R. Jean Mathieu's Innerspace

SF/F, sociology, some recipes. Updates every other Friday.

Category: Uncategorized (Page 11 of 16)

Roscoe Learns to Think – The First Week In Review

7 January, 2011 /

Simulflow:

I wrote in the notes section of one of my pages, ”HAET HARRY KAHNE!” I think many of you can agree with me on that one. But I remember this from the first time around, and the second week is not nearly so … tedious.

The biggest problem that I faced this week, insofar as multiple mentality is concerned, was attention span. As Loweko commented, “I have found Kahne’s exercises magnificent meditation in their own right.” Which is true … it’s almost easier to focus on the breath. I found a couple of ways around the issue of paying attention.

First, I played with the lines. I did variations, like transposing the alphabet in a different order or interlacing “wrong” (ZA instead of AZ). For the past four days, I’ve done the transposed alphabet four ways in one sitting. This usually gets my interest back and makes me pay much closer attention, to make sure I don’t confuse them.

In interlacing the alphabet, I felt “brain split,” like I did back in Yangshuo…but it seemed to happen at random. Tonight, I worked out what it was. As long as I was paying attention to something else, besides what I was writing, I could split my attention. That sounds obvious, but you try getting distracted intentionally. 🙂

The easiest way I could figure was to focus on the last letter in sequence, so I would stare intently at “B” while I was writing “C,” then move on to “Y” while I was writing “X.”

I also found less…sophisticated ways to get it done. Yesterday, when I was gritting my teeth through yet another round of transposed alphabet (ACBD… or alternately ZXYW…), I played “okay, just one more,” with myself from lines 30 to 50. Just get to 30, ok. OK, now 33, that’s the end of the page. OK, just two more and you’re at 35, nice round number. Do one more, just to be a bit over the top, give yourself an edge when you pick up tomorrow. Yes, I know it’s already been an hour. Well, you’re next to 40 now…

I realized earlier, as I was finishing my interlaced alphabet (AZBYCX…) that Kahne probably meant that his students should do Part 1 each day until you got it, then move on to Part 2, then Part 3…instead of, say, trying to write 150 lines in an hour, like some of us who are insane.

*koff*

I didn’t realize this the first time through, and if anyone else tried to do all three at one sitting: I’m so sorry. But look at it this way, we got through more than Harry ever expected, and faster!

Meditation:

My apartment has no heat and it’s hovering around 40 right now. I’ve meditated in here twice, maybe three times. Mostly, I’ve been meditating out in the world, on the subway or in Pacific Coffee. I’m finding that my brain actually settles the fuck down at right around the eight minute mark, and I actually feel calmer and can focus on my breath then. I look forward to next week, and sits of twenty minutes.

I’ve also found that setting an alarm actually makes me more antsy and nervous than checking the clock two or three times during the sit. So, yeah, I’ll just do that, instead of trying to use alarms.

My libido has been having a fun time distracting me. Which makes sense: Nothing distracts me quicker or more profoundly. Or, I try to fight it, and end up getting distracted. I’m going to work on letting that stuff go in the coming weeks.

On the plus side, the fantasies that burble up when I’m trying to meditate are magnificent.

Mnemonics:

I have the basic concepts down from Sessions A and B, but my implementation still needs work. I seem to have a “natural” limit of about ten items at a time, or at least I have pretty significant trouble remembering longer lists. I tried the first list after a day, and could remember it just fine. Same with the Petit Perception lists. But the long list from Session B? After an hour, I’d forgotten “soap,” and after a day, I forgot four items, and misplaced a large chunk of the middle.

I think the problem’s to do with my implementation. I didn’t practice my mnemonics nearly as much as I practiced with Mr. Kahne, so I kind of skimped on that homework (boo hiss). And the images I came up with, while funny in a pedestrian way, didn’t really arrest me or tickle my funny bone. It says something that I immediately remembered chicken, melon, because of the image Smid supplied, as well as baked beans, shampoo, for the same reason. I think I might have to watch old Warner Brothers and Animaniacs cartoons to get a feel for the kind of images I need. Quelle horreur.

More lists. More lists. Need to invent more images, memorize more lists. One a day, with a review of yesterday’s and the one from the beginning of the week, would seem appropriate, and a review of all of them at the end of the week.

