Joshua Foer is a freelance journalist who focuses on science.  In this TED talk Foer describes his interest in the feats of memory when he went to cover the US Memory Championship in 2005 and began a journey which took him back a year later to actually participate in the event.  What he discovers along the way was by training using 2500 year old techniques developed by the Greeks anybody, even with an average memory, could train themselves to do what seems to be miraculous feats.

What we like

• At the beginning of the talk Joshua has us close our eyes as he describes the most bizarre images.  These images are brought to significance to demonstrate the Memory Palace technique later on in the talk
• Once upon a time people invested in their memories and through training and discipline they cultivated their memories.  It seems what we focus on we cultivate

Mind experience

• How many times have you spoken to or been the person who says I’m bad with names, I never remember.  Or birthday’s I never remember I need to write them down.  As Joshua demonstrates through the Baker/Baker technique finding ways to relate random things to your house of memories is the key.  If asked to remember the name Baker most would not remember this, but if you are told to remember a person that is a Baker most do remember.  The reasoning behind this is because we have multiple images and memories to recall on.  Like you might know a baker, they wear hats, they use flour and they get up early in the morning to bake.  Try this simple technique next time you need to remember a name and see how you go.  We have used this technique and it does work

To think about

• Foer:  Having little need to remember anything it seems like we have forgotten how
• Foer:  If you want to live a memorable life you need to be the person who remembers to remember

Map the mind feature’s birthplace
Map the photograph location