is always traversed in the same order, but the imagery clarifies where I can find each concept in its original palace.

I’ve taken a lot of time to slow down and review how I organize the information, and now I’m going to experiment with a combination of systems to see if they will work as an easy “Global Index” of sorts.

I’m hosting two calls tomorrow for folks interested in this topic. If you’re interested and available, I’d love for you to join and to hear your thoughts more.

>>See this post here.<<

Regards,
Beau

[beau2am]

Types of Data Packages and Considerations

(aka, the various types of things to memorize, and considerations on storing them)

In preparation for the Memory Study Groups I’m hosting online tomorrow, I’ve generalized a few things:

• Giordano Bruno’s “Types” of Mnemonic Devices
• Information Sciences “Types” of Data to catalogue

I’ll give a brief layout here:

TL;DR

TLDR Summary

What’s the recipe for a Global Mnemonic Palace or Global Index?

Maybe these 4 things:

• Immutable Containers (relatively immutable)
• Mutable Containers like Imagery, Furniture, Props, etc
• A catalogue (or multiple) for Discrete data with clear beginnings and endings
• Conventions (one or more) for cataloguing Continuous Data (with no known ending).

Bruno

Bruno has one main “Type” of Object (or Mnemonic Device):

• The Container
  • (He calls them subjects, but their purpose is to be a receptacle for imagery, symbolism, and information/data)

Their are 2 primary “Types” of Containers:

1. Immutable
   • (Containers that don’t change much.. so, mostly immutable is more accurate)
   • Examples: A specific Room. A specific Deity. A conceptually sound convention
     • (eg, numbers have an implicit order: 2 never comes before 1.)
2. Mutable
   • (He calls these “adjects” or “adjective subjects”)
   • These are “images” or symbols used to reference specific information.
   • These can be modified, altered, affected, moved.
   • They’re still containers in their own right.

Information Scientists and Architects

(eg, Librarians and Archivists)

These folks grapple with categorizing two main types of Data:

1. Discrete or Finite Data

   • Also referred to as “Static” or “Monographs”.
   • The information has a clear-cut beginning and end.
     • Examples: The Great Gatsby (novel), Your childhood pet’s life, Today’s lunch, a Date (like September 11 2001), a finished series like Philip Marlowe detective novels written by Raymond Chandler (there will be no more, Chandler’s long since passed).

2. Continuing Data

   • Such as an unfinished series (like The Simpsons, or your food preferences)

   • Two types exist:

     A. Diachronic: Where there is one main entry, but periodically updated [a Dicitonary Definition is a good example. Merriam Webster refers you to the most recent, updated definition, even though it’s changed over time].
     (also known as an “Integrating Resource”)
     (the latest version is always shown first)

     B. Continuing Serial: Where the earliest instance is what you’re shown first when you ask for it, and updates are indicated in the notes.
     (Major changes, as opposed to minor updates, will cause an updated description in the main entry)
     –Examples: [Your favorite ongoing Netflix series (you want to see the “earlier” episodes first), or topics of indiscriminate length (like the topic: Programming, if the knowledge will continue to grow indefinitely)]

How to tell?

Discrete / Finite Data:

• You can count it all up.

Continuous Data

• You can’t count it all up, however you probably can measure what exists

Finite Data is handy, and can be grouped up pretty easily.

However, Continuous Data is challenging.

• This is where an information architect must devise appropriate conventions

Quick Summary

What is the recipe for a Global Mnemonic Palace or Global Index?

It might require:

• Immutable Containers (relatively immutable)
• Mutable Containers like Imagery, Furniture, Props, etc
• A catalogue (or multiple) for Discrete data with clear beginnings and endings
• Conventions (one or more) for cataloguing Continuous Data (with no known ending).

The Dewey Decimal System is a good example of a convention.

As a fan of network engineering (ie, how systems communicate with each other), I also view “Conventions” as “Protocols”.

Example: IPv4 and IPv6 are two distinct Protocols (or Conventions).

So?