I wonder how long you can let something “sit” without refreshing it, and still remember, say, 90% of it?

Petit Perception:

At last, some good news! I’m noticing a quantum leap in my involvement in everyday life after one week of practice. Last night, I saw Marissa drop a piece of sausage in the stir-fried vegetables, and I got it with my chopsticks before she did. My ears perk up at the slightest sound of the kettle or the soup boiling over, and like a shot I’m at the stove and taking care of it. Marissa is already relying on me to know where her glasses are whenever they aren’t on her face.

And it’s not just her. We played a round of room survey in the bar the other night, one of my students, two friends, and I, and they were amazed that I could describe the three people behind me without looking, because I’d clocked them as I sat down. I’m amazing myself, really, because now I see things that I passed by so often before. Diwang glitters in the night, and I never knew. There’s a mahjongg gambling den just down the street that I never saw before. I haven’t been working it, and I can even smell more clearly.

However, I noticed myself falling into a rut when it came to the clocks somewhere about Thursday, always “what color was it?” So I started grilling myself on variations: cut of the jacket, then? Number? How about the person next to him, was it a man or a woman? What are they doing? Hairstyle?

And, having overlooked it six times now, last night, I finally sat down and room surveyed the café where I do work.

I’m still amazed.

At everything I miss.

Conclusion:

Coughed and stumbled on Wednesday, but got back up again. Need to work harder on mnemonics, longer on meditation, and vary my petit perception practice a bit more. Harry Kahne, if I remember right, will look after himself just fine.

How about you? Have you been keeping notes, keeping track? Let us see them! Let us know how you’ve been doing, what you’ve noticed about yourself and your practice. I started all this so that no one of us need feel alone.

Roscoe Learns To Think: Mid-Week

6 January, 2011 /

Well! Got back on the horse yesterday, and it was interesting. I tried meditating on the subway on my way to work (didn’t go so well), I started Session B of Memory Master, and I switched over to doing the interwoven alphabet instead of writing it in reverse (which I can do perfectly well by now).

Meditating on the subway didn’t work so well, mostly because I was still trying to count stops until I reached Gou Wu Gong Yuan. I was still much calmer and more collected when I arrived, though, than when I left, so that counts for something.

As to Memory Master, now I remember why I shoved Sessions A and B together. 😛 They’re essentially the same lesson, taught in slightly different ways. I screwed up one or two entries on the fifteen-item shopping list, so I’m going to try again this morning. I also went ahead and memorized the lists of observation and concentration exercises out of my Petit Perception guide, which are shorter.

The interwoven alphabet (the A-Z B-Y pattern) was interesting. It seems to take me about thirty minutes to get through fifty lines of anything, so, since I have now pretty well memorized the alphabet backwards, I decided to do parts 2 and 3 of Exercise I instead. I felt the weird sensation again, like my brain was splitting in two and moving parallel, that I felt back in Yangshuo. But only when I was working it out, or going back to working it out. I would write A, Z, then focus on A and write the next letter (B), then focus on Z and write the next letter (Y)…and then I felt the brain shift. Later, I got distracted by the arrival of my hot chocolate, and did a few by rote. It felt different.

Also, you may want to try inflicting the room survey or an improvised Kim’s Game on your friends the next time you’re all sitting down to dinner or something. I did it to a few friends and students in my favorite bar last night, and it was great fun for all.

Roscoe Learns to Think – Failure

5 January, 2011 /

So, two days ago, I failed. I screwed around on the Internet until about one in the afternoon, then went out with three things in mind: get a cup, get a new kettle, and sit down with Kahne and Smid for an hour or so. For various reasons, including Marissa coming home early from Hong Kong, I was unable to complete any of these tasks. And unable to do so even until I went to bed.

So, yesterday, I sat down just before lunch and did my multiple mentality exercises. When Marissa and I went shopping for scarves and gloves, I did window-shopping. I memorized the list of observation and concentration exercises (plus a few more that have been suggested to me in private). And I meditated.

I still feel like I let myself (and you all) down. But I don’t want to paper it over and cover it up, so I’m being completely truthful about it. I could try and pull a double today, or let it slide, or knock back the scheduling (switch over to Exercise II on Sunday instead of Saturday, etc.). How do you think I should handle it?

