During a high school psychology lesson, the teacher had us memorize 20 objects with the “memory palace” technique, placing them in an imaginary scene. I surprised myself by remembering all 20 objects—and I still remember that tree with a fork stuck into it. But at the time, it didn’t change my opinion on mnemonic devices: they were no more than a cheap trick. How about just remembering things?

I’ve been writing computer programs since I was 13 (starting on my calculator, see 83), and I suspect it warped my conception of how the brain works—or should work. For the longest time I’ve had this vague sense that human brains were simply deficient computers in some way, too weak to handle more than 7±2 pieces of information at a time, and totally unreliable at long-term storage. At 15, I memorized over a hundred digits of pi (no mnemonics, just straight repetition), maybe in part to overcome these limitations.

It took me a while to realize the brain is good at other things. We have specialized systems for language, decoding facial expressions, throwing projectiles at a target, dodging projectiles thrown at us, even simulating other people’s minds—and it all feels so natural, as if it’s a fundamental force of the universe alongside gravity, that it’s easy to forget just how much computation these systems must be doing. Why should I be upset that I can’t always remember a six-digit number? And if I really need to, I’ll trick my built-in spatial and narrative-based cognition into doing the heavy lifting. Maybe it is just a trick, but I've decided I'm better off leaning into my human powers.

(To be continued?)