Memory Palaces

I just read an article in the latest National Geographic about memory. I have a terrible memory, which is in fact why I bought the magazine when I saw the cover at the store. The article mentioned the ‘Method of Loci’and ‘Memory Palaces’, which are mnemonic devices that I wasn’t aware of before. With a little internet research I’ve found two books I’m interested in reading (or at least browsing): The Art of Memory by Francis A. Yates and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan Spence.

I’m posting this partly because the subject is fascinating and I thought other people here might be interested, but also because the first sentence in Jonathan Spence’s book (viewable on Amazon) seems at least at first blush to be untrue to me:

“In 1596 Matteo Ricci taught the Chinese how to build a memory palace.”

The remaining text on the first page of the book seems to clearly and simply describe what is meant by the first sentence. The issue I take with Spence’s assertion (at least in how I take it without having read the book ) is that the Chinese (at least if I use the term to include Tibetans) have utilized the exact same methods since at least before the 11th century when the Kalacakra teachings as documented and described in the Kalacakra tantra in general (and the Kalacakra mandala in particular) were transmitted from India to Tibet. I consider the Kalacakra mandala to be a perfect example of an extremely complex ‘memory palace’ already in use in China, since it is considered to be the most elaborate ‘architectural’ construction corresponding to an entire cosmology which is in ritual (i.e. practical) use among Buddhists today. When practitioners actively participate in the visualization they are in fact continuously familiarizing themselves with (and by extension memorizing) a particular religious / philosophical / cultural worldview in all of its breadth of scope and vivid detail. Traditionally this conceptual approach is contrasted with and combined with the practice of ‘direct seeing’ which is of an immediate nature unaffected by any elaborate conceptual constructions. From the point of view of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy this dual approach (‘generation stage’ and ‘completion stage’) is considered the best approach, as concentrating solely on each limb without the other is considered a crippled approach (at least for most people).

Memory is an extremely important component of any oral tradition, and Buddhism continues to be an oral tradition, despite the ubiquity of the printing press and the internet. Aside from ‘mandalas’ which I have already mentioned, ‘lineage trees’ are another example of a memory palace in fairly common use since ancient times in Asia.

I wonder if that first sentence shouldn’t have read “In 1596 Matteo Ricci utilized the familiar concept of the memory palace, in order to teach the Chinese about Catholicism.”

I guess I’m not understanding what a ‘memory place’ is.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Make sure Xunzian sees this, I know he’s interested in Ricci.

I don’t know if my mind can adapt to this. I don’t think it’s for me. It’s interesting though.

It looks to me like a “memory palace” is a technique of sorts and it is entirely possible that the Chinese either lacked this particular technique or had a less developed version of it. I’m not sure whether that is necessarily true since Confucian scholars at the time that Ricci entered China would have memorized both the Four Books (which together aren’t terribly long) as well as the Five Classics (which are incredibly long and often rather ponderous) so clearly the Chinese were skilled at memorizing. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a western technique that was better than what the Chinese were employing. The thrust seems to be about better techniques for memorizing as opposed to memorization itself.

Furthermore, it is about the recognition of the process itself. Very good techniques for memorizing things like the Five Classics had been in existence since before 500 BCE but that doesn’t mean that one could take the techniques that worked for the Five Classics (which arose out of necessity and had been in use and honed for over a thousand years when Ricci entered the scene) and apply it to something new like a very long message that person A wanted to convey to person B through a runner and not a written form. It makes sense that Europeans would place a much higher premium on that sort of spontaneous memorization because European literacy rates were generally well below that of China. How many times have you been in a class and the instructor made you memorize some seemingly trivial detail and you exclaimed, “Why do I have to memorize this? If I need to know it, I can just look it up!” In the case of China, the individual could actually go and look it up whereas in Europe memorization would have been their best bet. Furthermore, China developed the printing press fairly early on so not only could the individual in question look something up, but there would also be a fairly inexpensive text available where they could look it up!

It is a whole different ball game. When there are only a few texts that need to be memorized, over a long period of time very effective techniques for memorizing those texts will develop. But that is a different skill from being able to memorize anything at all. From what I’ve read in what you’ve posted, it seems like Ricci brought the latter.

Xunzian: It’s just a quick thought I’m throwing out there, so it’s not like I’ve completely thought it through myself… I’m curious though - are you aware of the exhaustive detail involved in the Kalacakra tantra? And that the details of the visualization are all symbolic of philosophical concepts, the details of the historical tradition, etc. etc.? I’ve heard about and read some about the unbelievable amount of memorization that would be involved in order to hold the whole thing in the mind at one time. It has always astonished me, and I confess I’ve had a hard time believing it. Anyway the whole thing is totally new to me and I’m just amazed by the similarities. Jonathan Spence is a very highly regarded author and I have no reason to doubt his basic outlook. Can’t wait to get my hands on the book.

