Some realizations about memory and learning I’ve been thinking about recently
EDIT: here are some great posts on memory which are a deconfused version of this shortform (and written by EY’s wife!)
Anki (and SRS in general) is a tool for efficiently writing directed graph edges to the brain. thinking about encoding knowledge as a directed graph can help with making good Anki cards.
Memory techniques are somewhat-analogous to data structures as well, e.g. the link method corresponds to a doubly linked list
“Memory techniques” should be called “Memory principles” (or even laws).
The “Code is Data” concept makes me realize memorization is more widely applicable, you could e.g. memorize the algorithm for integration in calculus. Many “creative” processes like integration can be reduced to an algorithm.
Truely part of you is not orthogonal to memory techniques principles, it uses the fact that a densely connected graph is less likely to be disconnected from randomly deleting edges, similar to how the link and story methods. Just because you aren’t making silly images doesn’t mean you aren’t using the principles.
(untested idea for math): Journal about your thought processes after solving each problem, then generalize to form a problem solving algorithm / checklist and memorize the algorithm
I’ll write some posts when I get stuff working, I feel a Sense That More Is Possible in this area, but I don’t want to write stuff till I can at least say it works well for me.
Some realizations about memory and learning I’ve been thinking about recently EDIT: here are some great posts on memory which are a deconfused version of this shortform (and written by EY’s wife!)
Anki (and SRS in general) is a tool for efficiently writing directed graph edges to the brain. thinking about encoding knowledge as a directed graph can help with making good Anki cards.
Memory techniques are somewhat-analogous to data structures as well, e.g. the link method corresponds to a doubly linked list
“Memory techniques” should be called “Memory principles” (or even laws).
The “Code is Data” concept makes me realize memorization is more widely applicable, you could e.g. memorize the algorithm for integration in calculus. Many “creative” processes like integration can be reduced to an algorithm.
Truely part of you is not orthogonal to memory
techniquesprinciples, it uses the fact that a densely connected graph is less likely to be disconnected from randomly deleting edges, similar to how the link and story methods. Just because you aren’t making silly images doesn’t mean you aren’t using the principles.(untested idea for math): Journal about your thought processes after solving each problem, then generalize to form a problem solving algorithm / checklist and memorize the algorithm
[edited]
Good comments, thanks for sharing both.
’d love to hear more about practical insights on how to get better at recalling + problem-solving.
I’ll write some posts when I get stuff working, I feel a Sense That More Is Possible in this area, but I don’t want to write stuff till I can at least say it works well for me.
= finding shortest paths on a weighted directed graph, where the shortest path cost must be below some threshold :)