Quote:
Originally Posted by skizziks
so i'm reading the book Moonwalking with Einstein about a journalist who gets involved with the World Championship Memory Olympics thingy. the book is about memory, how to improve it, what it means, etc.
fascinating stuff. it describes how we remember, why we can remember some things and not others, and how to improve your memory. it turns out those people who can remember huge poems word for word and lists of random words and numbers aren't savants but regular schmoes who trained and learned how to do it. apparently it takes about a year to learn how, and age has nothing to do with it.
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I remember seeing a small sampling of this little-known event (
I think it was only the Local American one, tho) when it comes to patterns, recognition, and lengthy bits of numbers. I'm quite sure they incorporate(d) the memorization of
Pi's exactitude for a few diehards one year.
Additionally, as soon as you remarked it, I had the vision and recollection of the ending of
Fahrenheit 451, and how, even when faced with the destruction of the tangible parts of memory, (books) because of the efforts of a dedicated few, where inscription to paper is impossible, they still found a way to keep the work(s) "alive", by selective-memory-recital specialisation (or in other words: learning the entirety of an epic poem, by heart, and the ability to recite at will, verbatim).
I really like this topic. I've got to remind myself to post back here with a clear, definitive thought on how memory affects my relationship with realities, whenever I get around to clearing everything else I've left on hold.