See any similarities to stuff you’ve memorized (or would like to)?

[beau2am]

2 things:

1. Quick update on the Long Term Mnemonics study group I hosted
2. The beginnings of Temporary Storage for a Global Scoped Mnemonic Palace/Indexing system.

Study Group

The Long Term Mnemonics Study Group I hosted this month, went swimmingly.

Scheduled for only 30 minutes, of the attendees, the first person to leave the call did so at the 80 minute mark.

I officially closed it up at around 100 minutes.

To-do:

• I still need to do the write-up and send out notes, and any other followup materials.

And participants expressed interest in doing another.

Temporary Storage

I’ll be documenting this a little more for the study group folks.

I’m implementing “Temporary Storage”.

This is an ongoing List of Palaces. Each palace is indexed (so there’s an established order).

The only extra convention I’ve added at this point is the even numbered palaces are outside, while odd numbered palaces are inside_locations.

Outside and Inside refers to where a palace starts.

Temp Storage Palace 1 (outside), for instance, is my Grandfather’s land (taken from my memories).
Palace 2 (inside), is a bar my dad worked at for 20 years.
Palace 3 (outside) is a specific park I know well.
Palace 4 (inside) is a club I frequented with friends.

As I obtain new information (that I’d like memorized), I choose a temporary storage palace (usually the next one in the index).

I can review the information this way.

I’m constantly adding new Palaces to the Index/List from the hours-long memory-hunt I did the other day (where I listed as many potential palaces as I could think of in 2-3 hours on paper).

Currently I have 16 Palaces available for Temp Storage. I expect the Temp Storage List > 99 eventually (maybe a week or two).

I review the information in the Temp Storage Palaces (like you would normally for any palace you want to remember), but eventually I will refigure (i.e., reassign) the Information_Packages within Temp Storage Palaces to a Global Palace (i.e., a “final” resting place for the data to be retrieved).

There’s a lot more to my thoughts on this, but it’s been very helpful so far since I started implementing it.

One major benefit, I never have to slow down. I always have another palace to save information. A palace that won’t get lost in my mind, I’ll happily add.

[vsengy (Verdi)]

I missed this session i need this …

[beau2am]

@anon83952945 Thanks for sharing that. A great read, and delightful to fill in my understanding of the famous “S”.

[Magno]

Thirty Seals & The Seal Of Seal - Giordano Bruno

[beau2am]

@Magno is there an online translation somewhere?

im past my personal book allowance.

[beau2am]

Note to future Beau:

If you want to experience an intense series of rapid-fire Ah-Ha's, without question, learn a new topic by memorizing terms and terminology WITHOUT the definitions. 

Oh yes, Beau, there are plenty of reasons NOT to do this. 

Even so, nothing is going to make your eyebrows automatically raise more consistently than exposure to study materials AFTER memorizing *only* terminology and syntax *without* the prior context. 

It's dog-gone near my favorite study method because it's so dang invigorating. The intellectual "Hallelujuah" is downright addicting.

What a treat.

Regards,
Past Beau.

[DeliberateDopamine (Troublemaker)]

Hmm, isn’t the “global index” issue solved if you enumerate the locations?

Given that you have characters corresponding to numbers you then have an intrinsic hook for novel pieces of information, the location, and its index.

[beau2am]

It is, yes.

I do enumerate my temporary storage palaces.

I could experiment with enumerating my more persistent (ie, long-tem) palaces.

There is, however, a hangup. Perhaps it’s only in my mind. I might still be able to enumerate.

In information sciences, they refer to the concept of “main access point” for any node (book, reference material, topic, series, etc).

The routes (in my town) that I use to encode the various technical info get a little mixed up (not in a confusing way, in a sort of dream-logical way).

As I add more info I also am not sure I want to keep similar topics apart from each other in the global (enumerated) index.

So it either entails somewhat frequent refiguring (which is a bad idea methinks^[1]), or as the list extends further and further the topics get mixed.

