by James Wallace Harris, 3/3/25
It annoys me more and more that I can’t recall names and nouns. I don’t worry yet that it’s dementia because most of my friends have the same problem. But I’ve been thinking about my ability to remember and realized that I’ve never been good at remembering things.
I know I have aphantasia, which means I can’t visualize mental images in my head. I wonder if there’s a connection between not visualizing images and poor memory? People with astounding memory often use mental images as mnemonics.
The ability to remember is on a spectrum. On one end of this range, are rare individuals with photographic memories, while at the other end, are a tiny group with no short-term memories.
My new theory. One possible reason I have poor memory is my education. More precisely, how my personality approached learning as a kid. I considered K-12 a thirteen-year prison sentence. I paid just enough attention to pass tests. I mostly got Cs and Bs, with a rare A and D. I remembered things just long enough to pass a test.
I was never motivated to remember for the long haul.
I do like to learn. I’ve read thousands of books. Of course, most of them have been science fiction, but I also love nonfiction. However, information leaves me as fast as I consume it.
I’m starting to wonder if I would have a better memory if I had developed a different approach to school and learning. Primary and secondary education aim to give kids a well-rounded education. And in college, over half the courses are required.
The idea is we should learn as much as possible about the world. Is that a valid approach? After school and college, we specialize in whatever our work requires, and become selective about what we study for fun. Those subjects are what we remember best.
Reality is too big to know everything. What we need to learn is how to coexist with reality. We need the knowledge to fit in and survive. Would knowing more about fewer subjects help? Or would memorizing the deep dynamics of how things work better yet?
I do believe the more we know, the wiser we are. But there are limits to what we can understand and memorize.
I’m currently reading Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari. In chapter 2, Harari shows how fiction drives our societies, not truth. We live by stories we want to believe. It’s much easier to vaguely understand fiction than to learn the details of reality. For example, more people accept The Bible than biology. That suggests a natural tendency to minimize how much we know.
That would be okay if the Earth were sparsely populated. But we live in dense, complex societies racing at the speed of computer networks and artificial intelligence. Living by fiction is fine if the year is 500 BCE, but we live in 2025. CE.
Let me give one example of what I mean by learning less to know more. I’ve been reading American history books to understand how our society got to now. That gives me a certain level of wisdom about our problems. However, I’m also reading about French history, especially the French Revolution and 19th century history. Seeing the parallels ups my level of understanding. But do I need to read the history of every country now and then? What I see is common dynamics. Reading more histories will give me more examples of the same dynamics.
The same is true of religion. I like studying the history of the Bible. I’ve also studied Buddhism and Hinduism. As I do, I see common dynamics at work. Harari’s new book Nexus points out the common dynamics of society and history.
The educational philosophy I experienced growing up pushed me to memorize a million details. What I needed to understand and remember is the fewer dynamics of reality.
People like to live by fiction because it’s easier. Politics is currently overwhelmed by fiction. Read Nexus to understand why I say that. The question we have to answer is if we can reject fiction.
Real information is seeing patterns in reality. Wisdom is seeing patterns in the patterns. The only real cognitive tool we’ve ever developed to understand reality is science. However, it’s statistical, and hard to learn and understand. We live in a time of simplex thinking. People see or are told about one pattern and they accept that as a complete explanation of reality. All too often, that pattern is based on a cherished story.
We can’t live by memes alone. Nor can we live by infinite piles of memorized details. The only way to understand is to observe consistent patterns. But it has to be more than two or three. That can lead to delusions. Even anecdotal evidence of ten occurrences could still deceive. How can this lead to learning more from less? It’s a paradox.
Last year, I read a three-volume world history. It provided hundreds of examples of strong man rule over thousands. of years. But how many kids, or citizens can we get to read a three-volume world history? Would a listing of these leaders, including the wars they started, and the numbers of people who died because of their leadership be just as effective? Would all the common traits they shared help too? Such as wanting to acquire more territory, or appeals to nationalism?
