What can be encoded in 2,000,000 keywords?

In my book “2,000,000 keywords as one massive visualization” I address the memorization techniques. One may wonder how much we can encode in 2,000,000 keywords and why. Since this is discussed in another book,  I would also like to present it in this blog.  So try to imagine what can be encoded in 2,000,000 keywords.

It takes 16 hours to recite just 100,000 keywords

The current record of memorizing the digits of Pi is 100,000 digits, and it took the person 16 hours to recite everything. Since PAO methodology typically encodes 6 digits into 3 keywords and that into one visualization, the record holder probably had to memorize 33,000  keywords. The most amazing achievement here is not the volume but the accuracy: being able to recall every visualization with perfect accuracy is amazing.

If we allow 5% mistakes, the job probably becomes x20 easier. I honestly never claimed perfect recall. 95% accuracy is good enough for most uses. Yet, if the record holder needed to recite 2,000, 000 keywords, that could take him a whole month of non-stop talking, which could be a very different and amazing achievement. For comparison, Frenchman Lluis Colet broke the world record for the longest speech after rambling nonstop for 124 hours about Spanish painter Salvador Dali, Catalan culture, and other topics.

How many keywords encode an article?

When encoding the general subject of articles we usually need ~10 keywords: 4 keywords for context, 4 keywords for innovation, and 2 keywords for special things like labels. When we need to remember the entire article, and if the article is dense we typically use ~10 keywords per section and ~4 sections per page. This means that we usually need around 200 keywords to encode everything worthwhile in a good dense article. 2,000,000 keywords are enough to encode 10,000 dense articles.

Dense articles worth encoding are rare. If we address around 1,000 articles per week, maybe 100 articles will be worth remembering the general idea, and 5 articles articles to remember fully. This means that 2,000 keywords to remember should be a good harvest after reading 1,000 articles, and at this rate, it may take around 40 years to fill the 2,000,000 keywords reservoir.

How hard is it to be fluent in any language?

While we can do pretty much anything with a vocabulary of 2000 words, true fluency requires around 20,000 words vocabulary.  For example, I have this vocabulary size only in three languages, but some polyglots claim to be fluent in more than a dozen languages. My grandmother was such a person, so I fully believe the claim.

To encode one foreign language word we need several keywords. We probably need to encode a couple of meanings for disambiguation. Assume three syllables each getting its own keyword. Add a keyword for the grammatical structure, like gender.  Overall we usually need around six keywords to encode each foreign language word. There is some redundancy, and yet this means that we may 100,000 keywords to encode a language vocabulary. 2,000,000 keywords suffice for fluency in 20 languages. Pretty cool, and well above my paygrade.

Encoding associations

In addition to encoding actual keywords, we may need visualizations to encode the associative connections between subjects. Quite often we literally get the context from placing mental palaces in a specific “neighborhood” in our visual representation. Then we connect mental palaces between various neighborhoods. Typically we need less than 10% of visualizations to encode various associations, and yet these associative connections are most critical for creativity.

The specific methodology for visualizing associations is somewhat beyond what we get in other memory books. Memory masters do not usually need this skill. The memory masters of antiquity had a set of dedicated tools just for that, but modern memory masters neglect this particular skill. A well-known master of associative connections was Peter of Ravenna, who was an attorney in Renaissance Italy. He used various concordance techniques. And he was probably the last well-known master of memorizing associations.

You do not really need associations for trivia games and memory competitions. However, if you are a creative person you need to use your associations extensively. If you care to encode associative connections into your memory palaces, you are guaranteed to be respected not just as knowledgeable but also as creative individual.

Mimicking the brain

Placing a thin sheet of mental palaces in well-defined neighborhoods with very specific roles, and then connecting these neighborhoods via long-range associative links mimics the structure of human brain and more specifically neocortex. There are around 20 billion neurons in a human neocortex. Males have 16% more neurons in neocortex compared to females. This means that by encoding 2,000,000 keywords we use 0.01% of the capacity of neocortex. There are around 70 billion neurons in the cerebellum but they serve somewhat different functions. The capacity of human brain is truly amazing, and we simply do not encode information fast enough to utilize a sizable percentage of it.

How many words is a bible?

We consume significantly more information than our ancestors. Several hundreds years ago some of the most accomplished humans knew every word in the bible. The King James Bible we use today has 783,137 words. A capacity of 2,000,000 words enables memorizing the entire bible word by word with a score of interpretations approximately.

For comparison, the Quran is 77,797 words long in the original Classical Arabic. A person who knows the Quran by heart is named Hafiz, and reportedly there are 3-year-olds who know the text by heart.

Do we even need 2,000,000 keywords in one memory structure?

It may take decades to fill a massive memory structure. Moreover, we probably have several different memory structures dedicated to different purposes, like planets in a sci fi novel. We naturally fill these structures more or less independently, distributing the computation load and not utilizing full capacity.

When we switch context there is a feeling of warp-speed travel. We go from one memory structure to another. All visualizations of the previous context blur out, while another context christalizes. This is a strange feeling. I get vertigo. When I am a memory master, I try to to think as engineer, and while I work as an engineer memory mastery is something very different.

Occasionally things mess up. People are resting, and talking casually about stuff, while I feel that I  switch from one context to another. It is also difficult for me to discuss subjects in languages that I never used when learning the relevant subjects, especially in languages where I have a limited vocabulary of several thousand words.

It becomes clear if you read the book

The whole discussion may appear strange. You may ask yourself whether or not I am serious. If you know me personally, you would know that this is authentic me. If you read the book, you understand technically how anyone can operate multiple massive memory structures. If you train what we teach, you will also join this elite club and share your experiences.

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