Let me know in the comments. Right now, I believe I have some homework to do…

Roscoe Learns to Think – ‘Well Begun is Half-Done’

3 January, 2011 /

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone’s off to a good start on their new year’s resolutions, especially if you are also Learning to Think.

I’ve got some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is that I can’t upload videos from here. Unless someone gives me some hosting space and an uploading system that can either work through proxies or fly under the radar, I can’t get my test videos up until my next trip to Hong Kong, somewhere in mid-January.

The good news is, I got properly started. On New Year’s Day, I meditated, and did the room scan a few times, but I put off sitting down with Kahne or with my mnemonics. So I ended up doing my Kahnes at the kitchen table at about 12:30 at night, and it was pulling teeth all the way.

For writing the alphabet backwards, I kept transposing KJ to JK, and confusing N and M. I also didn’t have the “fairly even speed” that Kahne asked for, often stuttering as I wrote, “T…S! R, Q” and “I H … G…” My attention kept drifting and I kept speeding up, which only made the areas where I would get temporarily stuck stick out more. However, I found that sounding it out helps both the rhythm and the attention, and slowing down helps a lot.

As to transposing (the ACBD sequence), I now know how the Final Five Cylons felt. Rhyming couplets would form in my head (ABCD, EGFD) which obviously didn’t help on X, H, or L. I think that’s why I kept forgetting what the fourth letter was. And I spent so much time on this, I didn’t have time to do the third section.

I found it easier, and you might, too, to work from memory if you cover up or fold back the line you just wrote. That way, you aren’t tempted to copy it out from what you can read, or to do so automatically when you zone out. It allows for more mistakes, but also works your brain harder, instead of being pointless busywork.
On the second day, I decided to let mistakes lie. In the first place, it helps my rhythm, and in the second, I’m copying this out fifty damn times. It’s not like I won’t get another chance at it. I also switched venues (to my favorite coffee shop) and did my meditating beforehand. Ten minutes of anapana put me in a mind to focus, and I found that my attention held for a lot longer on the task at hand and wasn’t so quick to jump away.

I also fiddled a bit with the ACBD sequence. At one point, while I was very bored, I accidentally wrote ZY XWVU … you know, I started it backwards. All of a sudden, I had to figure out the sequence in reverse while I was writing it. That got me interested! I set aside the last fifteen lines for playing around with it, both ZY XWVU and ZXYW. Reversing and resetting revived and kept my interest, even while I was writing it out forwards. I also felt ‘brain-crunch’ when I did it, my mind was actively working it out instead of passively copying.

Yesterday, I also sat down with Session A in Memory Master. At the top of the page is this quote:

“Training your memory is a little like fighting a boggart. You have to fight silly.”

I was able to remember the given list backwards and forwards a few minutes later, half an hour later, and this morning, all without referring to the document. I found it easier to work backwards in the first test, and I suggest you try it: When you’re done putting the list (or any other list) together, start at the end and walk backwards through your associations.

Also while I was at the café, I kept clocking the room. I didn’t keep count, but I think I got about half of the things I was looking for (gender, or what color their coats were) each time. Sometimes, borrowing a page from Lorayne, I looked at the same table again, and asked a different question (“so all their jackets are black. Fine. What are they drinking?”)

How about you? What have you noticed about your practice?

Roscoe Learns to Think – Allons-Y!

1 January, 2011 /

“Anyone can do what I have done, if they do what I have done.” – F. Matthew Alexander

So, there we go. I’ve explained the self-administered tests that I and the Home Game players will be inflicting on giving ourselves. I’ve outlined the history and philosophy behind the four aspects of the practice (simulflow, meditation, mnemonics, and petit perception). And, in bits and pieces, I’ve explained what I’d like to do.

Today, I’m bringing it all together.

On January 1, 2010, I will administer the first round of the tests I’ve put together. I’ll upload them (God willin’ and the firewall don’t rise) either Saturday or Sunday. I’d like to see a whole group of them, of all of us going all in together, starting the New Year proper. Leave them (or links to them) in the comments. Also on Sunday, I start my practice.

