Using Google Street View to create a memory palace

[cheesyserviette (Jonas)]

Hey everybody,

I dabbled a bit in using the method of loci and while it was very effective, I had two major problems:

• I didn’t want to use real places because I was afraid to overwrite existing memories
• I wanted to add memories systematically and “order” my knowledge

I came across this idea that solves these problems wonderfully: using Google street view to create a memory palace. My plan is to use the city of Paris and put different areas of knowledge in different quartiers.

If anybody has done something similar I’d be happy to know how it turned out. General ideas and tips about this are also welcome

[bjoern.gumboldt]

Done exactly that… I’d recommend buying some cheap 10-20 dollar VR goggles to put your phone into… the immersion and the 3d environment helps a lot.

Paris - 2,000 Digits Of Pi

Hi everyone, I’ve just published my memory palace for the first 2,100 digits of pi on Memrise: https://www.memrise.com/course/2083137/paris-2000-digits-of-pi/ Paris is conveniently divided into 20 arrondissements, so 2,000 digits can be broken down to 100 per arr. Each arr. in turn is subdivided into four quartiers, resulting in 25 digits each. Distributing 25 digits across five loci on a route relating to each quartier, I store 5 digits per location. Use Google Maps to create your …

[cheesyserviette (Jonas)]

Hahah that is really cool! Thanks for sharing and the tip! Do you think I could run into the problem of Google updating the photos and not recognizing loci (as well) anymore?

[Bigdonnyv (Don Michael Vickers)]

Yep. Great idea!

[Jmsmithpsyd (Jason Smith)]

That is a great idea with the vr headset and street views!

[Santipalo (Aleksandr)]

Appears to be rather complicated. Or maybe one is getting old

[bjoern.gumboldt]

@cheesyserviette

Do you think I could run into the problem of Google updating the photos and not recognizing loci (as well) anymore?

Depends on the locations you pick, I’d say… doubt they’re gonna move the any of the major landmarks. Might not be so lucky if you pick for example a smaller store and then they change locations.

What did you want your memory palaces to look like? For example, the fountain I’m talking about in the above post is not going to move and pretty save… not sure if Google Maps let’s you go inside the garden though.

[cheesyserviette (Jonas)]

Thanks for your reply, that should be true. I’ve started yesterday and it works well so far. The problem I’m running into though is that I don’t really know how many loci I will end up needing, so I’m starting out really small. I have distributed around five loci from Pont Saint-Michèl to Petit Pont. Just eyeballing, this seems around ten times more dense than your distribution.

I suspect that I will need a few thousand loci in the end, but I’m not really sure. I’m trying to put all of the information for my (law) degree in there that I just have to learn by brute force (meaning there’s no real way to “understand” the information).

Do you have an idea for an approach that allows me to use memorable loci while at the same time not running out of space at some point?