5 ms·

Particularly interesting to think about the memory feats of the ancients--who didn't even have computers. It really makes you wonder what kind of secret techniq

by xamuel 7y ago

Particularly interesting to think about the memory feats of the ancients--who didn't even have computers. It really makes you wonder what kind of secret techniques ancient bards and philosophers used.

pretendscholar 7y ago
Memory palace
barry-cotter 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein The techniques aren’t secret. You can buy books about them on amazon. It’s like memorizing the Iliad, Odyssey or the Koran, completely doable for a human of normal intelligence but a lot of work.
1propionyl 7y ago
There's a few factors at play. To name a couple: 1) A lack of ability to outsource memory to the written word. I forget who it was, but either Plato or Aristotle was famously against writing because they said it would degrade human's capacity for memory (and "learning" if I recall correctly, though this was arguably wrong). 2) Perhaps even more importantly, the content of the time was shaped to the available medium. It's no accident that epic poetry from the oral tradition universally contains huge amounts of redundancy and pattern: meter, repeated adjectival phrases, character epitaphs or titles, etc.
- kylek 7y ago
  I don't know if it's the same thing as (not only the philosophers, but also many great orators of ancient Greece/etc) the capacity to recite e.g. entire epic poems from memory, but have always found Vedic Chanting (Pathas) fascinating- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_chant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_chant
chromeaway 7y ago
In the ancient near east people did not refer to literary works by means of a dedicated title, but by the first line of the composition, which is taken as an indication of origins in an oral tradition, esp. for the earliest works that were written down. When large portions of text have been committed to memory, reciting the first sentence is often enough to trigger a flow, a small but useful "technique" applied by e.g. hiphop lyricists.
- kuu 7y ago
  This is still done today even if not with the same intention. When we don't remember a name of a song we repeat part of it "do you know this song? the one that says X..." It's natural
emilga 7y ago
The ancient Romans and Greeks were known to use the Memory Palace technique, as other commenters here have mentioned. (It's mentioned by Cicero, in Ad Herrenium (of unknown authorship), and St. Augustine, among others.) This was continued into the middle ages, by e.g. Christian monks, see Mary Carruthers' work [0], and the Rennaisance (e.g. Matteo Ricci), see e.g. Frances Yates. For non-western uses of the memory arts, I'd recommend Lynne Kelly. She writes about aboriginal Australians' use of songlines, the African Luba people's use of lukasas, etc. (Lynne Kelly has done multiple podcast interviews that make for fascinating listen, as she's both an accomplished practitioner of the memory arts as well the history behind them.) For a modern, practical introduction, Alex Mullen has some great youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf7iHzkxMVKoQQfgYlF3wIY0u&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf... [0] Thomas Bradwardine's 14th century essay: https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=PT210&dq=thomas+bradwardine+on+acquiring+a+trained+memory&source=bl&ots=Q9fs7QB7Ei&sig=ACfU3U2itvjUbc0_bt1rXe2ElY2k3iahqg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgzsKOkoLlAhXqy6YKHfpnDgEQ6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=thomas%20bradwardine%20on%20acquiring%20a%20trained%20memory&f=false https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=P...
VvR-Ox 7y ago
It's called "remembering things" and we all used to know how it works before we outsourced that to computers ;-p Back in school we needed to rehearse latin vocabulary and lyrics of ancient stuff that I sometimes still remember today though I'm used to outsource this kind of data to computers. I think the skills for this are still in us - it's just about the proper techniques to persist the information- and access it fast.

by xamuel 7y ago

pretendscholar 7y ago

Memory palace

barry-cotter 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein The techniques aren’t secret. You can buy books about them on amazon. It’s like memorizing the Iliad, Odyssey or the Koran, completely doable for a human of normal intelligence but a lot of work.

1propionyl 7y ago

There's a few factors at play. To name a couple: 1) A lack of ability to outsource memory to the written word. I forget who it was, but either Plato or Aristotle was famously against writing because they said it would degrade human's capacity for memory (and "learning" if I recall correctly, though this was arguably wrong). 2) Perhaps even more importantly, the content of the time was shaped to the available medium. It's no accident that epic poetry from the oral tradition universally contains huge amounts of redundancy and pattern: meter, repeated adjectival phrases, character epitaphs or titles, etc.

kylek 7y ago
I don't know if it's the same thing as (not only the philosophers, but also many great orators of ancient Greece/etc) the capacity to recite e.g. entire epic poems from memory, but have always found Vedic Chanting (Pathas) fascinating- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_chant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_chant

chromeaway 7y ago

In the ancient near east people did not refer to literary works by means of a dedicated title, but by the first line of the composition, which is taken as an indication of origins in an oral tradition, esp. for the earliest works that were written down. When large portions of text have been committed to memory, reciting the first sentence is often enough to trigger a flow, a small but useful "technique" applied by e.g. hiphop lyricists.

kuu 7y ago
This is still done today even if not with the same intention. When we don't remember a name of a song we repeat part of it "do you know this song? the one that says X..." It's natural

emilga 7y ago

The ancient Romans and Greeks were known to use the Memory Palace technique, as other commenters here have mentioned. (It's mentioned by Cicero, in Ad Herrenium (of unknown authorship), and St. Augustine, among others.) This was continued into the middle ages, by e.g. Christian monks, see Mary Carruthers' work [0], and the Rennaisance (e.g. Matteo Ricci), see e.g. Frances Yates. For non-western uses of the memory arts, I'd recommend Lynne Kelly. She writes about aboriginal Australians' use of songlines, the African Luba people's use of lukasas, etc. (Lynne Kelly has done multiple podcast interviews that make for fascinating listen, as she's both an accomplished practitioner of the memory arts as well the history behind them.) For a modern, practical introduction, Alex Mullen has some great youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf7iHzkxMVKoQQfgYlF3wIY0u&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf... [0] Thomas Bradwardine's 14th century essay: https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=PT210&dq=thomas+bradwardine+on+acquiring+a+trained+memory&source=bl&ots=Q9fs7QB7Ei&sig=ACfU3U2itvjUbc0_bt1rXe2ElY2k3iahqg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgzsKOkoLlAhXqy6YKHfpnDgEQ6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=thomas%20bradwardine%20on%20acquiring%20a%20trained%20memory&f=false https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=P...

VvR-Ox 7y ago

It's called "remembering things" and we all used to know how it works before we outsourced that to computers ;-p Back in school we needed to rehearse latin vocabulary and lyrics of ancient stuff that I sometimes still remember today though I'm used to outsource this kind of data to computers. I think the skills for this are still in us - it's just about the proper techniques to persist the information- and access it fast.