I’ve outlined the whole program, week-by-week, in this PDF. For the first week, I will do Exercise I of Harry Kahne’s Multiple Mentality program, sitting and playing with the alphabet for one hour each day. I will meditate for ten minutes, focusing on my breath, the pressure and level of it, the temperature, the feel of it. I will read and do the exercises in Memory Master, Session A. And I will close my eyes, count things in the room, do mental math, and even memorize four lines of poetry. When I pass shop windows, I’ll remember what was in there, and check that I was right.

This is not going to be easy, or quick. I happen to believe nothing of value really is. But it will be enormously educational. By the first of April, I will be able to better focus, more aware of the world around me, able to do one thing at a time or many things at once. If LeShan is anything to write home about, I will have “a greater efficiency and enthusiasm for daily life.” In many ways, I will be more accomplished, smarter, more involved, more alive. I will have Learned to Think.

Or, I will have learned how not to achieve these things. I will have found problems which are presently insurmountable, approaches that are ineffective, fast-forwards that end up rewinding me. But I will have documentation of it, and if I want to try again, in a year, in ten years, if someone else wants to reach for a better humanity than the one they now know, my records are here to show them where I strove, and how I fell, and, perhaps, how they could avoid doing the same.

More importantly than either, I will have tried. The results are less important than trying itself, than the attempt itself. I’ve made some messy stabs at doing one aspect or another of this practice, but I’ve never organized it and sat down and resolved to do it. I can’t wait to start, and see where it goes. But the game is worth a candle. For the possible outcome of achieving the mental powers I’ve wanted for years, of not only learning to think, but to be more aware and alive, Paris is damn well worth that mass.

As Teddy Roosevelt said,

“the credit belongs to the man who actually is in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best in the end knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

But I am not only some faceless, timeless Human, but a man, born in a particular time and place, and to a particular generation. It’s hard going it alone, doubly so for my generation, known as Y but which will be known to history as The Social Generation. On the one hand, it’s a relief to know that there are others out there, sweating as I do, groaning to face Kahne or Weed or Lorayne again, eyeing the clock subtly, cursing that that desk totally wasn’t there a second ago. I suspect the comments section will become a bitching and moaning and mutual support group that way. A carrot, you might say. On the other hand, knowing I have you all to face, ILF and Jaci and Lachlan and wraith and Mira and Billy and everyone else, and that I have to ante up to look you in the eye, puts my pride to good use (for once). You could call that a stick.

So, ante up. Right here, right now. By April, we could have mental powers to shock and amaze ourselves and the world, to enjoy and join our lives. We could be Holmeses, Mentats, Bene Gesserit, better tomorrow than we are today. Sign up in the comments section, and see your name listed on the wall to the left. Put up your videos on January 1st or 2nd. Join a great experiment, to show off what it means to be human, what we could all be capable of.

I leave you with a question:

Are you a bad enough dude to Learn to Think?

Roscoe Learns to Think – Petit Perception

31 December, 2010 /

For those of you in the audience who don’t speak French, learn. Until then, the rough translation of petit perception would be “keen sensing.” Think of Sherlock Holmes, able to spot, notice, and interpret the nature of a man’s hat or a bit of callus on his left hand. Think of James Bond, who can taste the finest distinctions of vermouth in a martini. Think of the Bene Gesserit from Dune, able to read lies into body language from a hundred paces (1).

These are fictional examples, but real men and women (such as Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin and Dr. Joseph Bell) have developed such abilities. Petit perception is a skill, and, like any other, it can be learned.

I’ve always been the absent-minded professor. Harry Lorayne, in one of his books, talks about “the man who knows the ascension dates of all the Kings and Queens of England, and forgets his wife’s birthday.” Normally, I’m not that bad, but I tend to forget about phone calls I was going to make, fail to notice turns, or miss regular-size print and have to start over again.

It got driven home to me way back in high school. My then-girlfriend was (and is) very into Western mysticism. She got frustrated at my obliviousness one day, and led me into my own room and had me close my eyes. She then asked me to name the objects in the room without looking.

Go ahead and try it. Amazing, eh? What did you get, maybe seven, eight objects in the room? Most of them in the wrong place? Don’t feel bad, pretty much everyone’s there with you.

