Wouldn’t it be great to have a photographic memory? We’ve all heard of people who have photographic memories, haven’t we? It turns out no one has a photographic memory. No one. I once had a business project where we needed to get people with photographic memories. I talked to a professor at the University of Washington and he was the one who burst my bubble on this. I asked for a recommendation on a good, general interest book on human memory. He disappointed me again, telling me there were no such books.
That was then. Now there is a good, general interest book on human memory. It is titled Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. The author started his journey researching human memory when he covered the U.S. National Memory Championship for Slate magazine. He expected to meet people with photographic memories (he didn’t) or, at least, people with exception natural ability (he didn’t). He met people with ordinary memories who train very hard and have techniques they use to memorize things.
There are a few documented cases of people with very exceptional memories. These people are a bit freakish. The best known is a person who was called “S” in the literature and who was studied for 30 years. S did not forget things. He also had a disorder called synesthesia, which causes the senses to be intertwined. Sounds would have textures and colors to S. Numbers had personalities. To remember something, S would mentally ‘park’ it along a familiar street.
There is also a chapter on Rain Man. The movie is not accurate and most of the top memory athletes don’t think Rain Man is for real. Another chapter covers a man with the worst memory in the world. He can’t remember anything except the present. But he knows how to speak, knows right from wrong and seems to know his immediate neighborhood.
There are two types of memory. Declarative memories you know you remember. Nondeclarative memories are things we know unconsciously. Most of our personalities are based on nondeclarative memories. Declarative memories are further divided into semantic memories of facts and concepts and episodic memories of experiences.
For memory athletes, the foremost reference is a Latin text called Rhetorica ad Herennium. Various cultures have developed their own systems; all rely on loci. That is, placing memories in places in the mind. For example, in a house or, as S did, on a familiar street. This is where we get the expression, “In the first place.”
Memory athletes use various techniques to remember things. For example, to memorize a deck of cards, in order, they have associated various images with particular cards. For example, the ten of clubs might be a monkey on a chain, the ace of spades might be Dom Deluise hula-hooping, while the jack of hearts might be a moonwalking Einstein. Hence the title of the book. It seems like the association of an image with a card would make the whole task harder. It doesn’t. The best memory athletes can memorize ten 52-card decks, in order, in an hour. In fact, this is the standard to be considered a Grand Master of Memory.
Before writing, remembering was the only way to preserve history. The ancients considered remembering and learning to be the same. Socrates thought writing things down was a waste of time. Writing was the beginning of the end of remembering. The printing press accelerated this trend. The internet and Google search almost makes memorization unnecessary.
Still, to be able to remember names of people and other data would sure be helpful. The author goes through a year of intensive training in preparation for the U.S. Memory Championship. He wins on his first try.
This qualified the author to represent the United States at the World Championships, something he had never considered. In the end he finishes 13th out of 37 contestants at the World Championships in London.
Would I recommend you pursue being a memory athlete? Oh, hell no! It seems like a colossal waste of time. But I would recommend this book to you.
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