A short way to picture my conundrum would be to imagine a librarian attempting to organize a large assortment of continuously growing materials. And someone asks, “Why not just use an enumerated list for all of them?”

“Yes,” the librarian says hesitantly, “but one giant enumeration across all these topics and subtopics and facts and reference materials and resources?”

“That seems like a good way to create a confusing labyrinth of knowledge down the line, no?”

Imagine a library where all resources are enumerated roughly by order of receipt.

Browsing that library sounds a little unappealing to me.

---

1. My current opinion on refiguring is that it should be done once on intentionally rare occasions so that the new order remains memorable and the ghosting effect can be minimized/eliminated. ↩︎

[DeliberateDopamine (Troublemaker)]

Hmm, I don’t think of the enumeration as the end-all-be-all. I mostly just think of it as an initial scaffolding for digital tools and search. You can always refigure it later

For me it’s quite natural at this point. But maybe there are some underlying approaches and assumptions that differ, which make us view it differently?

I’d imagine that your approach is more refined than mine, as I’m still quite fresh to all of this.

[beau2am]

I think I’ll attempt it anyway. I agree with the scaffolding idea.

At the very least it gets me listing things out.

Which I probably avoid doing because almost the whole northeast quadrant of my town has some sort of associated encodings.

Which just means its a lot and feels like a hassle to document.

I’m quite behind on my flash cards, and that’s partly how I’ve gotten myself to experiment with other methods of review.

Fortunately the cards I remember rarely recur within the month. Most = 3 to 6 months at this point.

Extra-fortunately, I find that “forgetting” key concepts has been helpful in establishing stronger long-term mnemonics.
—And in allowing me to have more breadth in the study materials without boring myself with review materials.
—Not something I was going for, but by this point I feel a certain confidence in the process of "forgetting." So thats comforting.

[DeliberateDopamine (Troublemaker)]

I often schedule Anki reviews such as review 1-85 (one theme), or the numbered locations associated to a day, maybe 243-288.

I find it goes faster when I do chunks in sequence, although of course it does make the review easier, but I think if the topics are related then it’s also a win that you activate adjacent and related concepts in sequence.

[beau2am]

Although I’ve seen this advised against, my cards sometimes (often) contain entire mnemonic lists.

One card asks me to list all 47 methods of Python’s string:
str() function and their respective categories (I have a few variations of anki cards for different parts of that list, too).

Two other cards cover the entirety of Python’s built in Exception hierarchy (sans definitions).

I’d rather review fewer cards even if they’re longer to review.

One card asks me for the skeleton structure of Cisco IOS router configuration commands.

here’s my card (front & back) for a portion of Python’s math module:

### front
Python math Module:
Number and Theoretic Representation Functions

### back:
(functions and arguments)
1. math.ceil(x)
2. math.comb(n, k)
3. math.copysign(x, y)
4. math.fabs(x)
5. math.factorial(n)
6. math.floor(x)
7. math.fmod(x, y)
8. math.frexp(x)
9. math.fsum(iterable)
10. math.gcd(*integers)
11. math.isclose(a, b, *, rel_tol=1e-09, abs_tol=0.0)
12. math.isfinite(x)
13. math.isinf(x)
14. math.isnan(x)
15. math.isqrt(n)
16. math.lcm(*integers)
17. math.ldexp(x, i)
18. math.modf(x)
19. math.nextafter(x, y, steps=1)
20. math.perm(n, k=None)
21. math.prod(iterable, *, start=1)
22. math.remainder(x, y)
23. math.sumprod(p, q)
24. math.trunc(x)
25. math.ulp(x)

A number of cards interleave different aspects of the same domain:

Example 1
#Python Built in Function Arguments: F, G, H
### front:

all *arguments* for functions that start with letters 'F, G, and H'

### back

filter(function, iterable)
class float(x=0.0)
format(value, format_spec='') _
class froze:nset(iterable=set())

getattr(object, name)
getattr(object, name, default)

globals()

hasattr(object, name)
hash(object)

help()
help(request)

hex(x)

Example 2
# FRONT: Python built in Types:

How do you extract parts from a complex number

and what are the constants of the bool type?
Back:
---
Use z.real and z.imag for a complex number z.