She originally got it from a book by Joseph J. Weed, called Wisdom of the Mystic Masters. In my opinion, about two thirds of chapter four are the only reasons to buy the book, but they’re reason enough. Chapter four details a set of exercises, developing what Weed calls the powers of Observation, the powers of Concentration, and the powers of Meditation. In Learning to Think, we’ll be focusing on the first two.

Three exercises are included under each heading, and the general note that “you’ll probably think of many more.” For observation, Weed suggests the room game outlined above, remembering how many steps you just climbed on a staircase, and focusing on the ten minutes after you got up in the morning sometime in the evening. For concentration, he has us memorizing a few lines of poetry, doing some mental arithmetic, and focusing on a person’s face for about a minute every day. To these, I would add Kim’s Game (if you have a friend willing to help you with this), Robert-Houdin’s shopfront memory, layered listening, and ‘clocks’ whenever you have a spare moment. Don’t worry, they’re all outlined in the PDF.

I will do two videos for this one. The first one will be my trying to name the objects visible behind me with my eyes shut. Feel free to give me snark for any I miss. The second set of videos will be a little more fun: I will do math, in my head, while being assaulted by loud, annoying music, flashing lights, and scantily-clad women. China helpfully provides all three in institutions they call ‘nightclubs.’

For those of you playing the Home Game, you may want to try turning the camera to your bedroom, shutting your eyes, and naming the objects in the room on camera. I still suggest mental math in the nightclub, though, for the lawlz.

A full PDF of my expanded Petit Perception plan is available here.

1 – for those of you who think I got the phrase from Dune, like simulflow, I didn’t. I stole it from Robert-Houdin, same as Herbert did.

Roscoe Learns to Think – Meditation

30 December, 2010 /

Ascetic Virtues

Let’s get some things straight before we start. By meditation, I’m talking mostly about mindfulness meditation: Concentrating on what you are doing. It may be the movements of tai chi, or the feel of your breath, or the sound of music. What I’m not talking about is seeing visions, taking the poetry as literal truth, or anything that could be described as ‘guided.’

Lawrence LeShan, in the book How to Meditate, describes a very common problem. As he put it, in the Republic, Plato talks about the three kinds of men, the producers, guardians, and the famous philosopher-kings, and how they are represent different parts of the individual. In the Taoist tradition, the sages spoke of stoves, organs, and hot and cold energies. The Greeks did not ask Plato where the little men were in the body, but the Taoist acolytes asked the sages (and themselves) what was the nature of the hot and cold qi, and where could this stove be found in the body? “They confused poetry for literal truth.”

LeShan, for the most part, doesn’t. He does talk about the dangers of makyo (distractions and emotional delusions, would probably be the best way to put it) and other pitfalls. He makes an attempt at systemizing the various meditative systems of the world, noting their similarities, especially once you start talking to experienced meditators, and possible effects on a healthy person (insofar as scientific research allowed him at the time). Which is why I’m going to be using his book as my main guide in this particular field. It’s the least woo-woo approach I can think of.

And he starts out in a place I highly recommend for everyone, probably one of the first technologies developed by humankind for any purpose: anapana, or breath watching.

This. Shit. Is. Hard.

I once spent two weeks on top of a rainy mountain in central California, sitting and doing nothing but watching my breath for eighteen hours a day. I was exhausted at the end of each day. I intend to start at ten minutes a day, this time around, and work my way up to thirty minutes.

LeShan outlines different paths, or sets, of meditation depending on one’s personality and inclinations. Because of my focus this time around, I’ve chosen what he calls “the path of the intellect.” It starts with anapana, before adding One-Pointedness (focusing on a single object, external or internal) after three weeks, and hub-and-spokes meditation (choosing a single object and briefly exploring concepts directly linked to it before returning) three weeks after that. I’m a bit slow and I have trouble with anapana, so I may move on to one of the other meditative techniques LeShan describes after a month or six weeks, depending on how I feel.

Why would I do this?

