WEBVTT - Welcome to the Memory Palace 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.880 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.520 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julia Class and 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.760 Julie I don't have the best memory in the world. Um, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:21.639 I mean, maybe it's an average memory. I'm not saying 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.799 I'm I have problems with my brain or anything, but 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.640 I often forget that. I think everybody has this where 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.120 the really boring stuff you need to remember sometimes uh, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.000 you don't remember. I can have a simple list to 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.680 go to the grocery with, and if I don't have 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.720 it written like in the notes section of my iPhone, 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.520 then I'm not gonna remember everything. Even if it's something vital, 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.000 like something the thing that I need to eat that night, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.880 an important component in the in then the meal, I 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.519 still will forget to pick it up. I'm sorry, what 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.240 were you just saying? Now, that's just uh, you know, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.360 I have a horrible memory. Actually, I've read something in 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.920 our research that compared memory to a Wikipedia entry. Yeah, 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:07.800 and they were saying, it's like it's your memory is 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.119 constantly being altered and augmented and then sometimes pared away. Yeah, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.520 and sometimes the stuff that it's being updated with is 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.039 completely uh, not true. It's horse manure sometimes turns out. Yeah, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.839 and that's not necessarily what we're gonna talk about today, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:24.839 but you could actually talk to me about that before, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.440 and I thought it was fascinating. Were you saying that 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.759 when you have a memory, each time you bring it up, 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.880 you're revising it in some way? Oh yeah, yeah, Um 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.760 well we'll we'll definitely have to cover that in an 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.720 upcoming episode in more detail. But yeah, every time you 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.520 you bring up a memory, you're not just removing it 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.920 pristine from the vault and then returning it pristine to 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.880 the vault, but you're updating at each time because your 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:51.320 brain needs updated information because we live in a world us, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.760 as we discussed in our Math podcast, we live in 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.160 a world and don't have to navigate a world of 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.160 multiple movable objects and symbols. So we have to be 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.320 able to fly with that yep. And then hence the 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.280 horsemen who are sometimes right right. So people have had 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.000 horrible memories for as long as we've had to remember 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.120 things because uh, just as math, as we discussed in 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.560 the Math podcast, we develop mathematics to do the things 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.720 that we're not naturally inclined to be able to do 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.480 with our normal mental faculties. We have to develop systems. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:22.880 But what to do if you're in the Roman Empire, 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.680 for for instance, just hanging out and you don't necessarily 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.519 have a ton of books around you or your your 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:31.760 iPhone there? Yeah, well, in this case you turn to 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.160 something called the memory palace, also known as the method 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.680 of Loki. Right, that's right, and the the origins of 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.880 this go back to a particular back to the fifth 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.040 century BC and a Greek poet by the name of 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.560 Somonodes of CEOs. And uh, he was attending a party, 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.320 you know, in the dining hall, having fun around a 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.359 table with a bunch of a bunch of buddies, and 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.280 he uh walked out for a few minutes, and the 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.840 whole entire place collapsed behind him. Oh, he walked out. 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.960 I wondered how he survived. Okay, yeah, maybe he went 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.400 up for smoke or something else. But but he went outside, uh, 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.639 and everything collapsed. He survives everybody else that's just crushed 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:17.280 to just mush, just a smucker's jam. There's no identifying 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:23.040 these people. But he was, yeah, with a name like Smuckers. Um, 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.040 so he goes back in you know, he doesn't go 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.400 back in, but they dig everything up again. Smucker's jam everywhere, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.120 and they're like, all right, who were each of these people? 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.160 And he says, well, let me think about it. And 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:39.680 he's able to identify each puddle uh as as he's 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.280 able to that was, and he's able to identify them 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.640 based on their seating position at the table. He's able 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.960 to remember where they were spatially and and therefore remember 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.160 who they were identified these remains. And this was a 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.760 big moment for him, right yeah, because then he realized, hey, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.640 I could apply this to other things in my life. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:01.760 If I have a list I need to remember, if 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.240 there's a long list of facts I need to get down, 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.360 this is how I could do it. And uh and 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.360 and so this survived for ages. Uh you know, well, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.800 you know, for centuries and centuries and on up through today. Um. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:19.799 One big proponent of this was Dominican monk uh Giordano Bruno, 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.200 who was actually he was burned at the stake in 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.960 UH sixteen hundred for heresy, but it wasn't the memory 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:29.720 palace method that they got him there though I think 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.400 some people found it kind of creepy, but his whole 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.960 thing had to do with he believed that God was 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.080 president nature and the universe in life was infinite. Therefore 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.640 that you know, there might be aliens or something and uh, 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:42.800 and so that got him into the hot water. Yeah. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.040 The Roman Catholic Church wasn't big on that at the time, 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.880 though today they have a statue where he where he 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.000 was burned, and and he's more revered these days. It's 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:57.360 nice at least later on. Yeah. So the basically the 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.920 the idea here, Uh, if you want to look at 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.080 just sort of a simple version, if you take these 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:08.000 mundane facts and you position them in a spatial framework 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.720 and you make and you make them interesting, all right, 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.440 So that the idea of the memory palaces to create 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.560 a mental house in which to house and organize symbolic images, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.680 which then could serve as a queue for information retrieval, 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.400 right right, Like, for instance, our good friend um, um 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:32.599 simonities here could easily populate this this banquet table with um, 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.960 you know, a list of addresses he needs to remember 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.080 if he can come up with a unique way to 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.600 remember each one and then remember them in order based 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.000 on where they are at the table. Okay, and um, 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.360 just a little side fact to Thomas Harris's novel Hannibal. Actually, 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:51.000 Hannibal Lecter uses memory palaces for his patients records. He does, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.640 I've forgotten about that. I've read that. Yeah, he even 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.640 includes music too for the rooms that he's going into. Um. Well, hey, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.760 if it's good enough for Hannibal Lecter, you know, it's 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.599 it's good enough for me, which is why I actually 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.640 tried this out yesterday. Uh and and I'm going to 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.560 repeat everything that I imagined the way I built and 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.599 populated my memory palace so that I could remember a 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:17.400 list of five things to get from the grocery store 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.200 in the way home. Okay, you didn't write a thing down. No, 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.360 did not write a thing down. It didn't put anything 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.560 in my in my phone and uh and so these 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.440 were the things. Just it was a soy creamer, ingle 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:34.160 Hoffer's mustard, aunt traps, frozen fruit, and toilet paper. So, um, 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.960 you know, just this is a standard run for me. Um, alright, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.320 what what does your memory palace look like? So I 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.000 decided to for the space. I decided to use the 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.200 space that I'm occupying right now, the house, stuff works, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:51.040 podcast room, slash podcast chamber. Okay, so this is the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.520 way I pictured it all right over here behind you 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.680 is our sound booth, and inside it I pictured a 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.440 robot cow drinking coffee for my soy milk, all right. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.200 And then seated where you are, you're not here, but 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.480 instead there's a large German man uh in in a 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.400 later hosen, big mustache going on, and he's got big 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.280 clumps of of of spicy hot mustard in his mustache. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:17.800 And that's the the engle Hoffers mustache, because it has 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.160 a little German man on the lap. Uh. Then in 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.000 this seat between us, because the table that we record 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.800 at has a third chair that is never occupied by 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.160 an actual person. Um. But in in my memory palace, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.680 it is occupied by a large pile, like a human 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.480 sized pile of frozen fruit. And it's just gleaming in 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.320 the light, smelting a little bit, smelling sweet and uh. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.600 And you know I can see strawberry and mango and all. 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.760 And because this is an important part of the memory, 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:45.640 cost to add some details to it. You know, you're 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.560 not just thinking the word um. You know, you're not 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.760 just thinking the word frozen fruit. You're picturing it. Uh. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.840 It is existing in space and not just a concept, 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:56.400 all right. And then if I were to poke my 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.960 head out through these curtains where Jerry is setting uh 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.960 our producer, I would see a giant ant and that 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.400 Aunt is dressed in Maria von Trapps dress from the 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:12.880 Sound of Music, because I need to remember Aunt Traps. Yeah. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.440 And then the fifth item, standing at the green screen 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.280 behind Jerry's seat, there is a toilet paper mummy going 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.840 through a number of sexy poses for the camera. They're 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.559 sexy poses. Yeah, yeah, so and I So anyway, it worked. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.160 I was able to remember I know only five things. 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.240 That's kind of puny, but I was able to remember 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.880 these five things. Now you can also say that while 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:37.920 I was doing this for the podcast, I was applying 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.280 more thought to this than I would normally apply to 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.439 the list that I of things I need to pick up. