The Secrets of Sherlock’s Mind Palace | Hacker News Reader

The Secrets of Sherlock’s Mind Palace

smithsonianmag.com

76 pointswalterbell39 comments

(I've not watched Sherlock, so this is just going from the article)

The description of Sherlock wandering through his mind palace as if it were some kind of virtual reality reminds me of what I experienced during a bad acid trip in college. If I looked at some object and tried to remember details about it I would "see" this multidimensional spatial array of all similar objects that I had in my memory with them sorted along each dimension by some attribute of the objects, and then I could "see" a search take place along each dimension to find the memory that best matched the object I was looking at. When the match was found, I could feel the data load from the memory to my awareness.

Basically, it seemed on this trip that the part of my mind that is "me" had become kind of detached from the rest of my mind and could watch how the rest worked. Another example: when someone spoke, I first would hear just nonsense sound, then I'd hear a replay but this time as phonemes, then I'd hear them replay again but this time as words, then I was aware of some kind of parsing going on and them the "me" part would be aware of the thought the speaker was trying to convey. (And this might also trigger an attempt to remember who the speaker was, which would do that whole spatial array thing I described in the prior paragraph).

I have no idea if this experience was just some random thing my brain made up due to the effects of the acid, or if it really does have some connection to how memory works and/or how language is processed.

I didn't try to do any experiments with memory perception while tripping after that, because I never dropped acid after that trip. I'd noticed that my last several trips had felt like context switched between the real world and the tripping world. When I'd trip, I'd kind of pick up where I left off in the tripping world the previous time. Since my last trip had turned bad, I was worried that tripping again would just pick up where I left off, and so never touched acid (or any other hallucinogen) again.

I've always thought that's how memory worked, especially given the way I recall things. Anything you remember is essentially a stored state of sensory patterns. And because those patterns aren't unique, each new thing you learn cobbles together previous patterns (with modifiers) to form the new memory. It's why looking at the holes in the peel of an orange might remind you of pores in human skin, and the scent of an orange takes you back to the memory of your mom cutting up some oranges for you.

Been formulating something similar over the years. It seems we get a sense of time based on fresh "patterns". So as we grow older, more and more inputs match previous inputs and thus our sense of time gets all mangled.

also we have a very aggressive "de-duplication" going on, again without any consideration given to time, that result in experiences with similar elements blurring into each other.

That's an interesting theory on why time accelerates as people get older. If one's sense of time is the rate at which new patterns are formed, if that rate declines to 25% then 2 years will pass by and it will only feel like 6 months.

I'm reminded of that quote from Dune: "I'll miss the sea. But a man needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside of us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."

It basically came to me while trying to introspect on why i could remember something from 20 years ago with clarity, but could not remember much about the past week with any certainly. Because as i thought about it, the days seemed to overlap as i had done much the same in each of them.

You may be interested in learning about cognitive psychology and neuroscience. It's the branch of psychology that focuses on the question of how the brain works.

One part of the science involves studying people who have had parts of their brains damaged through illness or accident; one of its overall findings that many people find surprising is what little pieces our brains functionality is broken down into. For instance, there are portions of your brain which match the emotional feeling to the visual input; when this system is damaged, you look at your family and feel nothing. (This in turn leads to a belief that your family has been replaced by impostors -- they look the same and sound the same but feel difference.)

Relevant to your drug trip, there are also parts of the brain responsible for "the feeling that your are in your body". When these parts of your brain are inhibited -- for instance, by a drug -- you feel detached from your body.

All of which is to say, you may find it interesting to study how your mind works from the outside looking in, through cognitive psychology, instead of from inside looking out during a drug trip :-)

Your comments about language reminded me of this:

When I was younger, I had hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Whenever my blood sugar would start crashing, I could actually feel my brain functions start shutting down, in a rough order from highest to lowest.

First I would have trouble with concentration and attention. I would feel 'spacey'. Lots of things can cause this though, so I didn't always realize it was a blood sugar problem and that I needed to eat something.

The next thing to go would be my ability to process language. Usually when someone is speaking to you in your native language, you aren't really conscious of the difference between 'hearing a sound' and that sound having meaning. Someone is talking and the meaning just forms in your head. But when my blood sugar started dropping, English would start sounding like a foreign language. It was all just sounds. The sounds had the rhythm of language, but not one I understood anymore.

