Has anyone here read the book Excavating the Memory Palace: Arts of Visualization from the Agora to the Computer by Seth Long? It looks interesting.
With the prevalence of smartphones, massive data storage, and search engines, we might think of today as the height of the information age. In reality, every era has faced its own challenges of storing, organizing, and accessing information. While they lacked digital devices, our ancestors, when faced with information overload, utilized some of the same techniques that underlie our modern interfaces: they visualized and spatialized data, tying it to the emotional and sensory spaces of memory, thereby turning their minds into a visual interface for accessing information.
In Excavating the Memory Palace, Seth David Long mines the history of Europe’s arts of memory to find the origins of today’s data visualizations, unearthing how ancient constructions of cognitive pathways paved the way for modern technological interfaces. Looking to techniques like the memory palace, he finds the ways that information has been tied to sensory and visual experience, turning raw data into lucid knowledge. From the icons of smart phone screens to massive network graphs, Long shows us the ancestry of the cyberscape and unveils the history of memory as a creative act.
Chapter 1. Arts of Memory in the Agora
Chapter 2. Arts of Memory in the Monastery
Chapter 3. The Memory Palace in Ruins
Chapter 4. The Memory Palace Modernized
Chapter 5. Theory and Practice of a Digital Ars Memoria
Chapter 6. The Social Memory Palace
Excavating the Memory Palace looks like a very fascinating book with some great historical techniques to uncover, @Josh. Thanks for the notice, I’ve ordered it and plan to read it soon!
I picked up a copy of it in April and have made it through the introduction and first chapter. He’s a professor writing from the perspective of a rhetorician and is generally extending some of the academic research started by Frances Yates. I’ll write more as I have time, but I’m in the midst of a few dozen books at the moment. I wish I could focus on this and one or two others.
I’ll note that for those interested, it’s likely based on a shorter journal article that the same author wrote in 2017 with a similar title: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07350198.2017.1281691 A little digging around should uncover a free copy of it. If you’re desperate, I have a digital copy he emailed me a while back.
I finished Excavating the Memory Palace but didn’t think it worth talking about on the forum since it was terribly academic. Throughout the historical journey Long took me on, he seemed focused on the motivations for why the memory palace was picked up or discarded based on the worldview of the time.
So, it turned out to be more philosophical than the practical evolution of the memory palace that I was looking for. I can say for sure that he has dug deeper than anyone else I’ve read concerning the influences of Ad Herennium and Quintillian. And I can also say, he added more to the reputation of mnemonics in academia than anyone else that I’ve read. A brilliant writer.
I would add that the emphasis he makes in the relation between the art of memory (particularly the Memory Palace) and the art of inventio and “creative info integration” was very suggestive (at least in the introduction and first chapter), not stressed enough in other materials. I stopped reading it because it wouldn’t seem to be any practical advice to actually use the memory palace for intellectual “invention”. Did you find anything in later chapters? I would definitely go back to it if there is anything, but don’t really seems like it.
If your interest, like mine, was practical application, you did well to stop when you got the gist of it. I started “speed reading” after the first few chapters, which for me is just skipping across the paragraphs looking for something to slow down for.
That’s what I thought, Doug. Thanks for your answer. I’m really interested to know how others are using memory techniques as aid for thought. Of course, one can imagine, and it’s been very useful for me since it helps me to remember related information, even if it’s not coded explicitly as so in my memory palaces. Examples of how it works for other people would be very interesting. Cheers!
@DanteGaxiola, the process and practical examples of good usage have been my passion since I joined the site. It turned into a 300+ page document that I might be ready to release in a year or so. I took a detour to release my Major system dictionary and create a teaching curriculum but nobody is knocking at my door for anything so I’m not rushing.
Would you tell me some of the uses for such a dictionary? I currently use a Dominic PAO system for number memorization, very useful for memorizing years. Are there other uses for the Major that I’m not aware of? Maybe pegs?
ÂżIs that for a course? I recently gave my first cohort-based course online dedicated to memory techniques (mnemonics, but also spaced repetition, active recall and elaborative recall). Would love to contrast and discuss curricula, experiences and approaches!
