Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen in "How can we develop transformative tools for thought?" (2019) discuss at great length memory systems. Their essay is unfortunately repetitive, unstructured, and distractingly first-person. It asks good questions (starting with the title) but offers few useful answers. Worse, it lacks a BLUF. Abridging their lengthy "Summary and Conclusions" (to make it more memorable!):

• Memory is crucial for learning and creative problem-solving
• Memory systems can improve effective recall by an order of magnitude (cf mnemonics)
• Flash cards are underappreciated as an artistic medium as well as a practical memory technique (see flashcard and spaced repetition)
• Mnemonic tricks (e.g., memory palaces) build arbitrary artificial connections among items rather than useful conceptual understanding

Matuschak and Nielsen ask further questions about other thinking tools; more on that another day!

(cf Mental Bandwidth Boosters (1999-06-26), Body Mnemonic (2004-12-04), Mnemonic Principles of Taiji (2014-03-24), ...) - ^z - 2021-11-27