And then when I tried to speak, I would clearly form the intent of speaking certain words and completely different ones would come out of my mouth. Before I knew that it was hypoglycemia, I had an episode once in high school where I knew something was wrong, and I was repeating the words 'I need to visit the nurse' over and over in my head, but when I managed to speak, all I could say was 'I don't feel good' before I lost control and started sobbing. Laughing or crying uncontrollably happens right before I black out.

My diabetic fiance has a similar experience. If she speaks gibberish in the middle of the night, I use it as a good indicator that she has low blood sugar.

For those who wish to know more about the history and applications of the "method of loci", beyond portrayals of it in a fictional series - I highly recommend 'Moonwalking with Einstein' by Joshua Foer. It's an account of a journalist who spends a year learning the methods above and subsequently wins the US memory championship.

It's interesting, in a world in which instant access to a significant subset of knowledge is taken for granted, that these memory techniques are undergoing a resurgence.

I encourage anyone to spend 15-30 minutes a day learning these techniques and applying them to small tasks such as memorising a shopping list, phone numbers and useful bits of info. one tends to forget. http://mt.artofmemory.com is a good starting point also.

Cal Newport in Deep Work also mentions that book and recommends this kind of memory exercise. Not only for the value of being able to memorize stuff, but because it seems like memory training improves attention, citing a professor at the University of Washington's Memory Lab:

> We found that one of the biggest differences between memory athletes and the rest of us is in a cognitive ability that's not a direct measure of memory at all but of attention.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/remembering-as-an-e...

Slightly OT, but I quite appreciated Deep Work. Been following Newport for many years now. His last two books have been quite interesting.

I quite appreciated it too. Just got back to work after a long vacation and I've been doing some deep working, more or less, although not in a tower out in the forest. But I like the audacity of the book, or something like that: like it encourages me to really try for serious sustained effort. Reminds me a little of that talk "You and your research".

I'd also recommend Remember Remember by Ed Cooke (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remember-Learn-Stuff-Thought-Never-e...). Ed, one of the mental athletes that trained Josh, takes you through this process of creating loci to train you how to remember US Presidents and UK Monarchs.

One thing that is not discussed in the book is how to clear a memory palace for reuse. Any suggestions?

I read the book a few years ago, and to this day I still see a large jar of pickled onions outside my parent's garage, cottage cheese outside their front door, and other items on the shopping list given in the book scattered throughout their house, which suggests reuse is going to be a problem.

They briefly touch upon it in chapter 11. It says to spring clean by mentally walking through and emptying them of lingering images. Additionally, some high level competitors won't even talk with anyone three days before a contest, to avoid forming interfering associations.

I read a fascinating book on the the Art of Memory by Francis Yates some years ago [1] in which she explores the topic with much depth, a pleasure to read. I have certainly been surprised we forgot about this - once I became aware of it, it made so much sense. I personally try to use my memory where possible, especially in this day of immediate access to digital diaries and calendars. It's a challenge and I'm not sure our modern world can support such ideas for much longer.

If nothing else, read the reviews on the Amazon link below to learn a lot more of interest on the subject.

I remember that when I this in the discussed BBC Sherlock Holmes episode I was not at all surprised that the writers had thought to use this technique. I suppose Arthur Conan Doyle didn't know about this specifically, or it would have made quite a lot of sense to have written it into Sherlock's story.

1. The Art of Memory, Francis Yates pub. 1966

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Memory-Frances-Yates/dp/184792...

As I am running into a 404 here is the link, that worked for me:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Memory-Frances-Yates/dp/1847922929...

An important thing to mention to anybody who might be interested in that book is that it's _not_ about art of memory technique, but rather about the philosophical and religions beliefs and practices associated with it. It's a history of religion book more than anything about memory.