Leaving aside (as we are) the supposed spiritual effects, meditation has a scientifically-proven beneficial effect on stress, flow, and visual perception. Unfortunately, I am not at all sure how to demonstrate any of that in front of a camera. However, recent studies point to mindfulness meditation actually raising attention spans, and improving concentration. J. J. Gibbs, in his slim little volume Dancing With Your Books, quotes LeShan’s results of meditation as being (in part) “a greater efficiency and enthusiasm in daily life,”

Much of the work of any form of meditation is in learning to do one thing at a time: if you are thinking about something to be just thinking of it and nothing else; if you are dancing to be just dancing and not thinking about your dancing. This kind of exercise certainly produces more efficiency at anything we do rather than less.

Tuning and training the mind as the athlete tunes and trains the body is one of the primary aims of all forms of meditation. This is one of the basic reasons that this discipline increases efficiency in everyday life.

For this one, along with the other “Before” videos, I will take a three minute video of myself concentrating on an external focus (specifically, a Latin textbook). My body language should give away how much I’m paying attention. I will take another such video at the end of the first month (when I wrap up with petit perception), and then another at the end of the course. If any Home Game players have a better suggestion, show me and we’ll do it together. You’ll get an awesome secret prize.

A full PDF of my (proposed!) meditation program is available here.

Roscoe Learns to Think – Mnemonics

29 December, 2010 /

When it comes to Harry Kahne, there’s almost no information at all. With mnemonics, there’s almost too much. And why not? The ars memorativa (the Art of Memory) is almost three thousand years old, with a history that touches names like Napoleon III, Aristotle, and that Greek, Simonides. Cicero wrote of it in De oratore, St. Thomas Aquinas recommended it for meditation purposes, and the Puritans banned it for “promoting sensuous and lewd thoughts.” (I am not making this up.)

So why have you never heard of it?

Well, to start with, you have. Most of you remember Roy G. Biv from physics class, and almost all of you remember Every Good Boy Does Fine. Some of us could probably still sing along to this. Or this. Or, for the med students, this one.

The other reason you haven’t heard of it is twofold: First, cheap notebooks and writing supplies are available. Second, for mnemonics to actually pay off (besides one-offs like Roy G. Biv), you have to put a lot of work into it. Like, say, at least three months’ worth.

But why bother, really? We have calculators to free us from arithmetic, Outlook to free us from remembering our appointments, and as to anything non-smartphone-related, there’s an app for that. According to James from the Thoughtscream, a Stross/Doctorow-style augmented reality is just around the corner, rendering most kinds of present information-sharing and -storage moot. Well, I can think of at least five good reasons:

Reasons to Practice Mnemonics
1) I don’t have a smartphone (it’s true).
2) They haven’t invented an app for finding my damn keys.
3) Some of us need to learn a foreign language, for business, pleasure, or because the alternative is starving to death on the streets of China.
4) Facial recognition software is still primitive and flawed.
5) Every so often, in the rustic information-sharing confines known as a university, there are these things called “tests.”

(If you have more, feel free to add them to the comments section! Snark encouraged!)

And even when we’re all wearing contacts that link us to the Facebook profile of everyone we meet (and offer us discount prices on their fine leather jackets), being able to remember jokes, speeches, and the particular words the locals use to insult you will remain viable skills(1).

So how does it work and why can’t we just come up with funny acronyms or songs about everything? Well, we kind of can. Funny acronyms are easy to remember, because they’re either funny, or weird, or politically incorrect, or sexy, or something. One of my favorites involves Sarah Palin waking up naked in the Arizona desert next to an (equally buck naked) Bill Clinton (2). And that’s the key. Hook it up to something easy to remember. All mnemonic systems work on this basic principle.

For Learning to Think, I’m going to be working through the Memory Master course, at about two lessons a week. I’m also going to be liberally borrowing from, referencing, and discussing Harry Lorayne, Tony Buzan, Dominic O’Brien, the Rhetorica ad Herrenium, ludism.org, and whatever else I come across that’s relevant. A lot of the mnemonics literature is very similar, and the principles don’t change much.

In addition, as with simulflow, I’m going to establish a testing procedure and put a video up of me making an ass of myself. At the beginning, first month mark, second month mark, and end, I’m going to do a slightly-modified version of Harry Lorayne’s test. That is, I’m going to see and try to remember:

1.) An unordered list (just a list of objects)
2.) A list in order (the Presidents of the United States)
3.) A set of names and faces
4.) Ten words in an unfamiliar language (in my case, Spanish)
5.) A short but intricate joke
6.) A long number (the Golden Mean)
7.) A set of names and phone numbers

Home Game players! Same rules apply. I want to see you stumbling over who came after Lincoln or being unable to recite your boy/girlfriend’s phone number. Each video wins a no-prize.

