intelligent memory

this is a website and concept that i came across while looking for stuff about memory:


http://www.intelligentmemory.com/default.asp


the author and creator of this concept, dr barry gordon, of which you can check out his creditials on the website, says that there are two kinds of memory: ordinary memory and intelligent memory.

the ordinary type is the type of memory that we use to remember where we put our keys or where is the location of pizza hut or whatever. that type of memory is generally quite weak and unreliable. now the second type of memory, intelligent memory, is smart memory. intelligent memory consists of 3 parts: ideas/individual memories, connection between ideas, and automatic critical thinking. it is the kind of memory that makes links to different things. like remembering that you heard your set of keys made a noise sounding like it hit glass, and therefore it must be on the kitchen table. or your intelligent memory can also be used to solve problems, generally by previous experience. unlike the ordinary memory, this type of memory generally gets better with age, believe it or not. feel free to read more about the definitions on the website.

it can be easily noticed that our intelligent memory is used much more frequently than our ordinary memory. in addition, we often complain that our "memory" is getting worse and worse, and many of us that say so are just in our 20s. does memory loss occur so early? definitely not! common sense tells me that we are approaching our prime memory capacity. so what is the reason? i feel and agree with the website that it is because our memory is not trained. this is similar to an engineering student studying hard for a couple of years, and the parts of his brain that was used for sciences, social sciences, languages, etc. has been neglected and not been used properly. i'm sure that many of you are familiar with this idea, but intelligent memory is more broad with than this. in this day and age of instant messaging, information and media overload, our culture has conditioned our minds to operate by reflex (ie instinctual action, with minimal cognitive activity), as well as with idleness (very easy for this to happen, especially while watching tv or youtube or things like that). because of that, our minds have been absolutely dulled, causing our intelligent memories to become weak. with our ordinary memory being constantly fragile as well, this leads to a generally terrible memory.

so what are we to do about that? there are ways to train your intelligent memories. here are some tips i've found in various places, and i'm sure there are more:

* Pay attention
* Get more ideas
* Look for unusual connections
* Break out of dead-end thinking
* Question your thinking
* Slow down
* Don't multitask
* Become a more critical thinker
* Don't push too hard
* Practice applying IM in simple situations
* Organize your thoughts
* Make plans
* Try new things that you've never done, or do things in different ways.
* Practice your hobbies and engage your mind in them
* Stay away from our culture's conditioning tools! excessive TV/anime, excessive youtube, video games, unnecessary news, and the related

is your memory failing you? i think MANY of you can say yes, and there is a cure. none of us will really productively improve our ordinary memory (requires difficult exercises), but we can all improve our intelligent memory by engaging our entire mind to its full potential. if you want to try it out and tell me how that goes, that would be awesome! i think i will try to do exercise this when i'm in montreal next term.