26 Joshua Foer Quotes for You to Enjoy

Joshua Foer

American Journalist

Born: Sep 23, 1982

Book Memories Memory Remember Time You

Related authors: Ambrose Bierce Dave Barry Erma Bombeck Hunter S. Thompson Mignon McLaughlin Walter Cronkite William F. Buckley, Jr. William Lloyd Garrison

Growing up in the days when you still had to punch buttons to make a telephone call, I could recall the numbers of all my close friends and family. Today, I'm not sure if I know more than four phone numbers by heart. And that's probably more than most. Joshua Foer

Today Family You Heart Phone Punch Telephone Phone Call More Could Had Days Know Most Make Call Sure Still Up Friends Friends And Family Close Close Friends Than Growing Growing Up Recall Four Buttons Numbers

If you want to make information stick, it's best to learn it, go away from it for a while, come back to it later, leave it behind again, and once again return to it - to engage with it deeply across time. Our memories naturally degrade, but each time you return to a memory, you reactivate its neural network and help to lock it in. Joshua Foer

Time Best You Memories Memory Go Away Back Our Later Once Lock Degrade Network Neural Come Make Return Learn Stick Leave Go Behind Want Information While Again Across Engage Naturally Help Each Each Time Away Deeply

Over the last few millennia we've invented a series of technologies - from the alphabet to the scroll to the codex, the printing press, photography, the computer, the smartphone - that have made it progressively easier and easier for us to externalize our memories, for us to essentially outsource this fundamental human capacity. Joshua Foer

Memories Photography Made Few Our Press Easier Invented Computer Outsource Over Alphabet Printing Printing Press Human Essentially Human Capacity Scroll Capacity Us Series Fundamental Millennia Technologies Last

What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity. Joshua Foer

Great Memory Creativity Mind Fly Other Unlike Distinguishes Ability Lavish Feat Scene Argue Learned Quickly Than Any Forgotten Cannot Create Skills Less Paint Many Images Competitive

How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we're not willing to process deeply? Joshua Foer

Back when I lived in Brooklyn, I'd sometimes take the Q train all the way out to Coney Island and back, and work on my laptop. There's something about pushy New Yorkers looking over your shoulder that really makes you produce sentences. Joshua Foer

Work You Sometimes Looking Back Way Out Brooklyn About Something Take Pushy Over New Island Makes Train New Yorkers Sentences Produce Really Shoulder Your Laptop Lived

We're visual creatures. Probably, when we were hunter gatherers... that was the kind of thing that mattered. And remembering, say, phone numbers was, like, not that important when you're hunting down a mastodon or whatever. Joshua Foer

You Phone Important Whatever Down Say Hunter Kind Hunting Visual Remembering Like Were Mattered Creatures Thing Numbers

No one who set out to design a form of communication would ever end up with anything like English, Mandarin, or any of the more than six thousand languages spoken today. Joshua Foer

One trick, known as the journey method or 'memory palace,' is to conjure up a familiar space in the mind's eye, and then populate it with images of whatever it is you want to remember. Joshua Foer

Journey You Memory Remember Space Mind Whatever Eye Trick Known Method Up Familiar Want Then Conjure Palace Images

The 'OK Plateau' is that place we all get to where we just stop getting better at something. Take typing, for example. You might type and type and type all day long, but once you reach a certain level, you just don't get appreciably faster. That's because it's become automatic. You've moved it to the back of your mind's filing cabinet. Joshua Foer

Day You Better Mind Example Long Become Faster Type Back Once Typing OK All Day Something Take Cabinet For Example Reach Because Get Getting Getting Better Just Stop Moved Where Automatic Place Might Certain Certain Level Your Filing Plateau Level

Part of being creative is not being super-duper focused. Joshua Foer

Creative Focused Part Being

We reserve the term 'genius' for people who are creative, who are innovators, who think in ways that are entirely new. In the Middle Ages, the term 'genius' was reserved for people with the best memories. That is telling. Joshua Foer

