Bookmarked The Memory Arts in Renaissance England: A Critical Anthology by William E. Engel
This is the first critical anthology of writings about memory in Renaissance England. Drawing together excerpts from more than seventy writers, poets, physicians, philosophers and preachers, and with over twenty illustrations, the anthology offers the reader a guided exploration of the arts of memory. The introduction outlines the context for the tradition of the memory arts from classical times to the Renaissance and is followed by extracts from writers on the art of memory in general, then by thematically arranged sections on rhetoric and poetry, education and science, history and philosophy, religion, and literature, featuring texts from canonical, non-canonical and little-known sources. Each excerpt is supported with notes about the author and about the text's relationship to the memory arts, and includes suggestions for further reading. The book will appeal to students of the memory arts, Renaissance literature, the history of ideas, book history and art history.

book cover

Read I Was Wrong About Speed Reading: Here are the Facts by Scott H. Young (Scott H Young)
7 years ago I wrote an article about speed reading. Turns out I made a lot of mistakes. Discover why speed reading might not be as useful as expected.
Most speed reading material always seem off. This one is reasonably measured and at least indicates a balance between speed and comprehension and retention. Seems like a dearth of references here. I can’t imagine that there isn’t more peer reviewed research on speed reading and comprehension. 

Of course the memory portion can be handled relatively easily, but even that takes some work and repetition. 

Dr. Lynne Kelly’s research on history, indigenous people, and memory, and a dovetail with Big History

David Christian, Fred Spier, Bill Gates, Big History Institute, and other Big History researchers and thinkers, if you’re not already aware of her, allow me to introduce you to researcher Dr. Lynne Kelly. Her work dramatically expands our understanding of pre-literate societies’ learning, memory, and particularly collective learning. Further, it makes for a strong and fascinating story that could not only be integrated into Big History; it provides links between modern and pre-modern humans and ties deeply into ideas of origin stories, mythology, and early religion; and it provides actual methods for improving student’s memories and particularly that for history.

I think her work has some profound impact on the arc of Big History, particularly with respect to Threshold 6, well into Threshold 7, and continuing into the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. In true big history fashion, her thesis also touches heavily on a broad array of topics including anthropology, archaeology, psychology, neuroscience, history, and education.

A broad, reasonable introduction to her work can be had in CalTech physicist Sean Carroll’s  recent podcast interview.

Another short introduction is her TEDx Melbourne talk:

A solid popular science encapsulation of her work can be found in her book The Memory Code: The Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and Other Ancient Monuments (Pegasus Books, 2017).

A more thorough academic treatment of her work can naturally be found in:

With some work, I think her research could become a better foundational basis for a stronger bridge from threshold 6 into threshold 7 with dramatic impact on how we view origin stories, mythology, religion. It also has some spectacular implications for improving pedagogy and memory within our educational systems and how we view and use collective memory and even innovation in the modern world.

Watched Modern memory, ancient methods by Lynne Kelly from TEDxMelbourne | YouTube

Today, we explore whether memory still has a practical place in the world of big data and computing.

As a science writer, Lynne has written 18 books including The Memory Code. Her research showed that without writing, people used the most extraordinary suite of memory techniques to memorise massive amounts of practical information. This explains the purpose of monuments like Stonehenge, the Nazca Lines and the statues of Easter Island. Her next book, Unlocking The Memory Code explains the most effective memory methods from around the world and throughout time. Lynne shows how these can be invaluable in modern world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

I had watched this earlier this fall, but thought I’d take another peek for the compactness of the presentation.
Listened to Cool Tools 111: Nelson Dellis from SoundCloud

Our guest this week is Nelson Dellis. Nelson is one of the leading memory experts in the world, traveling around the world as a Memory Consultant and Keynote Speaker. A four-time USA Memory Champion, mountaineer, and Alzheimer's disease activist, he preaches a lifestyle that combines fitness, both mental and physical, with proper diet and social involvement. For show notes visit: http://kk.org/cooltools/nelson-dellis-usa-memory-champion

–Originally bookmarked on December 14, 2019 at 09:19AM
Listened to Alex Mullen On Mnemonic Speed, Mandarin And Medical Terminology by Anthony Metivier from Magnetic Memory Method

If you've ever wanted to bring efficiency to how you learn, use your PAO system to recall information, Alex Mullen, World Memory Champion has your back.

Interesting, but I don’t think I picked up any ideas or methods I didn’t already have.

Originally bookmarked on December 14, 2019 at 08:56AM

Listened to Sources and Methods #26: Alex Mullen from Sources & Methods

We cover a bunch of topics, including Alex’s memory training regimen and broader applications to education.

Originally bookmarked on December 14, 2019 at 08:31AM
Replied to Cornell Note-Taking System by Josh CohenJosh Cohen (Art of Memory Forum)

Has anyone tried the Cornell Note-taking System? It looks interesting.

They layout looks like this:

NotesCornell-pd

Here’s a summary:

1. Record: During the lecture, use the note-taking column to record the lecture using telegraphic sentences.
2. Questions: As soon after class as possible, formulate questions based on the notes in the right-hand column. Writing questions helps to clarify meanings, reveal relationships, establish continuity, and strengthen memory. Also, the writing of questions sets up a perfect stage for exam-studying later.
3. Recite: Cover the note-taking column with a sheet of paper. Then, looking at the questions or cue-words in the question and cue column only, say aloud, in your own words, the answers to the questions, facts, or ideas indicated by the cue-words.
4. Reflect: Reflect on the material by asking yourself questions, for example: “What’s the significance of these facts? What principle are they based on? How can I apply them? How do they fit in with what I already know? What’s beyond them?
5. Review: Spend at least ten minutes every week reviewing all your previous notes. If you do, you’ll retain a great deal for current use, as well as, for the exam.

