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Reddit mentions of Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Sentiment score: 14
Reddit mentions: 19

We found 19 Reddit mentions of Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Here are the top ones.

Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
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Height9.5 inches
Length6.3 inches
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Release dateMarch 2011
Weight1.2 pounds
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Found 19 comments on Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything:

u/mental_cholesterol · 10 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I recommend Moonwalking With Einstein. The author trains with memory champions from around the world in hopes of becoming a memory champion himself. Great read.

u/[deleted] · 9 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Read Moonwalking with Einstein. It's a great story and it contains a bunch of good references for great memorisation techniques.

u/aspartame_junky · 6 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Check out Joshua Foer's book, Moonwalking with Einstein (Foer was interviewed on the Colbert Report recently).

He talks about the various techniques for improving your memory, most of which are fairly standardized, but follow along the following lines:

  1. NOBODY has a photographic memory. That is not how memory works.

  2. Memory is an active process, and as such, the more active you make the items to be remembered, the more likely you will be able to recall them. This means imagery.

  3. There are traditional methods, such as the Peg system and the Method of Loci, that can be used by anyone.

  4. Practice.
u/neilgg · 5 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I just read Moonwalking With Einstein which covers some memory techniques and is a pretty good story.

u/harlows_monkeys · 5 pointsr/science

I wonder if this is related to why the "memory palace" technique works? That's a technique used by many in memory competitions.

Yes, there are memory competitions, with national events in many nations, and a world championship. Here are some examples of the events and current world records:

1. Memorizing a 52 card deck of shuffled cards. You get to look at it as long as you wish, and then you have to recall the exact order. Whoever spends the least time in the "look at it" phase wins. The world record is 21.19 seconds.

2. Memorizing names and faces. Names and faces are presented in a certain order for 15 minutes. Then competitors are presented the faces and have to recall the names. Record is 201.

3. Memorizing historical dates. Contestants are given a list of fictional historical events and dates, and have 5 minutes to memorize them. Record is 120.

4. Memorizing several decks of cards. Competitors are given several decks, and have one hour to memorize them. Record is around 1400 cards memorized.

The really interesting thing in these events is that the people who compete claim that they do not have any better memories than the rest of us. They just, they claim, have learned some mnemonic aids. One of them is the "memory palace".

That involves constructing an imaginary place with many different rooms (although I suppose you could use a real place you are familiar with). When you have to memorize something, you imagine it in a particular room and visualize it there. You lay out the things you are memorizing in the rooms in some standard order of rooms. Then to recall them, you imagine taking a walk through your memory palace, looking in each room to see what item is there.

The fact that this clearly ridiculous sounding technique works indicates that our memory system is probably designed to be good at memorizing locations of things and memorizing what is in familiar locations, and the memory palace exploits that. In computer terminology, location is probably a primary key for memory look up (yes, I know we don't work like computers--I'm just borrowing terminology).

Given that, it makes a lot of sense that if you have learned something new in location X, but before it has moved from short term to long term memory you change locations, it won't get that internal location tagging, and thus might be harder to recall. When you walk through a door, your brain could be taking that as a signal that you've moved on to a new location--time to stop processing stuff from the old location and move on memorizing the important features of the new location.

For completeness, the other technique the memory competitors say they use is to make up stories. They might have memorized a code that associates letters of the alphabet with digits, and then when they need to memorize numbers they convert them to letters, map those letters to words in a reversible way, and then turn the words into a story. So some sting of digits might turn into a girl carrying a blue cat is running in the rain and steps into a puddle, splashing President Obama who is holding hands with Ron Paul. Apparently we are good at remembering stories, even ridiculous stories, so they exploit that.

There's some evidence that these people are right when they claim that they are just ordinary people who have learned some mnemonic aids. There's a book by a journalist who was not at all good with memory, but who had an assignment to write a story about memory competitions. As part of that, he was trained by one of the champions, and a year later was in the finals of the US Memory Championship, where he set a national record for speed memorization of a pack of cards.

He wrote a a book about that, which has received good reviews. I've not read it so can't give a first hand account.

u/RobertBorden · 3 pointsr/ADHD

Give Moonwalking with Einstein a read. Branch out from there. There are a ton of methods to help with memorization. MWE is a great place to start.

u/weewooweewoo · 3 pointsr/psychology

All these are really great and all, but I think your best bet would be to take a class in Psychology. Psychology Professors are really great, and their mannerisms and nuances will really help you get a grasp of whatever you're learning, as you want to be able to know each concept inside and out, not just memorize them. If you think you can do that with a book, then do your best! Psychology is fun to learn, but don't try to memorize everything when you read.

