Augmenting Long-Term Memory

It's particularly worth avoiding lonely orphans: single questions that are largely disconnected from everything else. Suppose, for instance, I'm reading an article on a new subject, and I learn an idea that seems particularly useful. I make it a rule to never put in one question. Rather, I try to put at least two questions in, preferably three or m... See more

I identify tricks, observations that seem pregnant with possibility, but whose import I don't yet know.

Memory researchers have repeatedly found that the more elaborately you encode a memory, the stronger the memory will be. By elaborative encoding, they mean essentially the richness of the associations you form.

I've tried one experiment in this vein: miming the action of typing commands while I review my Anki cards. But my subjective impression was that it doesn't work so well, and it was also quite annoying to do. So I stopped.

OK, but what does one do with it? ... [N]ow that I have all this power – a mechanical golem that will never forget and never let me forget whatever I chose to – what do I choose to remember? – Gwern Branwen

This suggests to me the need for a separate field of human augmentation. That field will take input from cognitive science. But it will fundamentally be a design science, oriented toward bold, imaginative design, and building systems from prototype to large-scale deployment.

It's notable that I was reading the AlphaGo paper in support of a creative project of my own, namely, writing an article for Quanta Magazine. This is important: I find Anki works much better when used in service to some personal creative project.

While this wasn't too difficult, it was somewhat demoralizing and discouraging. It'd be better if Anki had a “catch up” feature that would spread the excess cards over the next few weeks in your schedule. But it doesn't.

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