How I've Learned to Live with a Nonexistent Working Memory
medium.com
medium.com
But then, I do remember programming language libraries that I use often, so it can't be ADD
Hahaha. But seriously - remembering some things does not disqualify you from the diagnosis, just like not remembering doesn't confirm the diagnosis. If you're actually concerned, maybe talk to a professional.
Then I kept repeating these keywords in my head over and over until we were handed our test papers. First thing I did was too scribble out the beginnings of each graph. That way if I do forget something I can refer to it. Usually that was enough to remember the details that I forgot.
Not sure this is a take the requires doubling down
I recommend journaling your conversations . If your friend tells you his kids got sick, write it down so you can ask him about how they're doing the next time.
Your friends and family are many times more important than your bills and appointments, so treat them with the requisite level of attention.
Edit: Also, if they never realize what you're doing, then doesn't it become even more awkward when you suddenly forget something that you didn't happen to write down, especially when that thing seems easier to remember than what you normally appeared to? (e.g., "how did he remember the party I was going to a month ago but not the fact that my dad was in the hospital last week??")
I personally keep notes on my friends and if they mention something, a like, a dislike, a desire or aspiration or goal, I write it down. In years of doing this, I've never had anyone think it was anything but very flattering if they found out, and I'd let them read theirs haha. Being friends means thinking about them, and putting in effort.
If I found out a friend journaled each day and thought enough of our conversations to include them, well I'd be flattered too.
You really need to know your audience when you do this.
My associates were none too happy to find out that I was taking notes on their criminal conspiracies.
I assure you nobody is keeping score. People are so self-concerned that they honestly won't remember what you said, only the feeling they had when you said it.
The kind of situation I'm worried about is exactly what would affect this though. Like say your friend went on what was supposed to be a fun trip they'd planned for months, but then their dad died in the middle. And you didn't write it down and just forgot it. So they come back and instead of "how're you doing?" or "I'm sorry to hear about your dad" you instead go "did you have fun partying?" or "how was the celebration?" or whatever. They probably wouldn't feel so great hearing you remembering the wrong thing?
everyone will have gaffes that's natural. practice makes perfect.
I still mix up names and make mistakes from time to time, usually because I overthink things and worry about getting them mixed up.
Going back later and re-reading the notes is something I rarely do.
You could write it down, take a picture, and send it to yourself in signal if you must write it.
there are limits that should be set to this kind of behavior.
some people, my parents are good examples, will tell you about the distant great-cousin of their favorite liquor store attendant who once met the hair-dresser of a long-past rockstar that was big in the 1940s.
it's not all journal-worthy is what i'm getting at. I already have RSIs.
But I agree that it does tend to delight people when you remember the stuff that's actually important to them.
It only seems tedious because we're trained to value the wrong things.
Think of how much pointless and transient time is spent on fleeting trivia .
If someone is telling you something, that means it matters to them, and having it matter to you as well is what matters.
isn't this like most people? this is why witness testimonies during trials are considered unreliable.
However i can remember extremely detailed and accurate things otherwise. Unless it's people's names. Or "hey remind me tomorrow ..." or that i need to shut something off in 45 minutes. basically my memory is fine unless i get distracted, or experience anything greater than "mild trauma". Except names. I am so bad at names that Dale Carnegie got mad.
For example, when my wife is going to bed and asks if I can put the laundry into the dryer when it's ready, I just set a timer for 30 minutes. When it doesn't matter much when something happens, I just set it to whatever I feel like.
If the laundry isn't done, or I just don't want to interrupt whatever I am doing, I repeat the timer (a single button press with my watch), or set a new, shorter one. Sometimes I "snooze" 5 times or more, maybe all evening.
But the invariable thing about it is: I never ever forget the thing I wanted to do when the timer goes off. And by setting the timer, I free up my mind until then.
More research into commonality of types of memory recall would be very interesting.
Also "working memory" is short-term storage, like registers, the details of what you're thinking about right now. Not memory of past events, like your wedding day.
Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily.
It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior.
Hippocampal prosthesis, Cortical implant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampal_prosthesis
Cortical implant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_implant
Digital immortality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_immortality
External memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_memory_(psychology)
What does work is encoding complex ideas into longer term memory so they become one token instead of many. I typically shove them into visual memory.
The best way I can explain it is a terrain map. The map has trees which are flow charts, lakes which are distillations of many ideas into a small pools of concepts. Valleys of questions. Eventually everything is in my “mind’s eye” and I can figuratively fly over the data.
Now take that image and remove the visuals. My brain “sees” the map without needing to describe it. It exists as pure, untranslated thought. Intermediate steps, like language, would only get in the way.
"List of concept- and mind-mapping software" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-_and_mind-mapp...
- markmap: markdown + mindmap https://markmap.js.org/ , markmap-vs-code
- vim-voom: https://vim-voom.github.io/
- org-mode, nvim-org-mode
- vscode markdown outline: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/markdown#_docum...
Many a time back in the day I wondered why Word's outline editor mode imposed stylesheet styles on node levels at all.
If the hypothesis has any truth at all, it cannot be universal. It doesn’t apply to me.
If someone has thoughts they cannot express in words, are they truly limited by the language they speak?
So far, only chat history and email history serve that purpose well.
I wish all the journaling would be done automatically for me - for all my calls, all my in person interactions (wearable pin/headphones/glasses with recording func?) - but ASRs/LLMs unfortunately are still not there to fully grasp all the terms and words from different languages, to make the transcript/summarization fully useful (my current experience for transcribing the calls in non-English language, with mixed terms from English, is that over 50% terms are not captured correctly for a specialized conversation).
Somewhat related - highly recommend "The Final Cut" movie on this topic where the recording of everything (audio, video) was implanted at birth for everyone - and ramifications of that.
The key for me is that it's the first thing I open, and create a journal note for the day right off. Make the one simple thing the habit, and then it's right there whenever I think of something to add. If I want to copy or move a piece off to a separate note later, it's right there. Worst case, the document search will find it on the random day anyway if I need it.
I suppose paper is good with the right habits too, but my handwriting is cryptic at best, and I can't search paper.
I wish there was a real prospect of something like artificial hippocampi becoming commercialized in our lifetime.
Maybe we will get AR assistants or something that can reduce experiences into some summarized model with streamlined recall prompting through sensory input.
Seems like excellent content