Moonwalking with Einstein — Worth It?

Jigar Shah
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

I recently read Joshua Foer’s “Moonwalking with Einstein” and found it worth a read. But are the methods described in the book worth implementing? Here’s what I’ve mulled over.

If you were to memorize a deck of playing cards in 5 minutes, you should know that rote memory won’t do the job. You need to convert those cards into something “memorable.” Also, you need to connect those memorable points with an equally memorable link. Once done, all you have to do is traverse along the memorable link to all memorable points. Simple. But like my teacher said — “Simple does not mean easy.”

To convert those mundane cards into memorable points, Joshua uses a system of mapping those cards with a character doing a certain action with an object. To create a memorable link, he puts those characters at different places in a “mind-palace”. The problem arises in forcing your brain to remember that Ace of Spades is Einstein Moonwalking in Garage and Jack of Diamonds is a Dinosaur trying on a tank top in the living room. 52 cards. 52 characters. 52 actions. 52 props. 52 places in your memory palace. Suddenly, rote memory seems lucrative. But storing things in mental space is useless if you aren’t able to retrieve it at command. We’ve all forgot things while writing an exam paper and remembered those very same things once we’ve handed over the answer sheet.

Joshua does try to increase the efficiency of his method by remembering 3 cards at once. Character from the first card. Action from the second. Object from the third. Thus, instead of 52 characters, there are 18 characters. The problem should’ve ended here but it doesn’t. What if someone throws some baseball cards into the mix? What if pokemon cards? What if (the most dreadful one) another deck of 52 playing cards? Guess, you’ll have to visit that pink tank topped dinosaur again!

I read the book to find ways to improve my memory. Maybe, Joshua started this whole journey for the same reason. He won the US Memory Championship. I hadn’t heard of the championship before reading this book. Yet we both forget our keys. The technique of remembering cards can’t be scaled to other things and moreover there are very high upfront costs — Creating a mapping between the mundane and the memorable and also placing them at memory palaces.

What I do agree with Joshua is that being mindful i.e. to pay attention to the world around you, is more helpful in the long term. Think about it. You probably forget things because you weren’t fully present in the moment. Maybe thinking that you’re getting late for the presentation at the office made you less mindful to pick up the keys on your way out. Maybe you would’ve remembered the name of the person you met yesterday at the park if you weren’t thinking about dinner while he/she was introducing himself/herself.

So, has the external memory — hard disks, cloud, post-it notes, etc. — rendered internal memory useless ?

“No lasting joke, invention, insight, or work of art was ever produced by an external memory. Not yet, at least. Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory … Our memories are who we are. They are the seat of our values and source of our character.”

I partially agree with Joshua on this one. What I feel is that we are now transitioning from “memory holding” organisms to “memory indexing” organisms. We now know — not what the information is — but where we can find it. Childhood Photos. Backed up on the cloud. When was his birthday? Let me check his Facebook. Where was he working earlier? Let’s check Linkedin.

This is what I mulled over

  1. A memory technique that I can’t use in my everyday life
  2. Boosting memory by being more mindful
  3. The transitioning phase of internal memory from holding to indexing
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Jigar Shah

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Mulled Over Books

An account of books I’ve mulled over

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