More details:

I’ve used Cornell notes specifically with mnemonic methods before. In addition to the date, name, subject area, I’ll also write down an associated memory palace.

I typically keep some space in the recall column to write down associated PAO, Major System, etc. images related to the key concepts, dates, and other notes and sometimes include locations along with the images. Sometimes I may make the notes themselves the memory palace by drawing sketches, doodles or other drolleries into the margins. Depending on the information I may also encode details into other pre-existing palaces.

I can then come back to the notes and do spaced repetition over them to strengthen the images, loci, and ideas. Depending on the material, I might transfer the basics of the notes over to Anki or Mnemosyne for more formal spaced review.

Listened to Sources and Methods #34: Lynne Kelly by Alex Strick van LinschotenAlex Strick van Linschoten from Sources & Methods

Interview with Lynne Kelly primarily covering an overview of her memory-related works and focusing primarily on her academic work including her Ph.D. thesis and subsequent archaological-based texts. This appears to have been done prior to The Memory Code and so doesn’t cover those portions of some the more applied areas like her work in rapscallions or the bestiary.

Originally bookmarked on December 14, 2019 at 08:42AM

Listened to Memory Craft: Lynne Kelly On The Potent Power Of Ancient Mnemonics by Anthony Metivier from magneticmemorymethod.com

Cover of Memory Craft by Lynne KellyNot only is Lynne Kelly the author of several books on memory, but she is a highly skilled researcher, science educator, author and memory competitor.

Most known for her theory about Stonehenge’s purpose, she has also contributed to work in popular science and is a promoter of skepticism.

Lynne’s critical thinking and contributions to such a wide range of science subjects has led to awards from the Royal Zoological Society of South Wales among others. As a memory expert, Lynne Kelly is that rare practitioner who takes on large learning projects and shares the journey in addition to attending memory sport activities.

Episode covers:

  • The real reason why stores play such upbeat, catchy music.
  • Why outdoor Memory Palaces can be so helpful for memory retention.
  • The benefits of “setting aside” time for memory training versus incorporating practice into everyday life.
  • How vivid, violent, or vulgar imagery can bring abstract concepts to life.
  • Why “rapscallions” are useful memory tools and not just mischievous little creatures.
  • How art can help you remember more in a Memory Palace.
  • The pros and cons to living with aphantasia.
  • The key to using hooks and layering to create dynamic visuals.
  • How to “dialogue” with your memory aids.
  • Why we should encode using music and places for maximum mental skill (and possible mental health) benefits.
  • The usefulness of memory techniques for school aged children and their long-term effects.
  • The secret to overcoming “ghosting” when using memory techniques.

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A fascinating interview, but likely needs some additional introductory material to make sense of what is going on. The audience here are people who have at least a passing knowledge of mnemonics and many of it’s methods. I could have stood to hear a few more hours between these two given my academic interest in the area.

There’s an interesting segment on aphantasia and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the middle here. I’d definitely be interested in looking into the research on aphantasia more. There’s also some more material here on memory methods for education (compared with other interviews with Dr. Kelly). She does use a physics example on force and the idea of push/pull with respect to Star Wars which I’ve heard her mention before.

Originally bookmarked on December 07, 2019 at 01:11PM

An informal mnemonics podcast

I started out using Huffduffer to collect a handful of podcast interviews with LynneKelly on her work with mnemonics, but noticed a handful of others that had already been using various tags like “memory” and “mnemonics” on the service as well.

While I know there are some podcasts dedicated directly to memory, most of the ones I’ve tagged/highlighted in my list are one-off episodes or radio interviews that stand alone. I’ve also gone through a few past posts on the forum about podcast episodes relating to memory and tagged them as well.

I’ve seen a dozen or so other posts on the forum here in which people have mentioned particular podcasts, so I’ll mention that Huffduffer is a great audio-based web tool for finding, discovering, and collecting audio content. It also provides iTunes subscribe-able audio feeds for every account, collective, and even tag on the site.

If you’re interested in the topic of “mnemonics” you can subscribe to the public RSS feed on Huffduffer and you’ll automatically be updated in your podcatcher of choice whenever anyone else in the community uses Huffduffer and tags an audio file with the same “mnemonics” tag.

Happy listening and collecting.

Listened to Lynne Kelly: unlocking ancient memory storehouses by Richard Fidler from ABC Radio

Lynne Kelly is a science writer who was researching the methods used by ancient cultures to retain vast amounts of information about animals and plants.

She was looking into the way knowledge was recorded through stories, song and dance.

On a journey to Stonehenge in England, Lynne was struck by the thought that the makers of that monumental stone circle were doing the same thing.

Lynne's research suggests the stone circles of England, the huge animal shapes in Peru, and the statues of Easter Island, were not so much objects of superstition, but tools allowing people to create a huge storehouses of knowledge.

An academic with diverse interests including spiders, history, and scepticism, Lynne applies the memory 'code' to manage her own stores of facts and information.

Duration: 48min 28sec
Broadcast: 

Great introductory interview on Lynne Kelly’s work on indigenous memory just after her book The Memory Code came out.

Originally bookmarked on December 07, 2019 at 01:08PM

Listened to The Indigenous memory code by Lynne Malcolm from ABC Radio National
Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines hold the key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.

Have you ever wondered how ancient indigenous cultures maintain so much information about the thousands of species of plants and animals—without writing it down? Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines are key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world. It's intricately tied to the landscape and it can be applied in our everyday lives.

Duration: 28min 49sec
Broadcast: 

Another Lynne Kelly interview, but this one focuses more on the indigenous peoples of Australia and their memory techniques. Also some discussion of “dreaming” and songlines with Karen Adams here.

Originally bookmarked on December 07, 2019 at 01:13PM