memory

David Brooks on his "Outsourced Brain"

Merlin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:19:04 -0400

NYT’s David Brooks on outsourcing memory, reference, and decision-making to things that theoretically do it better:

I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ain’t got a mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that belongs to everybody. Then it don’t matter, Ma. I’ll be everywhere, around in the dark. Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there.

And, ironically enough, if you didn’t catch the Grapes of Wrath reference, it’s easy enough to ﬁnd it. Because, if you’re like me, sometimes you also outsource your pop culture knowledge to Google, Wikipedia, and IMDB.

As for Brooks’ opening anecdote – using a GPS? A life-saver for me. Ever since moving from a state where everything orients on a north-south grid to a place where diagonals and seemingly non-Euclidean intersections rule, I’d be literally lost without my Nüvi.

Previously (and mentioned in Brooks’ piece): Clive Thompson on the downside of the outboard brain.

[via: rickroberts in the 43f forum]

”David Brooks on his "Outsourced Brain"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

The downside of the outboard brain

Merlin — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:19:33 -0400

The fate of human memory

Clive Thompson writes on a phenomenon I think about constantly: if you really do start entrusting all your ephemeral memory work to external systems, might your wetware start to atrophy?

Apparently, yes:

This summer, neuroscientist Ian Robertson polled 3,000 people and found that the younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. When Robertson asked his subjects to tell them a relative’s birth date, 87 percent of respondents over age 50 could recite it, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. And when he asked them their own phone number, fully one-third of the youngsters drew a blank. They had to whip out their handsets to look it up.

Haha, big joke, right? Not for me. Between me and TextExpander, only one of us knows my new VoIP number by heart. Without TE to paste it anywhere on command? Yep, I’d have to look up my own phone number. Sad.

But, Clive goes on:

My point is that the cyborg future is here. Almost without noticing it, we’ve outsourced important peripheral brain functions to the silicon around us.

And frankly, I kind of like it. I feel much smarter when I’m using the Internet as a mental plug-in during my daily chitchat…

And, in closing…

At the very least, I’d like to be able to remember my own phone number.

Now thinking that’s something I might want to work on too.

”The downside of the outboard brain” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Tip of the Tongue Strategies

wood.tang — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:14:06 -0400

Even the most diligent among us can’t always remember to pocket a pen and paper everywhere we go (or, shhh!, won’t admit that sometimes we just don’t want to), but of course that’s always when our best ideas hit us. Last night when I was walking my dog, I’m convinced I came up with the answer to global warming, but before I got home to write it down, I had a conversation with a neighbor, checked my mail, and watered the plants, so I might as well have been thinking about the lyrics to “Sussudio” for all I could remember. And try as I might, I couldn’t bring it back.

We’ve all had that tip-of-the-tongue experience where we can’t quite recall a word or a name. Usually, we can yank those back with brute force, just by repeating a letter or phrase until is falls out. But what about a more complete thought that slips your mind? Last night I kept trying to revive my ﬂatulent brain by picturing where I was on the street and recreating the moment, which obviously didn’t work, and my dog was just no help at all. What else could I have done?

What are some of your best tip-of-the-tongue strategies? What tricks do you use to recover those auto-saved documents from your mind? Or better yet, how do I get my dog to take dictation?

”Tip of the Tongue Strategies” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"