I’m not terribly familiar with it, to be honest. But the difference isn’t that memory palaces hadn’t developed in its memorization (or a few other things) but rather that this was an unconscious process since the techniques were seen as specific to the particular thing as opposed to techniques that could be generalized to anything.

For example, people have known how to build things for ages. Well before there was any notion of “statics”. However, the set of things they could build was somewhat limited and mostly developed due to trial-and-error. With statics, we can build just about anything we want as long as it is architecturally feasible. The forces governing statics were already being used in the case of earlier buildings but it wouldn’t be correct to say that the earlier builders had a notion of statics.

This seems reasonable and could be true. My Kalacakra example doesn’t make it not true.

I’m skeptical that this is the case. It could be refuted by either showing that the creators of these architectural representations of Buddhist knowledge knew what they were doing (this seems obvious to me, it is difficult for me to imagine that they didn’t) or that the Europeans who studied ‘memory palaces’ had an extremely complex theoretical understanding of this particular mnemonic device (similar to ‘statics’) underlying the practical applications of it. This second possibility I have little information on at this point, so I can’t come to any final conclusion. From what I’ve seen so far though that type of complex theoretical knowledge doesn’t seem to be what I’m reading about - which seems to be wholly discovery of a principle with practical application following that discovery.

I’ll let you know if I read the book…

Well my library system doesn’t have either book. And I’m not buying them.

nytimes.com/interactive/2011 … ef=general

amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einst … 233&sr=1-1

Agreed Anon, but not many people will know what you are talking about.

That’s alright.

It’s been a while since I started this thread, but the NYT Magazine article I just posted was fascinating and I remembered that I had posted about it before. Sometimes I just post things I find interesting. Even if I’m the only one interested I still might post it.

I think they (“mental athletes”) are over complicating things.
They don’t seem to be using their methods for any actual accomplishments outside of their sport and while it’s remarkable for showing human capacity, it doesn’t really seem that they are doing what man once did in the regard that they are discussing.

Why?
I considered this for a bit and concluded that it’s because they, unlike the Chinese you refer to before Anon, do not hold a reverence to their craft in the same light.
What they are using the toolset for is benign and worthless.

The reason for the memory tools of the past were to recall very important pieces of information to those that remembered them.

That, and the other thing that struck me when I first read of Memory Palaces (actually, introduced would be a better way of putting it) was that it was the most contrived approach to something that, for me, already more or less takes place.
That’s kind of an asshole thing of me to make my judgements on, but I can’t really help that I really can’t stand reading a book more than once or watching a movie more than once because I don’t forget what was in it.

The exception would be a book filled with just numerical data.
I can’t visualize that in any fashion.
But when I read, my mind details more than what is written without effort; to the extent that if I pick up The Gunslinger (as one example), then the mud puddle that was never written about is immediately right where I left it inside of the cave just from the first sentence of the book where the cave isn’t yet mentioned.
If I pick up the Book of D’ni, then the stale, dank, faint urine filled air (that was never described) of the dark insides of the walls are still vibrantly alive that the Relymah use to move around the city that they are enslaved to.

I still recall easily that 1936 was the first year of coaxial cabling for AT&T, providing telephone and television in the New York area, and can feel the cold hunk of twisted metal that it was even though I’ve never held such in my hand, nor was it part of the description of that information.
I still recall that 1927 was the year in which Philo Farnsworth officially invented the first fully functional television and can smell the dry dirt and faint, yet annoyingly chilled, breeze of the air while he plowed as a 14 year old boy having the realization of how to do so years previous to this finaled accomplishment.
I can see the geometric standards used in Mayan construction quite easily in my mind.
Or the massive expanse of just our solar system in ratio to a nickel.
Or radiophilus, a bacteria that eats nuclear waste and loves to live in nuclear reactors. (yellow, faint white trace around a bacterial slug, sick warmth, concussive silence - these are the things that pop into my mind when I think of radiophilus)

I can still see in my mind things I once drew, or sites I wrote the code for.

While I don’t recall much French, because I wasn’t actually paying attention to the teacher as a 2nd grader, I could walk up to the chalk board today and draw you the terrible diagram of a porch that the teacher tried to use as to teach us a few words.

If I walk somewhere, I’ll know its imagery even ten years later.

I recall, in short, quite a hell of a lot rather naturally.
In fact, sometimes, honestly - I have to take a break from ILP because between the books I read, the content I write in my own works, the pondering’s I consider, and the subject matters that we get involved with here…my mind literally begins to move too fast for my own satisfaction.
The best way to describe it would be a nausea of the brain.

Basically, anything that I focus my attention upon sticks in my head pretty thoroughly because I’m incapable of “lightly” processing anything.

If I read out loud, however, I wouldn’t be able to even tell you what I read two seconds after I read it to you.