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:44.920 And it's also worth noting that even though this is 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.880 an abbreviated version, one can use use people use this 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.840 for hundreds of items, right and in fact, in each 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.520 room you could have five ten different items that are 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.200 living there. It's just a matter of placing the object, right. Yeah. Well, 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.320 how about you, do you have a memory pale constructed? 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.679 I do, and I'm not going to actually share it 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:09.400 um because I don't think it's I'll share one on 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.360 my on my list, And basically I need to mail 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.920 my f S a reimbursement right flexible spending account. So 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.840 at my front door, I just pictured angry chirups with 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.520 wings made out of dollar bills greeting me at the 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.079 front door with a pile of mail. That's good, right, 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:25.880 like you, And they're angry because they're like, you don't 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:27.719 send the stuff in my wings are going to fall 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.640 off or whatever. I don't know, but I do have 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.800 other rooms, but just for brevity's sake, I won't I 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.079 won't tell. But what I love about this is that 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:40.320 it quickly becomes very similar to the surrealism that I 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.520 don't know about you, but for me, that I experienced 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.360 in my dreams. Yeah, right, like all of a sudden, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.120 there's these incongruent things going on and they're they're wild 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.680 and they're fantastic. And that's I think why we remember 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.800 our dreams sometimes, right, because they're so extraordinary. Yeah, we 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.720 were honest at least, Yeah exactly, I mean we were. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.360 We were talking about about this, how we make something 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.559 mundane and we turn it into something crazy and memorable. 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.680 In the same way that on this trip from New York. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.000 We we both just came back from attending the World 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.000 Science Festival in New York City two thousand eleven. It's 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.280 gonna be back in two thousand twelve. Highly recommend anybody's 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.079 big into science and lives in New York to give 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.280 it a go. And and that's actually where I attended 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.439 uh A. I was an audience for a panel on 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.760 memory and that's where I get really excited about the 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.480 concept of the Memory Palace. But while I was waiting 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.240 to go into one of these events, my wife and 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.480 I we were waiting out in this little courtyard area 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.960 and we saw this man walk up with a box, 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.720 like cardboard box under his arm that said Trout on 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.120 the side, like I don't know, like a beer cart, 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.640 like a box that like beer would come in or something, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:46.120 but he just said Trout. I don't know what the 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.080 brand was. But anyway, he he's standing there there, puts 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:50.720 his box down on the ground and he gets a 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.840 handful of of like bread or crackers out, and he 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.760 starts feeding the pigeons, which I don't think it's technically illegal, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.520 but he's doing it anyway. So he's feeding the pigeons. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.880 Three of them end there and they're just standing there eating, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.080 and then slowly he starts raising his hand up, moving 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.720 his hand forward, and then he reaches down, snatches one 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.200 of the pigeons, stuffs it into the cardboard box, and 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.320 then walks off with the cardboard box full of a pigeon. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:15.760 And so you told me that, And I don't think 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:17.720 I'll ever be able to look at a pigeon without 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.720 thinking of that poor pigeon's fate. Yeah, or or or 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:26.800 wondering again why the side of the the the cooler 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.920 said trout. Yeah, yeah, so that it's Yeah. I have 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:32.640 no idea what he was doing with it, what the 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.240 purpose was, if he was an official pigeon catcher, if 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.240 he was gonna eat it for dinner, Uh, you know 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.320 who knows. But it was memorable because it was so weird. 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.520 And so the memory palace is is kind of like, 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.120 let's make the mundane fact, let's make the soy creamer 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.439 that I will inevitably forget. Let's make that into something 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.800 memorable so that I can't forget it, at least for 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.360 a short term. Um, and then you can you can 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.480 use this this uh, this memory palace and you can 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.200 populate it with hundreds of items, so you can we 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.160 can remember a list in order of hundreds of items, 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.040 and that's what mental athletes do. They're called mental athletes, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.520 and we'll get to them in a bit. Um. Yeah, 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:16.720 after this quick break. Yeah, this presentation is brought to 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:23.800 you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow and we're back. Do 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.760 you remember what we were talking about everyone memory palace 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.240 at Robotic Cows. Yeah, yeah, well that that was part 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.800 of it. That was how we remember that. Yeah. Well, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.080 let's just walk this really quickly, just like sort of 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.520 four easy steps on how you can create your own 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:40.800 memory palace. Um. So we've already talked about the first step, 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.360 which is create a physical location that you can clearly 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.000 visualize right now. And that's why I went with the 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.880 podcast chamber for me because I see it all the time. 