[FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.

Tue Jul 21 17:11:43 EDT 2020

Cody’s observation gives a nice branch to Alexander Luria’s The Mind of a Mnemonist.

Patient S (I think real name Shevashensky) was a perfect-memory person (I forget autistic or not, but yes synaesthesic), whose life was not very functional but who made a living to some degree as a memory performer.

For a long time he did the things people could respond to, which were the semantically ordinary things: sentences or events etc.  Those are the things people find interesting, and it took the world a while to get bored seeing someone do reliably what they could not at all.

Only relatively late in his career did the performances become more technocratic, in the sense of wondering how much one could change the objects remembered and still preserve the effect.  So he would start to perform repeating long lists of randomly generated meaningless syllables.  Ta dee dah do si etc.

In order to do this he would invent these incredibly rich semantic narratives in the memorization phase, to wrap around each syllable.  Makes me think of Peter Gacs’s automaton that has lots of scaffolding to carry a small number of cells in which you can store arbitrary bits.  Synaesthesia was really central to making that construction capable of carrying the long lists.

Anyway, he could do it, but one gets the impression reading Luria that there was this enormous cognitive engine, running at higher and higher over-clocking, to produce ever more empty, slowly delivered, strings of syllables.  

I believe Daniel Tammet describes reciting digits of pi in their color, shape, and size packages, but I don’t think I recall hearing him say there are narratives of the same kind Shevashensky constructed.

Eric

> On Jul 22, 2020, at 4:53 AM, cody dooderson <d00d3rs0n at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> After reading Glen's reply I came up with a mnemonic, "Fart Vapor Can Distract Republicans" 
> Of course, now I can not remember now what the F stands for. Maybe "Fart Velvet Church Daisy Red"
> 
> Cody Smith
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 1:15 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Thanks.  Anybody else?  I need more data.
> 
>  
> 
> N
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,ik9N3_zbccJR5xYQ-kGUvf3aJItzB9wPRxN8QIR59wit0_3W4cel_WgqYV6Mgd9tSG0Q7QVjD9_yDr0SOB3CH2CNwp6P7brIP5Kh9Bp5pDq9_fc9z-Y-OM6t&typo=1>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 1:09 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.
> 
>  
> 
> Are you asking me?  Face, red, church, velvet. ???
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 12:45 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Can you do it now?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,0wk5SS-WL0FcSI4fYxHjTml6-Skwy4nVNO4__tbqkI0YVfyzf446CviBGA8iCX_MbOk1EsC3lcVZOJs-mYiPpCedkfARaNuQ6Y4tOUnKBg,,&typo=1>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 12:42 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.
> 
>  
> 
> I go five after making lunch.  But I said it subvocally many times before starting lunch preparation.  Does that count?
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 11:59 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>  
> 
> So the idea is that you hear the list, then you repeat it, then you repeat it again. 
> 
>  
> 
> Then you do something entirely else for five minute.  Write an email on philosophy?  Do a page of your income tax form?  Make a telephone call?  After  a few of these distractions, Now try to remember the number. 
> 
>  
> 
> Let me know what your experience was and then I will explain where this comes from, if you don’t already know.  If you DO already know, don’t give away the secret until others have had a crack at it.
> 
>  
> 
> Nick
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p0D8nxUeHmISaJz52HFNzZEtwx-3rSK9ANQki7T-RvvRs1QJ4d6c3db4o6gr7dxnCn9tvP5OXcZCLAJrW2tLscHICTJIinfgvWcsqI6o0SNy1Zqp9YEjkw,,&typo=1>
>  
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>  
> 
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