<Context - I consider my self somewhat challenged when it comes to remembering numbers.>
I personally found ‘mind palace’ technique very helpful.
It allowed me to remember a financial instrument details which involves 32 numbers without any pattern. Whenever I have to use this instrument I have to input random 6 numbers out of those 32. Before I discovered this technique I had to pull out the hardcopy of the instrument every time for reference, now no more.
Also, it need not be ‘palace’ or a structure. I use mental map of a roadway which I’m intimately familiar with to place the 32 numbers on the various landmark on the way. Whenever needed I mentally ’drive through’ the roadway to retrieve the numbers.
Somewhere I read that it works so well because as a human species we have ability to remember geo spatial things much better than abstract things like numbers. I would guess that it has to do with our hunter-gatherer days when we were primarily dealing with spatial concepts; brain is hard wired to store those information much better than things like numbers.

How do you add the numbers on landmarks? Do you just have a road sign with 42 miles to x, or a building with 8 windows?
Also when you are starting with a new number, do all the landmarks need to be unique, or can you re-use the same building but with a different number of windows etc. Or are the items all the same, just in a different order?

> How do you add the numbers on landmarks? Do you just have a road sign with 42 miles to x, or a building with 8 windows?
It could be anything, what you said would work beautifully if it has occurred spontaneously to you. The key thing is it has to be very very natural to you but may not make any sense at all to others.
Example, one of the building I have assigned the number 78 as it is an old building and my father's age is around that.
> do all the landmarks need to be unique
Again it is a very personal decision. For me currently it is one pair of number per landmark as I did not want to 'overload' my system. But if I think about it now, maybe after sometime when I'm comfortable with my current system I can assign another number to the same landmark... But I'm not going to risk it now :-).
If you really want to try it out, start with one thing now and see how it goes before doing for others.
Btw, I discovered this when reading 'Moonwalking with Einstein' (referenced by another commentator here). This book was in reading list of Bill Gates couple of years back.
To illustrate my earlier point, the title of the book does not make any sense at all, but that series of words is used by somebody in the book to remember certain things.

I am a little surprised no one answered this.
The field of memory training has a system (called the major system) for converting arbitrary numbers into words by assigning distinct sounds to the 9 digits - 0 is s, 1 is t(d), 2 is n and so on.
For example, 95 would be p + l sound - say a pillow. Try to visualize a giant pillow (have something exaggerated and preferably silly) on that spot.

I learned this technique as an undergraduate in a seminar meant to help with exams. I thought it was so much woo but it does work. For me anyway, though I never used it for exams- I use it to memorise shopping lists.
I find that for that sort of thing I don't need a whole building. I just visualise an array of empty abstract squares, and fill them up with groceries etc. I think the important thing is the structure you give the memory. I can usually memorise ~15 items in less than a minute.
I also visualise my house sometimes, very convenient for things that actually go to, eg the kitchen or the bathroom irl. I just put them in the proper place in my mind, then to remember them I imagine walking around the house. It helps to do it in the same order both times: start at the front door, proceed to the kitchen, then the bathroom etc. I think I'll try placing them in the actual store next.
It's a bit of a hassle to be fair but I'm normally very absent minded :)

It's odd that the empty abstract squares works for you, since the article suggests this isn't typically how the technique is applied ("A large, blank room wouldn’t work, but one that has identifiable locations within it might") is it usually only smaller sets of objects you can remember this way?

I haven't tried anything else to be honest- like I say I only do this for groceries, once or twice a week.
I had a few exams in the past year and it never occurred to me to try and use this technique there (this was for a postgraduate course- other than the one where I learned about it).
Also to be fair often the stuff I buy at the supermarket is the same list with small variations- for instance, I don't have to remember to buy milk and orange juice, just to remember whether there's enough in the fridge.
I really should try to use this for something more involved.
Edit: to clarify, I was convinced that this thing works because I tried it in class back in that undergrad seminar. I generally have a bad memory, but I was able to memorise lists of more than 20 objects in a small amount of time (I don't remember how long- the person training us kept time). I didn't think my groceries' list is proof enough :)

Understood :) I wasn't doubting the technique whatsoever (I'm actually really keen to try it out) just trying to understand if you had some superhuman memory, or if you were just applying the simpler\abstracter version for small-ish lists. For what its worth my memory is pretty shocking too, and in a weird coincidence I find that writing the shopping list out is enough for me to commit it to memory, and I never need to consult it once I have it stuffed in my pocket.

