7 ms·
I am reminded of Socrates, who lamented the practice of memorization being replaced with writing. Today one might dismiss this idea as silly, since memorization
by boerseth 2y ago
I am reminded of Socrates, who lamented the practice of memorization being replaced with writing. Today one might dismiss this idea as silly, since memorization alone is frequently associated with dumb parroting and regurgitation, neither of which imply any depth of understanding.
But from this discussion, we see the old man may have been on to something! If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart.
- eru 2y ago> If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart. I heard there are people who memorise the Quran without knowing the slightest bit of Arabic? And there's also the Kiwi chap, Nigel Richards, who memorised the whole French Scrabble dictionary in order to win the French world Scrabble championship, without learning any French in the process. (Whether you call what he did to the French word list 'understanding' is up for debate, I guess. I am fairly sure he went much deeper into understanding the underlying probability distributions of letters in French words than most speakers, but he couldn't read a newspaper.)
- n4r9 2y agoI went to a Saturday school for many of my childhood years, as my dad wanted me to learn Arabic. They were bad at teaching the language, but did get us to read the script and memorise several Quran verses. You were supposed to get "rewards" in heaven just for memorising without understanding. To this day I can recite Al-Fatiha [0] despite not understanding a word, being an atheist, and not having prayed for maybe 15 years. [0] https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/ https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/
- freedomben 2y agoSame, as a kid there were a whole bunch of bible verses to memorize, which was required. To this day I can recite quite a few of them, and (despite now being an atheist) I still occasionally have some of them pop into my head in situations where it might be relevant. Memorization is an extremely powerful tool, and particularly religions have known and used this for millenia.
- n4r9 2y agoThe difference between your experience and mine is that I have no idea what the verses are saying! They almost never pop into my head because I can't relate them to situations.
- foolswisdom 2y agoIt's possible to just memorize the words, of course. But for myself, I find that very tedious and difficult to make myself do (nor very worthwhile), and much prefer becoming deeply acquainted with the text in order to memorize it.
- rokhayakebe 2y agoI heard there are people who memorise the Quran without knowing the slightest bit of Arabic? True, I am doing this myself. 4 days a week and plan to continue for the next 10 years. Memorized several pages so far with a lot more to go without understanding any of it.
- bratwurst3000 2y agoMay I ask why? I as an atheist did memorize some part of the Bible for the fun of it but I understand the language.
- angra_mainyu 2y agoIn Islam there's a certain reverence for memorizing the Quran, unlike in Christianity. In fact, being a Hafiz or your child being a Hafiz is a point of pride. This in part goes back to Islamic lore/history. Another part is that there is the belief that there are rewards associated with, being accompanied by angels iirc.
- rokhayakebe 2y agoBecause it is important to me as a Muslim. Also it is challenging, interesting, to try and memorize an entire book.
- StefanBatory 2y ago... but wouldn't it make to learn classical Arabic alongside with that?
- Shorel 2y ago> I heard there are people who memorise the Quran without knowing the slightest bit of Arabic? I think the main issue being described in the article and in the comments is that rote memorization like you described is both much harder and also meaningless. In fact, it is much harder because it is meaningless. So yes, it can be done, but also: why?
- loughnane 2y agoMemorization def gets a bad rap, for the reasons you mention. Yet I bet most folks who have memorized a poem or a passage---out of an affinity for it, not when demanded by a teacher---know the value. Memorizing something means you can roll it around in your head whenever you want, think about it from this perspective or that, and let the brain really absorb the ideas the words express. It's good.
- sizzzzlerz 2y agoI totally agree. I've spent time learning several poems of Robert Service (The Cremation of Sam McGee, The Spell of the Yukon, The Men Who Don't Fit In) because I've enjoyed reading them. Now, I don't need a book, I just recall one from memory any time I like. I'm not an actor so I had none of the techniques that they would use to learn lines. It was purely rote memorization through repeated readings and recitation.
- freedomben 2y agoI agree, but I think it does depend on what the objective is. If preserving the literal accuracy of the source material is important, then memorization deserves it's bad rap and is worthy of much criticism. That's not to say that people can't memorize things accurately (there are plenty of kids who memorize Bible and Quran verses verbatim for example that can easily disprove that), but memories are fallible in ways that writing isn't, particularly when it comes to comparing sources for accuracy or historical value. On the other hand, if the objective is to understand and appreciate the source, even simply for personal edification or enlightenment, then I agree completely: memorization is a wonderful technique for doing so.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago> "Memorizing something means you can roll it around in your head whenever you want, think about it from this perspective or that, and let the brain really absorb the ideas the words express." That's also the reason little credence is given to coders who moan about college CS knowledge being useless memorization of stuff that can easily be looked up when needed.
- telesilla 2y agoThis extraordinary book from Frances Yates explains how before writing, scholars and story tellers would visualize architecture so they could store memories in rooms, then they would walk from room to room and recover memories, for example to tell very long stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Memory
- wanderingstan 2y agoAlso covered in the more contemporary book Moonwalking with Einstein with its discussion of building one’s own “memory palace.”
- spitfire 2y agoAlso referenced a number of times in the excellent Hannibal series.
- lelanthran 2y agoAlso in the series The Mentalist.
- jakubmazanec 2y agoAnd Sherlock.
- never_inline 2y agoWorth noting that India's oldest poetic/litergical traditions, the Vedas, were transmitted orally for at least 1500 years, and developed elaborate systems of memorization and pronounceation to ensure they passed down (almost) unmodified.
- rokhayakebe 2y agoIn Mauritania there is a village where most people who lived there are blind. This is how they learn to memorizw the Quran which is more than 600 pages, each have 15 lines.
- BurningFrog 2y agoI'm sure it's a tradeoff. Like adding a disk to a computer that only had RAM. You have access to many orders of magnitude more data, but it is substantially slower to access it. All considered, I'm glad we did the upgrade.
- xattt 2y agoSimilar to how using flash cards doesn’t really help in developing that deep understanding… but the action of making them sure does.
- teleforce 2y agoFun facts, there is an important Islamic tradition where group of people (tens or hundreds thousands of them) called Hafiz memorize the entire Quran. If for example, God forbid, that the entire written copies either physicallly or digitally of the Quran are completely destroyed, it can be recreated completely in no time. This practice is considered a living miracle since no other holy book has this crucial feature and it is also well known that even the Pope do not memorize the complete Bible.
- Pamar 2y agoNitpicking Alert!!! The Pope Should be more concerned about the Gospel, I think.
- eru 2y agoThe Catholic church could use a Bible memorisation contest to pick their new Popes. They don't. I presume for good reasons?
- HumblyTossed 2y agoI sincerely hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way but this seems like a worldly solution to a Godly problem. Is the God in the Quran not sovereign? Why would He need humans to protect the Quran? Again, not a critique, just a curiosity.
- dasil003 2y agoBecause even when you’re all powerful, it’s hard to find good help
- eru 2y agoWhy would any almighty deity need humans to do anything at all? This is a generalised critique against most commandments of many religions. (If the deity didn't want me to commit act X, why is act X even physically possible?) There are quite a few specific and also generalised responses to this critique. Look for eg "Why does God permit evil?", "Why does God allow suffering?" and similar.)
- DowagerDave 2y agoand further complicating the situation is people like me who write not to re-read, but understand, which then helps to memorize. Circle complete!