Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer

Jun 01, 2012 21:53

The history of memory and how the invention of writing began to change our brains.


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non-fiction, books, reviews, science

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Comments 5

calico_reaction June 2 2012, 02:06:28 UTC
I've been wanting to read this for a while. I hope to get to it one day!

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shinygobonkers June 2 2012, 14:39:57 UTC
totally a must read for me. memory is one of my weird little interests. back in college for a while i had a thing about building memory palaces, but as you said, it takes a lot of sustained effort/work and i kind of lost interest/attention after a while. but yeah, really want to read this.

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anonymous June 2 2012, 19:42:15 UTC
May I have a large container of coffee, please, sir/madam?
3 letters, 1 letter, 4 letters etc 3.1415926635 = PI.

Another neat trick for telephone numbers is T=1, N=2, M=3,R=4, L=5, J=6, K=7, F=8, P=9, S=0. Then put in vowels to make memorable words.

Baseball score Wizards are verifiable; Simonides' trick was not.

Socrates' point was specifically that PEASANTS must not read. Aristos must read, so they can collect rents. A Peasant with a chit might say "I have the receipt, I already paid my rent." In Socratism, the Peasant should be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more rent because Aristos are morally superior to Peasants, just as nowadays, we Peasants are morally obliged to be grateful when we pay extra bonus to Bankers.

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rheymus June 2 2012, 19:51:19 UTC
May I have a large container of coffee, please, sir/madam?
3 letters, 1 letter, 4 letters etc 3.1415926635 = PI.

Another neat trick for telephone numbers is T=1, N=2, M=3,R=4, L=5, J=6, K=7, F=8, P=9, S=0. Then put in vowels to make memorable words.

Baseball score Wizards are verifiable; Simonides' trick was not.

Socrates' point was specifically that PEASANTS must not read. Aristos must read, so they can collect rents. A Peasant with a chit might say "I have the receipt, I already paid my rent." In Socratism, the Peasant should be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more rent because Aristos are morally superior to Peasants, just as nowadays, we Peasants are morally obliged to be grateful when we pay extra bonus to Bankers.

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Highly recommended brewermerk June 10 2012, 21:31:14 UTC
I'll second all of Inverarity's observations on this book. It was delightful, funny, informative, and inspiring. Well, not quite inspiring as I don't actually use any of these tricks nor am I in training for the next memory olympiad. But it's inspiring to read conjecture about how the nature of modern human memory has had to adapt relatively quickly to the invention of the printing press (and Wikipedia).

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