Has anyone else noticed that they instinctively build these mind palaces with file systems on your computer? I regularly find my self recalling a fact about our code base by mentally diving through the file structure.
It seems like our brains handle structure very easily.

I remember another illustration of the mind palace in the movie Dream Catcher. One guy had one ( don't recall why) got possessed by an alien and his consciousness hid in his mind attic, which he'd locked, to escape being deleted or something.

I think that what was portrayed in Dream Catcher was meant as a metaphor for the guy's mind, suited to film, rather than an actual memory palace the guy 'built'. The book (as I recall) did not have a memory palace, just dialogue between the guy and this voice in his head. It's been a while, so I might have some of that wrong, but I am sure he did not have a memory palace.

Does someone actually use those kinds of mnemonics as a student, for learning "higher" mathematics or physics?

SPOILER comment:
The BBC:s latest Sherlock with Cumberbatch ("The abominable bride") made it explicit that in the show Sherlocks's mind palace 'technique' is actually just a drug trip :)

You may want to prefix that with a hefty "SPOILER" alert, since that's a pretty substantial and significant twist in the episode and indeed the whole series

Interesting. I haven't seen that episode yet (so consider me spoiled :-) and I wonder how that is going to play out.
Instead of a visualization of a memory recollection technique it's retconned(?) into something different.
Retconned might be too strong a word if you know that the original Sherlock Holmes was using lots of different drugs. All legal in Victorian times but some of them are now illegal.

I haven't seen that episode yet
For anyone who hasn't seen the Sherlock special, "Sherlock: The Abominable Bride" yet, it's being streamed by PBS online till Jan. 24 @ 11:59PM Eastern Time (i.e. New York time) here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch-online/full-episod...
This special is largely enjoyable on its own, I think, i.e. even if you haven't watched any of the regular episodes, though the fullest effect will be felt by those who've watched the show.

made it explicit that in the show Sherlocks's mind palace 'technique' is actually just a drug trip
This isn't really so.
Sherlock uses the memory palace technique, without drugs, throughout the entire series.
SPOILER-Y STUFF:
The immersion Sherlock goes through in "The Abominable Bride" is of a different nature -- usually he is focused and in control, driving the search, but in this instance he is looking to go deeper, to dream his way to an answer by letting go of external reality. The drugs are an expedient to get him into that state. It's analogous to the difference between searching a database/knowledgebase and losing oneself in a fully immersive VR scenario.
SPOILER:
(It is true that Sherlock told Mycroft that he was doing the mind palace thing, and Mycroft points out that the mind palace is merely a memory technique and this is beyond that, i.e. a drug trip, but given Sherlock's relationship with Mycroft, it isn't surprising that he'd underplay the drugs, is it? Also, I don't think Mycroft knows Sherlock deeply enough to know what Sherlock can do in his mind palace -- may not even know he had one, given how he reacts to Sherlock's mention of it.)
EPISODE SPOILERS FOLLOW:
And, just a few quick reminders: remember, in the regular series, Sherlock's not the only one with a mind palace -- said character refers to his own and says, "You know about Mind Palaces, don’t you, Sherlock?"
And, in that same episode, we also see an active (i.e. non-drugged) Sherlock thinking his way out of a jam -- in his mind, various characters show up to guide him. As one of them says, "It's all well and clever having a Mind Palace but you've only three seconds...to use it.". Another character later on says, "Must be something in this ridiculous memory palace of yours that can calm you down."
(The above examples are on YouTube, but would really spoil some things, so I won't link to them here; there's also a transcript out there, if you want to look it up.)

Correct.

I may have overreached a bit in my comment above. I agree with you about the presentation of narrative facts in the past of the series, but hold my final opinion in reserve as Moffat and Gatiss work drama first and then come up with ways to knit the story back together in a way that appeals to the viewer to suspend their disbelief. I.e. if they think it's more interesting that Sherlock has been stoned the whole time, then they will probably work that in.

The method of loci are the jumping off point in Jonathan Spence's marvelous The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci.

Breathless gushing from the Smithsonian over BBC Sherlock? Oh, and a recollection technique.

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