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memory_code [2021-04-12 20:14] – [Hiking with Monsters at Amelisweerd 2021/2022] theunkarelsememory_code [2021-08-07 05:53] – theunkarelse
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   * **our memory for geography**: we may not be great at remembering list, but we are amazingly good at remembering places. Imagine your house. Almost nobody struggles to remember where the living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet are, or even the furniture in those rooms. Modern memory champions still use this technique known as a memory-palace. Often the greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci|method of loci]] is pointed out as its origin, but that vastly underestimates how fundamental these principles were, stretching over tens of thousands of years of human history and across all continents.   * **our memory for geography**: we may not be great at remembering list, but we are amazingly good at remembering places. Imagine your house. Almost nobody struggles to remember where the living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet are, or even the furniture in those rooms. Modern memory champions still use this technique known as a memory-palace. Often the greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci|method of loci]] is pointed out as its origin, but that vastly underestimates how fundamental these principles were, stretching over tens of thousands of years of human history and across all continents.
   * **our memory of character**: you may forget someones name, but you never struggle to remember someones personality. More then “thinking stones and mountains are alive” oral cultures they give their landscape character.   * **our memory of character**: you may forget someones name, but you never struggle to remember someones personality. More then “thinking stones and mountains are alive” oral cultures they give their landscape character.
 +
 +[[monstercode_intro]]
  
 ==== Hiking with Monsters at Amelisweerd 2021/2022 ==== ==== Hiking with Monsters at Amelisweerd 2021/2022 ====
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 === Stage1: Monster Code, Landscape as Mindpalace === === Stage1: Monster Code, Landscape as Mindpalace ===
 +Monster Code explores techniques for encoding environmental knowledge directly into the environment itself. Imagination (monsters) and geographic memory are key pillars this builds on. Basically associating knowledge to features and hooks in the landscape, by the power of imagination and story. That power is considerable, as evidenced by the practices of oral cultures around the world, showing knowledge remaining intact over thousands of years and spanning thousands of km. People who have started practicing it report their world is filled with new layers of liveliness: you are not just walking to the bakery or office, you are walking through the history of early humans, all indigenous dragonfly species (or whatever you happen to have encoded locally). But we will start at the beginning. 
 +This first phase of the research is about rapid prototyping, taking subjects and encoding them in different ways into the environment. 
 +\\ 
 +Prototyping phase:\\ 
 +  * timeline of presidents encoded into shopping street 
 +  * timeline of hominids encoded into opposite side of shopping street (each block 1 million years) 
 +  * mindpalace of damselflies
  
  
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 === Theun: === === Theun: ===
-  * The first step is looking at what structure / order makes sense for your 'data': ordered by alphabet, history, habitat, species, colour, etc +  * The first step is looking at what structure / order makes sense for your 'data': which way of ordering gives you the richest data 
-  * Do I store it linearly? (for example a timeline-walk) +  * Do I store it linearly? (for example a timeline) 
   * Or grouped in a mind palace?(for example animal species)   * Or grouped in a mind palace?(for example animal species)
-  * it seems I go through a process of a few days figuring out what the most useful ordering might be and small tests with 5 or so elements trying out ways of encoding.  +  * A mindpalace is more limited to memorising and doesn't engage with the environment at all really 
-  * You may know an area from memory, but going there physically always gives much more lively associations and surprising hooks. +  * linear / narrative models have a much wider impact than retention of memory, because they help see relationships and patterns 
-  * I make very basic sketches as a shorthand to settle the hooks, associations, narrative, otherwise new variants keep coming up every time I go through it.+  * usually there is a process of a few days figuring out what the most useful ordering might be and small tests with 5 or so elements trying out ways of encoding.  
 +  * You may know an area from memory, but going there physically always gives much more lively associations and surprising "hooks" (things in the environment tat trigger associations). 
 +  * I make very basic sketches as a shorthand to settle the hooks, associations, narrative, otherwise new variants keep coming up every time I walk through the street. Which is confusing. The sketches help me solidify the most effective associations: like George Washington washing his hair in the beautysalon
   * This sketching also helps to figure out how much character I need to generate to capture details.   * This sketching also helps to figure out how much character I need to generate to capture details.
-  * If characters are needed, what action and prop can I give them? +  * If characters are needed, what activity and prop can I give them? (these really help to enliven and thus make stronger the "picture" or little narrative for your data)
   * Later in the process I can see if I need extra emphasis using the physicality of make visible or tangible artefacts to endorse the memories?   * Later in the process I can see if I need extra emphasis using the physicality of make visible or tangible artefacts to endorse the memories?
-  * Lynne says that once established you will be inclined to do additional research on your subjects, I can confirm that. Making a mind-palace or walk, does trigger curiosity and you start to add more and more details into your subects, hooks, nodes.. (I observe this even after only two or three weeks of full-on engagement.)+  * Lynne says that once established you will be inclined to do additional research on your subjects, I can confirm that. Making a mind-palace or walk, does trigger curiosity and you start to add more and more details into your subjects, hooks, nodes.. (I observe this even after only two or three weeks of full-on engagement.)
  
  
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 === Repeat: === === Repeat: ===
-I make new associations at a rate of perhaps a few a day, and revise them later that day, the next day, in a week, and again in a month if I need to. +I make new associations at a rate of perhaps a few a day, and revise them later that day, the next day, in a week, and again in a month if I need to. 
 +  * First review: Immediately  
 +  * Second review: 24 hours later  
 +  * Third review: One week later  
 +  * Fourth review: One month later  
 +  * Fifth review:Three months later 
 +(Theun: I do at least 5 to 10 reviews the first days for longer sequences, before it really starts to settle, but apparently with practice this becomes quicker.) 
  
 === Don’t worry there is enough detail: === === Don’t worry there is enough detail: ===
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   * It may be that the original Neolithic balls were painted to make each knob different. I haven’t found this necessary. With use, I found that each knob is uniquely identifiable. This might be due to its position in my hand as I hold the ball or the slightly different feel as I touch it. I use a ball for short songs from many of my memory experiments. And on another ball half is for my language songs (French, Chinese). The other half is for world geography, where I use a knob for each verse. For example, my Africa song has four verses that are encoded to four sequential knobs. In the verses I move clockwise around the continent, occasionally jumping inward.   * It may be that the original Neolithic balls were painted to make each knob different. I haven’t found this necessary. With use, I found that each knob is uniquely identifiable. This might be due to its position in my hand as I hold the ball or the slightly different feel as I touch it. I use a ball for short songs from many of my memory experiments. And on another ball half is for my language songs (French, Chinese). The other half is for world geography, where I use a knob for each verse. For example, my Africa song has four verses that are encoded to four sequential knobs. In the verses I move clockwise around the continent, occasionally jumping inward.
  
-  * I work around each carved ball over a week or so, singing each song in the sequence defined by the wooden balls. I sing in the shower, when cooking or gardening, or while walking in the bush. Every few months at least, each song will be sung. It is my ceremonial cycle.+  * I work around each carved ball over a week or so, singing each song in the sequence defined by the wooden balls. I sing in the shower, when cooking or gardening, or while walking in the bush. Every few months at least, each song will be sung. It is my '**ceremonial cycle**'.
  
 === Greek mythology, objects on a tiny stage: === === Greek mythology, objects on a tiny stage: ===
  • memory_code.txt
  • Last modified: 2023-02-10 10:44
  • by theunkarelse