Best Memories Creative People Genius Think Innovators Ways Telling Entirely Term New Middle Middle Ages Ages Who Reserve Reserved

Today we read books 'extensively,' often without sustained focus, and with rare exceptions we read each book only once. We value quantity of reading over quality of reading. We have no choice, if we want to keep up with the broader culture. Joshua Foer

Today Quality Culture Book Value Focus Rare Reading Books Once Broader No Choice Only Exceptions Over Read Quantity Without Up Often Want Sustained Choice Each Keep

If you were a medieval scholar reading a book, you knew that there was a reasonable likelihood you'd never see that particular text again, and so a high premium was placed on remembering what you read. You couldn't just pull a book off the shelf to consult it for a quote or an idea. Joshua Foer

You Book Reading High See Consult Never Scholar Remembering Knew Idea Particular Likelihood Read Shelf Were Off Text Just Quote Again Placed Reasonable Premium Medieval Pull

Just as we accumulate memories of facts by integrating them into a network, we accumulate life experiences by integrating them into a web of other chronological memories. The denser the web, the denser the experience of time. Joshua Foer

Life Time Memories Experience Other Chronological Life Experiences Web Network Facts Integrating Accumulate Just Experiences Them

'Moonwalking with Einstein' refers to a memory device I used when I memorized a deck of playing cards at the U.S. Memory Championship. When I competed in 2006, I set a new U.S. record by memorizing a deck of cards in one minute and 40 seconds. That record has since fallen. Joshua Foer

Memory Seconds One Minute Memorizing Record Minute Since New Device Fallen Einstein Deck Used Cards Championship Playing Set

To attain the rank of grand master of memory, you must be able to perform three seemingly superhuman feats. You have to memorize 1,000 digits in under an hour, the precise order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards in the same amount of time, and one shuffled deck in less than two minutes. There are 36 grand masters of memory in the world. Joshua Foer

Time You Memory World Three Master Rank Must Memorize Able Minutes Superhuman Seemingly Feats Attain Perform Hour Masters Than Same Precise Order Grand Deck Less Amount Cards Playing Two

Some memorizers arbitrarily associate each playing card with a familiar person or object, so that the king of clubs is represented by, say, Tony Danza. The grand masters associate each card with a person, an action, or an object so that every group of three cards can be converted into a sentence. Joshua Foer

Photographic memory is often confused with another bizarre - but real - perceptual phenomenon called eidetic memory, which occurs in between 2 and 15 percent of children and very rarely in adults. An eidetic image is essentially a vivid afterimage that lingers in the mind's eye for up to a few minutes before fading away. Joshua Foer

Memory Confused Mind Before Few Eye Bizarre Photographic Rarely Minutes Vivid Percent Perceptual Adult Fading Between Another Real Occurs Lingers Up Very Often Essentially Children In-Between Which Away Image Phenomenon

Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory. Joshua Foer

Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and external memories fully merge, we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that's not the same thing as wisdom. Joshua Foer

Wisdom Future Knowledge Memories Same Thing Our Distant Possess Someday Merge Come Same Infinite May Internal Fully Thing External

Our culture constantly inundates us with new information, and yet our brains capture so little of it. I can spend half a dozen hours reading a book and then have only a foggy notion of what it was about. Joshua Foer

With our blogs and tweets, digital cameras, and unlimited-gigabyte e-mail archives, participation in the online culture now means creating a trail of always present, ever searchable, unforgetting external memories that only grows as one ages. Joshua Foer

Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and ideas, and you reason your way forward to a story that pulls them together. With woodworking, you start with an end product in mind, and reason your way backward to the raw wood. Joshua Foer

You Together Writing Mind Thinking Way Backward Kind Ability Take Facts Raw Ideas End End Product Than Wood Problem-Solving Different Story Them Different Kind Product Requires Your Reason Forward Start Set

Joshua Foer Quotes

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