The longest night this year is December 21st. This is a good time to think about the way we passed and the way ahead of us. This year I have definitely made my share of mistakes, yet I learned a couple of valuable lessons. It is probably impossible to tell what makes people successful in life, …
Library of books not yet read will make you think and live more effectively
This post is inspired by this article. I also used this, this and this articles. Here I want to address the issue of what we read and how it shapes our mind. If a person was born deaf what language will he hear? If the person was born blind what will he see? Oliver Sacks …
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Your life as a story: using autobiographic memory
Quite often we can view our life as a story. People often tell that before the clinical death they could see their whole life passing before their eyes. This is the autobiographic memory in action. Autobiographic memory is very important in our life. We can train it, we can use it to remember other things, …
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Long term memory and sleep
One thing that bothers me with long-term memory is the need to review the flashcards or mental palaces or other memory structures. Most memory experts I know use spaced repetitions constantly. Since I use slightly different tools, I use spaced repetitions only for very specific issues, and when I use it I do not like …
Brainy habits
There are many ways to study in life. Some ways are more conventional than others. There is an intricate connection between what we do and what we know. Some habits may have a surprising effect on our brain. This post was inspired by this, this, this and this articles. Conventional education It is pretty safe …
Big data and your memory
Computers are getting smarter than humans. There is nothing we can really do about it, we can maybe delay the inevitable… We can also try to use the same ideas that computers are using and get some advantage over other fellow humans. This post has been inspired by this and this articles. Big data and …
How to choose a book to read
Suppose we generated enough time each day to read something meaningful. This is in no way a small achievement, and if you can read every day you are probably one step ahead of 90% of your peers. Now, what do we read to make the most of this time? The answer is probably quite complex… …
Physical switches in our brain
Our brain is a physical object, and its reactions are physical. We may attribute our memories and experiences to some spiritual and intellectual domain, which is perfectly fine. Sometimes, however, it is best to attribute our experiences to misinterpreted physical experiences. For example, if you have a bad gut feeling, it is probably a heartburn …
Journal of markers for complex subjects
Sometimes coming up with visualizations is easy, and sometimes it is very hard. When we deal with abstract and professional terms, names and languages the visualization process suddenly become complex. There is only so much time we can allocate to visualize and remember everything while reading. How do we deal with such situations? The easiest …
Is it possible to read 10,000 wpm?
Is it possible to read 10,000wpm? Not sure… Depends on what we define as reading… There is a reaction speed limit of eye and brain which can be measured, defining the shortest saccade we can handle. Then there is a visual span, defining width and height of this saccade, and there is some sort of …