Spaced repetition, while reasonably useful, doesn't come without its challenges as well. For instance, how can you be sure at the outset that you have designed

Spaced repetition, while reasonably useful, doesn't come without its challenges as well. For instance, how can you be sure at the outset that you have designed a good prompt [1] that will enable recall versus recognition? And even once you have designed a good prompt, that brings up the question of epistemology: how can you be sure at the outset that the "information" you wish to ingest is factual and that it will be useful to you later on? It's easy to imagine memorizing a compelling aphorism like: > The German word for "passion", which literally translates to "enjoyable suffering". Because if you think you’re passionate about something, you must be willing to ask yourself if you’re willing to suffer for it. If you are, that means you are passionate. Otherwise, it’s just a hobby. [2] But, while beautiful and compelling, it turns out that this definition/translation of the word "Leidenschaft" is misleading: "Leiden" means "suffering" and "schaft" simply means "-ship". This is very similar to the word _passio_ which is the Latin root of the English word (and whose meaning shines through in "The Passion of Christ", for instance). When using spaced repetition systems you must be extraordinarily careful around vetting the content that you are putting into them, and most of the time, you would be better simply "coming back to the same reading" on a given topic (thereby effectively building your own ad-hoc SRS process). The brain exists in order to recognize patterns, but it also likes to over-fit! [1] https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ [2] Keller, T., Heller, S., Ruhlman, M. and Jones, D., 1999. The French Laundry Cookbook. New York: Artisan.