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.200 I'm very familiar with the with the locations, and I 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.560 can can imagine it instantly, right And you can make 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.880 up your own palace, you know, just as long as 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.800 you can, um get a clear beat on on the 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.640 detail of it. Might I recommend like maybe the command 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.559 deck from one of the Star Trek shows. There you go, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.400 that's a good example. Um. And step two is to 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.720 establish a memory route through the location. Right, So if 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.719 you're gonna use say your childhood home, then you want 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:16.880 to go through the front door, and you know, pick 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.800 a route that say you go left to the kitchen 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.760 and then down the hallway or so on and so forth. Um, 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:23.920 you want to keep that same route all the time? 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.319 Am I right about that? Yes? Okay? Yeah. Joshua four 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.640 who wrote a book about all this called The moon 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.880 Walking with Einstein, he actually did a short video for 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.480 the World Science Festival and uh, and it was shown 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.120 during this memory panel that I attended, and uh and 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.320 he he was he actually did it in a garden, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.120 like in a like an' really garden. It was more 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.679 like a gardenery of a park or something. And he 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.040 was he actually, you know, he's like, all right, here 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:51.800 is going to be And it was something crazy like 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.920 you know, Einstein moonwalking, that's the title. And then he 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.680 walked through it and he was able to do like 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:58.200 a list of a hundred and ten thing. Yeah. And 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.319 as he's walking through it, he's placing the checks. So 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.200 this is really important. So once you're you establish your route, 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:04.880 you want to put your objects that you want to 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.080 remember your things or your concepts they want to remember 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.480 in that room. And the reason why you want to 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.280 do this is because it becomes what's called a memory peg. Okay, 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.520 so that's important for step three is you need to 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.480 now peg the memory to the object. So that's when 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.560 you start to think about these really bizarre associations. Right, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.680 the more bizarre the better. If you want to remember 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.280 to pick up bananas, then can visualize your front door 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.160 as a banana dacary portal with Carmen Miranda greeting you 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.400 or something along those lines. It helps if you're kind 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.240 of silly. I think silliness definitely. Yeah, And you can 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.360 add a song or a set to the memory, especially 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.720 if you're Hannibal elector right. And then step for is 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.200 just to repeat the visualization until you've cemented the objects 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.360 to memories. You really pick those memories, right. So it's 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.000 a fairly simple process. So we should probably talked about 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.640 the research part of this, which is pretty cool, and 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.240 and actually talk about these mental athletes. So there are 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.120 many types of memory. We don't just have memory in 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.560 the human brain. We have just to give you a 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.840 brief idea, we have sensory memory. We have short term, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:14.840 long term, explicit, implicit, procedural, declarative, episodic, semantic, and uh. 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:20.360 And we also have spatial memory. And the spatial context 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.240 is extremely important. Like it because again at a at 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.600 a very basic level, we are navigating a world, a 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:34.120 physical world of movable, numerous objects and simples. That's right. 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:35.520 And now I've talked about this before that when you 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.320 walk into a room, that what you're perceiving isn't necessarily 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.760 coming through your eyes, is coming from the associations that 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.800 your brain is making spatially. So you're whether or not 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.360 you realize that you're you're judging the height of the 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.400 ceiling or the doors, and so on and so forth. Yeah, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.840 I mean, and if you look back at our evolutionary history, 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:54.360 you know there's a time where you need to remember 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.120 the field where you you know, killed the monkey that 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.320 you're gonna eat or something of that nature. You know, 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.200 where does it laying? The field? Has it moved? So 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.480 every we end up having this spatial scaffolding upon which 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.320 we make sense of our entire lives. Just think of 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.240 a calendar or think of a timeline like these are 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:17.360 these are spatial scaffolding systems. That we use to understand 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.960 what's going on in the world around us. Yeah, and 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.720 I especially like the evolutionary example because if you and 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.160 why you would need the spatial memories because again, think 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.720 about like trying to find food sources and mapping that 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.200 out in your brain, or trying to figure out where 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.800 that dentif lions are, how past to avoid them. Yeah, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.080 so it's really important to stress here that the memory 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.960 palace is not a trick. It's not really a trick. 