I don’t mean I remember everything, or that I can take a deck of cards and bang out like these folks.
Instead, I remember visual information very well and I visualize pretty much anything I read that I give a shit about.

So to me, I agree with Xunzian here.
They definitely had their own because it already exists within humans to accomplish this and obviously they did.
However, the specific form that was brought was probably not quite the same as what they were doing…naturally.
Just as this (in my opinion, stale) form of “memory palaces” doesn’t relate to my (rather natural for me) methods, but they are also for different purposes imo.

Hi Stumps. That was an interesting read. A few comments…

1. I agree that these “mental athletes” are using their skills for trivial reasons. I’m assuming they would agree too, as this opinion strikes me as pretty noncontroversial.

2. I agree that the memory palace mnemonic device is “contrived” and based on something that “already more or less takes place”. Isn’t that the whole point? I don’t understand why you consider this to be something negative.

3. Xunzian may be right, and you may be right to agree with him, but neither of you have presented any reason for anyone to believe so. Do either of you have any evidence for this belief to present? Or is it just your hunch?

You touched on a lot in your post Anon.

Do you wish to explain what “generation and completion stages” are?

Hey Anon,

Well, when I wrote that it was contrived, I’m referring to it in the sense of not being fluid and intuitive.
I poorly stated this point, but its not that it’s just contrived, but more that it does not flow out from the person.

I do not have an alternative method to offer directly, but I can say that it doesn’t seem fluid or intuitive to my mind.
What seems more fluid and intuitive are concepts like synesthesia like Tammet:
optimnem.co.uk/artwork.php

Now, he’s quite radical and exceptional, but I can relate to him better than I can relate to the MA’s.
MA’s describe their craft and my brain offers me shattering explosions of vibrations as a result of imagining their methods in my mind.

I’m pretty sure that most people already think in visual spectrum (neurology shows us that people never stop the visual cortex processing); people probably just need to notice it.
That’s my guess.

I feel like I want to take the author of that article/book and slap him in the face and yell, “WHAT COLOR WAS THAT?!”, right in his face.

And if he didn’t respond, just slap him again and yell, “WHAT SHAPE WAS THAT?!”
And again if needed with how it feels, moves, size, etc…

A simple version of this comical extreme is a question for you Anon:
What color is Tuesday?

So when I refer to it being contrived, I’m referring to it being outside of what it seems to me is the “natural” effect.

In regards to who had what first:
(firstly, I’m going to use a word here from the Hebrew: Nachash - literally, serpent (also brass), but culturally represented the challenging task of obtaining or rendering useful knowledge through life. The idea is that a serpent and brass both are difficult to know how to wield to produce a fruitful gain without seriously injuring or killing oneself or other, and therefore represent the pursuit of “wisdom” allegorically.)

I wouldn’t say that they didn’t have “memory palaces”, but they didn’t have those “memory palaces”.
The Asian culture had writing far before the west (not to mention an incredible grasp on complex mathematics in quick calculations), and they had a different perspective of nachash than the west in that academically they perceived nachash as something to follow the “movement” of whereas the west saw nachash as something to challenge and “tame”.

The former, Xun has covered already.
The latter, the difference is that I don’t see any evidence that they would try to control reality in such a way innately from their own perspective.
They seem to, instead, work on brining the “ideal” (in the mind - sensed) into reality through representative forms far more than the opposite.

Which brings me to what I consider to be the best two part evidence that they didn’t use a structured way of “memory palaces”.
Number one: they would have written it down and had it split into an array of forms had it been prevelent in their culture.
If there’s one thing they were masters at (arguably still are), it was cataloging the examinations and methodologies of doing just about anything they found worthwhile to note.
There has never been another account of even just walking in such regimented detail as the Asian culture gave us.

It would be really uncharacteristic to see their culture widely develop a tool of regular practice that equally lacks mass instruction.

Which brings up evidence number two: they did have written methods of how to perform “memory palaces”…for very specific and reverent tasks.
As you cited, the mandalas.

The difference is that had this been a methodology for regular practices, then we should find mandala instruction for the simplest of things.
We don’t.

Instead, what we find is an amazingly visual interaction with the calendar year and forces of nature (only possibly near equaled by some South American cultures); things which even the common mass had to interact with.

So I would say they absolutely had a visualized methodology of memorization, and their academics definitely had “memory palaces”, but there wasn’t the same conception of them in play as what the west was doing.

And that makes sense because the west is the culture that would strangle reality into its will; not move along with it.

TheStumps,
You seem to underestimate the value of an oral lineage and place more importance upon the written form.
Is this an accurate assessment of where you place the importances?

Not at all.
I am using the Asian cultures standards as the measure.
They placed value on written form heavily by comparison to other cultures.
It wasn’t just writing, it was a way that had its own doctrines.

Great value was placed upon both - written and oral transmission.