If you're looking for a great light book on the capacity of the human mind, please, try out Moonwalking With Einstein, a book about the science behind memory and techniques for learning how to memorize things the way people did before people could even write. Even better, is the plot, which covers the author's journey from a science reporter reporting on a Memory Championship one year and winning the U.S. Memory Championship the next. A very light, fun, and entertaining read. I recommend it to everyone.

u/biggiepants · 3 pointsr/IAmA

Though this could still be fake, since OP makes it seem as if it were a vivid memory. I can point out that sub conscience things like, like that aversion, could very well still be remembered by the brain, just not consciencelessly. (Learnt from reading this). Also memories from normal people from early age are often not directly your own, but from stories others told, pictures etc..

u/majofski · 3 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Moonwalking with Einstein is one book that explores and teaches this method. I personally haven't read, but a friend of mine said it was great and the techniques taught are like that of the above comment.

EDIT: Posted this comment before reading the others, which also talk about Moonwalking with Einstein. Give the karma to them :)

EDIT2: Damn, I didn't even finish reading your post before posting my comment. This should just be deleted now.

u/slylibel · 2 pointsr/science

there have been links between synaesthesia and savant memory retention. Synthesizing information visually leads to exceptionally better memory. Check out this guy
and this book

u/mermaid11 · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

You should read Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer.

It's pretty incredible. And it answers your question and then some.

u/irishgreenman · 2 pointsr/todayilearned

I just read this sweet book on memory called "Moonwalking with Einstein". It goes into the specifics on exactly what you are talking about. it gets to the point where groups of digits, like 800, are broken build an complex image based on images memorized for each single digit.
http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remembering-Everything/dp/159420229X
highly recommended.

u/well_uh_yeah · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Yeah, I think so. Religious devotion might help quite a bit.

I just recently finished reading Moonwalking with Einstein which somewhat addresses this question. I recommend the book to anyone interested in memory and what an ordinary person can pull off in a relatively short period of time. It made me really want to try to memorize a deck of cards; the world records in that event are astounding.

u/IndecisionToCallYou · 1 pointr/AskReddit

There was recently a show on NPR where a reporter won the world championship memory competition. He wrote a book on how he went from being there to report, to being there to compete and breaking world records.

Here's the story

His book is called Moonwalking with Einstein: The art of remembering everything

u/monevus · 1 pointr/AskReddit

It's not a real thing, but you can train your memory to some pretty ridiculous extremes.

Take a look at Moonwalking with Einstein if you're interested.

u/411eli · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Josh Foer talks about this in his new book.

u/3A2D50 · 1 pointr/cogsci

A great way of improving your memory is with the use of mnemonic devices. Mnemonics, if you’re not familiar with the term, refers to using associations or recognizing patterns to remember information. As you experienced yourself, the human mind has an incredible ability to remember visual information. Visual memory seems easiest for most, and can pack a tremendous amount of information relative to other forms of memory.

One example of a mnemonic device that takes advantage of our innate ability to remember visually is the method of loci. People have used this device to remember the order of items, such as decks of cards. The device requires the user to use a familiar path in their memory (such as a walk through a park, or through your house). Then by starting at the beginning of this "memory path", the user places objects along the path. The order of the items coincides with the path. The objects are exaggerated in memory to make them more memorable. For example, in memorizing a grocery list you could imagine the food items as appearing massive or animated in some strange way. There are strategies that build on this method and make it more efficient; such as a the Dominic system and the PAO.

I recently read the book Moonwalking with Einstein, which I found very inspiring. It will show you a few simple techniques, but more importantly it will likely encourage you to take mnemonics more seriously. The book is mostly centered on the author, who is a journalist. He visits the US memory competition, and after interviewing several people, realizes the participants didn't possess a unique innate ability for memorization. Instead, they were all using mnemonic devices. He meets a spectator at the event who participates in the world memory competition. After some discussion, he is encouraged by the professional to train and compete in next US memory competition. The author sees this as an opportunity for a story, and agrees. With the help of professionals and a year of training, he enters the US competition and manages first place.

There is lot of great information in the book which is cited by a lot of reputable sources. The author is quick to point out from the beginning what can be expected and not expected. Mnemonic devices still require effort to apply, but they have a pretty good return. The book description can be found here.

I'm afraid I haven't gotten too far into the field of mnemonics, so I can't recommend a more comprehensive book. I hope that once I get the time I can practice more on applying these methods.

u/cynosurescence · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

For an entertaining summary of how these methods, along with a great story of how a regular guy became the US Memory champion, I strongly suggest picking up Moonwalking With Einstein by Josh Foer.

u/toobiutifultolive · 1 pointr/AskReddit

There's a fantastic book called Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. This guy was assigned to report on people that trained their minds competitively. He soon found it to be so interesting that he ended up competing as well. I would check it out if I were you.