The bool type has two constants: True and False.

It’s probably not a terrible surprise that I have a backlog of over 200 cards.

But related information gets recalled together when I review, and I find I usually recall most things even when I’m behind schedule.

@anon83952945:

I use tags. I have very few tags—that way I don’t get overwhelmed by them nor do I feel that keeping up with the tags is hassle.

I’ll add one or two (three tops) tags if I add a tag.

I probably don’t even have a total of 20 tags in my system. That’s how I arrange by topic.

I only have one deck. All cards go into it.

[paulvirtual (paul)]

Interesting overall topic. I’ve most recently worked in the subtopic you call “A Global Topic or Global Index”.

Why would I want one?

For me, it’s what do I want to permanently learn, retain and be able to quickly recall/use for the rest of my life. It can’t be too much, because review of too much becomes too onerous. And creates too much clutter. So I want to size this global index, so that in my lifetime, there are about 100 things, so they can’t be too granular. I’ll assume if an item is in the list, I’ve already learned it to the point that I only need review it every 30-60 days to retain it (of course I’m free to review them more ofteN). Of course, this is perhaps less that 0.5% of stuff I know, it’s the part I’m committed to practicing.

And then, once I have a global index, I can use it as a guide for what & when I need to do spaced repetition/recall rehearsal/Leitner box/review on.

Examples: So an example of one thing like this is: "My 00-99 PAO system for numbers, Two others are “The 10 main concepts/ideas of linear algebra”, another is my “top 10 memory palaces for temporary use in memorizing number or cards”. A fourth is a ten minute “elevator speech about my company to give to important visitors or employment candidates”. A fifth example is “20 important physical constants”: like the speed of sound in air, the speed of sound in water. Another example is “explain the overall method of finite element analysis in a 10 minute whiteboard talk”. And another, have a “history journey like Lynne Kelly of about 100-200 key events”. Finally, what are “my top 15 passwords and key numbers (like wife’s SS number)”. Just examples. Many others.

Clearly, I could get a notebook (or make a digital one) and just write down the names of each of these items in the global index in a list. No real need to use any memory techniques. Then I would review one a day, cycling through the list.

But I decided I wanted to internalize this list–hoping for synergy and creativity. But what would make this global index (I call it the UberMetaPalace) unique among all my other palaces and peg lists? I read a 1-2 sentence idea in an excellent book by Joe Reddington. He uses the periodic table for this. And I decided to do that too since I had once (pre mnemonics) memorized it and thought I could again. And of course, I would write the associations down too, just in case. But absolutely no need to use something technical, could be any kind of master list.

So H and He are for things that I am learning, but have not learned. They are in progress. They change. Everything else, I’ve committed to retaining for life.

I won’t bore you with everything, but some examples: Lithium (element 3) is my 00-99 PAO for numbers, Sodium is a list of new English words that I learn from now on, just stored as a linked list. Gallium is a linked list of jokes, Each entry in the row from Rubidium to Xenon are memory palaces journeys–they each get their own element. Krypton is a list of good lifetime memories (as suggested by Reddington): Grand Island bridge fun, getting into grad school, son’s first game-winning hit, The Bicentennial, kids’ births, a trip to France, blah, blah, blah.

At least half the elements remain free for future use. And I’ve dropped a few already after realizing I’m not really committed to them.

[DeliberateDopamine (Troublemaker)]

I think that is only advised against for regular flashcards, not if you have memory palace integration. For memory palace I think going through the sequence is:

1. Memory Enhancer - The associations and sequence have been sequentially embedded before, so it makes it easier to recall.
2. More fun - In my estimation at least
3. Way faster - Going through 500 loci in sequence is way way faster, than having to jump through 500 loci in individual flashcard, even if they are not out of order, I would still much rather just go through them all in my mind’s eye without having to look at Anki in-between or press buttons