timeline

[alexxx]

I always had an awful memory for dates, and my newborn interest in memory techniques now is giving me hope to be able to overcome my limits.

My problem is that I havent a definite scale in mind. To give you an example, I’ve always been irritated at my inability to remember Earth epochs (Cambrian, Ordovician etc) associated to the main events in them (main extinctions, changes in the atmosphere etc): here the timescale is million/billion years.

Then I’d like to keep in my memory the human history main events: the timescale is much lower (less than 10000 years) but the scale is finer.

I guess the only solution here is to use 2 different palaces. Or I could use one, with the last stop (I use wikipedia here - oh how I’d like to have it in memory!) being the Holocene, this epoch, the more recent, expanding in a palace on its own…
Anyway, the problem would repeat itself on other scales, because events in the last two centuries would of course require a different loci density when compared to, say, 1000BC.

Another problem nagging me is that I often develop new interests - one of the more recents e.g. being bookbinding. Say I want to add all the major events in the history of the book development on an already existing journey - I should add the arrival of the Codex in the 1st century AD, or the parchment in the 5th AD … all in loci already cluttered by images pertaining battles and other events! Do you think it is possible - or do I risk creating a confusing warehouse?
At the same time, it would be wonderful to take a look at the 5th century locus, and see beside the parchment arrival also the fall of the Roman Empire, the invention of the armenian alphabet etc…

So to summarize the problem seems to me mainly of the correct setup - also because I do not imagine to fill everything from the start in a time-linear fashion, it would be more like a progressive, parallel growth at different places (another problem with the journey method, I fear, where order - according to Aristotle - is paramount).

One method of tackling the problem that I’m currently exploring is using Google SketchUp: it seems the more natural 3D program I ever saw, and I hope I could become so proficient with it to be able to expand my timeline mansion as needs arises. Anybody tried it yet?

I fear it is not an easy task, but I felt it worthy to be asked to your collective experience!

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

@alexxx

I’ve always been irritated at my inability to remember Earth epochs (Cambrian, Ordovician etc) associated to the main events in them (main extinctions, changes in the atmosphere etc): here the timescale is million/billion years.

That would make a great Weekly Memory Challenge (memorizing this table).

@alexxx

I guess the only solution here is to use 2 different palaces. Or I could use one, with the last stop (I use wikipedia here - oh how I’d like to have it in memory!) being the Holocene, this epoch, the more recent, expanding in a palace on its own…

I haven’t tried it yet. I would probably try to memorize one major timeline along a journey and then either attach new images to existing ones (e.g., loci on a previous image’s body–head, eyebrows, nose, etc.), or jump to a separate journey.

I’m still thinking about this idea, but it requires some advance preparation, which I haven’t had time to do yet.

@alexxx

One method of tackling the problem that I’m currently exploring is using Google SketchUp: it seems the more natural 3D program I ever saw, and I hope I could become so proficient with it to be able to expand my timeline mansion as needs arises. Anybody tried it yet?

I downloaded it, but didn’t spend any time with it yet. If you manage to create anything interesting with Google SketchUp, you could upload a picture to the images section of the site.