A full PDF of Memory Master is available here.

1 – that last one in particular never goes out of style.
2 – I’m never forgetting “Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas.” No matter how hard I try.

Roscoe Learns to Think – Simulflow

28 December, 2010 /

The backbone of my Learning to Think is Harry Kahne’s “Multiple Mentality” course. Kahne was a vaudeville performer, you can see one of his performances here. Life before the Internet came along, huh? Speaking of pre-4chanic life, Kahne was also listed in Jay’s Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women. A historical footnote, next to that horse that counted by tapping its foot.

This is not, of course, where most of the Google searches lead to. Most of the Google searches lead here, to rexresearch’s on-hand copy of Kahne’s 1925 Strand Magazine interview and Multiple Mentality Course. Over the course of twelve exercises, each lasting about a week, Kahne will take you from three-pound mental weakling to a state where “YOU CAN MAKE YOUR MIND DO ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO DO!” Throughout the course, Kahne (and his annotator, Mel Saunders) tell you that the simplest problems will become child’s play, unseen opportunities will be clear as day, and your mind will be restored to a youthful vigour and pep.

I’m not completely sold on all that, but I started the exercises back in 2007, in the halcyon days of Yangshuo, China. I would sit at the café, sipping my milkshake and dutifully putting in my hour a day. Often, friends would come by, or new acquaintances, and offer to play Chinese chess with me. I did much, much better at chess after an hour of Kahne’s exercises than before, and much better at the end of the month than at the beginning. In addition, I felt …something going on in my head. The best way to put it is it felt like my brain separated into two parallel parts and followed separate, but synchronized, tracks.

Other than that experience, I once found, many years ago, a commenter on a message board mentioning that he’d done Kahne’s exercises. The thread, alas, now seems to be lost in the depths of the Internet, but I still have the email correspondence. He wrote:

Roscoe,
I like the course very much. I didn’t find the course difficult mainly because it builds on it’s self. Starts semi-easy and then gets progressively harder. I did have the stiffness he refers to, probably because of using parts of the brain that I haven’t used since school. What I have noticed is that I can think much faster than before I started. I can come up with answers to problems easier and faster. I am at VII right now because of work and going back to college. There is other things I have been doing along the same lines that I think have also affected the results I have gotten.
Let me know how you do.

Vlad Dolezol, over at vladdolezal.com, tried a modified course of Kahne’s exercises for the month of September, 2010. He played fast and loose with Kahne’s recommendations to maintain interest, and reported a lot of interesting effects (he could recite poetry while writing something else, but not write down poetry while saying anything). Vlad’s ‘wiped-out’ feeling is pretty close to the ‘stiffness’ that Kahne and my correspondent described (1).

Of course, all three of these are subjective experiences, anecdotes, hardly the stuff empiricism is made of. So, in addition to the course itself, I’m going to include regular tests, at the beginning, at the four- and eight-week marks, and after the course is completed. This test is going to be a fairly straightforward one: I’ll choose two sums and multiply them, while singing a song of your choice. The video evidence will be made available, yes.

If you’re playing the Home Game, put up the videos of your tests, too! An internets is yours for each video!

So, that’s about all the information I’ve been able to gather about Harry Kahne and his mentality course. As to the course itself, it’s no great trouble. An hour a day, once a day, for three months, spent doodling the alphabet or simple words in a notebook. The first part of the course is playing around with the alphabet in new ways, to limber up your head. The second part turns around and inside out short (three- and four-letter words), sometimes while spelling entirely different words aloud. From there, it progresses to other basic tasks done simultaneously and emphasizing seeing everything you’re working with inside out and backwards at the same time as forwards.

Kahne called his course multiple mentality, most overcaffeinated observers today call it multitasking (which, as Vlad points out, is paying limited attention to multiple things), but I think a more appropriate term could be borrowed from literature: simulflow.

A full PDF of Kahne’s program is available here.

1 – I didn’t feel it because, at the time, I was living in Paradise!

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