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.000 It's not something and when you have people who can 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.720 who can use it and use it to impressive degrees, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.960 not just for five items at the grocery store that uh, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.360 they're they're not doing anything out of the ordinary. Like 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.640 the spatial way in the way that we use spatial 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.440 memory in the memory palace is just how we think. 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.359 It's how the brain works well. And also these mental 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.440 athletes that compete, right, they actually have very average memories. 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.359 They've tested them. Yeah, these are not superpowered brains here, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.560 these are normal brains. They're using um just to tie 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.520 down what's happening in the brain. And there's a lot 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.879 going on in the brain with memory. But uh, spatial 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.119 memory is tied in the hippocampus, which is located in 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.639 the temporal lobe, and it kind of looks like a long, 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.159 gummy worm kind of thing in your brain. And it's 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.760 also worth noting that at the head of this worm 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.600 you have the amigala, which is tied to emotional memory, 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.000 which again kind of look at the head of the worm, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.760 and underneath that you have the pair hippocamp bulk, which 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.639 is tied into details, memory recoding, and memory retrieval. But 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.879 the hippocampus that's spatial, and that's the area that really 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.280 fires up when these mental athletes start using the memory 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.560 palates to exceptional degrees. That's right. In a study of 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.640 eight top ranking mental athletes, they are asked to memorize 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.560 three numbers and black and white photographs of people's faces 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.040 and magnified images of snowflakes. Researchers found that in comparison 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.639 to the control group of non mental athletes, the mental 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.480 athletes were using a lot more of their spatial memory 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.280 in that himple campus region that you talked about, um 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.000 and again, it's because they're using that spatial reasoning to 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.919 peg a blueprint of all the objects that they're memorizing. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.320 So UM so we're talking about these mental athletes. Let's 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.359 talk specifically about one of the more famous ones. I 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.159 suppose by now, um Joshua four. Yeah, this is the 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.520 guy who wrote Moon's Moonwalking with Einstein then I mentioned earlier. Um, Yeah, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.320 he became interested in these individuals, um, and and he's 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.560 just a journalist, right, I want to find out more 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.080 about this. I mean, he became interested in the US 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.080 Memory Championship and he went there expecting to interview a 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.520 bunch of savants and uh and just you know, mental giants. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.399 And and they they kind of laughed at the notion 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.919 when he when he asked them the questions because they're like, no, 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:58.639 I'm just you know, a normal dude, and this is 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.280 not that complicated at it. And so he kind of 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:02.960 took it on as a challenge to like, well, let 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:04.440 me see what I can do. Let me try out 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:06.639 the memory palace, let me let me see what I 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.080 can do with the method of Loki. Yeah, and he 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.920 spent a whole year, this was just pretty incredible with 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.680 memory champ ed Cook um literally just so he could 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.720 improve his mental acuity, right that that was his the 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:21.919 first thing that he wanted to try to do. But 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.680 he became really obsessed with becoming a mental athlete himself, 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.320 and he went on to compete in and win the 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.280 US Memory Championship, and each morning during this year, he 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.400 would spend fifteen minutes memorizing a new poem or memorizing 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.320 the names in an old yearbook for instance. Um, but 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:41.680 that's not that's not where it stopped. And he again 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:43.879 he was obsessed with us. So on the subway he 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.000 would start to memorize random numbers, or he would keep 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.560 a deck of playing cards with him and memorize those. 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:53.840 And he began to catalog everything in his existence and 0:19:54.119 --> 0:20:00.080 constructing like basically like condominiums of mental palaces. Cook the 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.040 guy that he he interviewed, he actually did a like 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.480 a Ted talk or Ted x talk or something, And 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.080 I'll have to embed that in the blog post that 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.680 we do to ac company this, uh, this particular episode, 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.240 because he goes into how he would he uses the 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.679 memory pal system. He's memorized things like Chinese characters, you know, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.960 basically learning bits of another language via the memory palace. Yeah, 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.400 and he has some really good visual representations in that video. Yeah, 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.840 super silly Joshua for yeah, completely obsessed. He even bought 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.040 a pair of goggles and spray painted them black, and 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.120 then he cut out eye holes in them. And this 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:38.920 is all in an effort so that he could better 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:43.280 concentrate on his memory skills. Yeah, so it looks like 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.080 that part of it sounds like, you know, Jedi master training, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.840 some sort of you know, far Eastern like thing. But 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.960 then in his mind he's thinking about goofy things like, uh, 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.240 you know, like Katherine Hepburn juggling frogs or something I 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.720