Could we create a better educational system with infographics and statistics? I don’t know. I do know I tried to process too much information. I also know that I only vaguely remember things. Memory has limits. As does wisdom.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
i’m wondering if anyone else recollects that fifty-six years ago today the byrds released DR. BYRDS AND MISTER HYDE? not the hisorical marker that SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO BECAME but significant nonetheless. (i attempted to post a reply to your post regarding the feasability of an hours statement on how folk music evolved into folk-rock which further evolved into the singer-songwriter thing and on into the americana bag we know these days. yr platform wouldn’t accept it. makes me wonder if yer getting politically correct in the september of our years, sir.
I remember buying DR. BYRDS AND MISTER HYDE as soon as it came out. I loved it. The Byrds were my favorite group growing up.
Nice exploration of memory, how we memorise and how we might improve the memorisation process. I would have liked to read more on your initial point – your memory deficit condition. When and how you first became aware etc.
I had intended to write about that – but I forgot. I’m seventy-three. Since I retired at 62, I’ve noticed that I’m having trouble recalling names and nouns. It seems to come and go. So it might be related to health and diet. I do know that I have the most trouble remember names and nouns in the middle of the night. I’ve waken in the night and realize I can’t recall the names of close friends.
Usually, the missing words come to me, but it might be hours. Many of my friends have this problem, so it might be age related. On the other hand, I’m surprised by how many things I do remember when watching Jeopardy.
More importantly, I started noticing that I forget more whole experiences. This became evident on several occassions when I started to write an essay and discovered I had already written it years before. I discovered this was happening because I do a Google search and find my previous essay that I had forgotten I had written. I describe such an experience here:
https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/09/10/a-deep-dive-into-a-heritage-of-stars-by-clifford-d-simak/
Most of all, I notice my deficit of memory when trying to recall what I learned in nonfiction books when I go to describe them to other people verbally. I can only describe their details in vague ways. I started paying attention to people being interviewed on television and realized that some people have amazing ability to paraphrase something they know.
I’ve thought a lot about that. I realize that some people like talking or teaching and intentionally memorize good stories and speeches. Since I’m an introvert, I think I never intentionally thought of that, so I don’t use that method of memorization. Of course, watching the news and all the disinformation that’s spread, I’ve also noticed that some people poorly recount what they’ve learned, or even make it up as they go. Large language models (AIs) do this.
I like to communicate in essays because it gives me the time to research the details. Writing also gives me time to compose my thoughts. When I was younger I used to be good at verbal communication. But as I’ve gotten older that ability has declined along with my memory.
One reason I wanted to write this essay was to explore the idea that I should have tried harder to remember things when I was young. I had a lazy mind, so I didn’t try. I think the key is to start working at it when young. And I wonder if I can try harder to remember now. But that brings up the problem of what to work on. We can only remember so much. Like a good raconteur or professor, I need to develop a repertoire of topics I want to talk about, and study those subjects.
Oliver Sacks also had aphantasia.
I believe the ability to memorise stuff is linked to the amount of effort you are willing to put in to memorise stuff. If you are not particularly interested in remembering certain facts/names then it should be no surprise if you don’t store them. If however your job (as a salesman perhaps) relies on you having a good memory for names and the face that goes with them, then the wage incentive pushes you to remembering your customers for quite a long time.
I can read and thoroughly enjoy a book, put it down, and pick it up a year later and read it as if it were new. This is pretty cost effective, but it does feel weird.
By the way – have you read “The Essential Difference” yet?
I haven’t read THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE yet. But I did borrow it from the library. Sorry, but I’ve just got a bunch of books I’m dying to read. But it does cover a subject I’m interested in.
As I said in a previous post. Don’t read the book but go straight to the questionnaire at the end. That takes a lot less time than reading the book. Only read the book if the questionnaire suggests you really should 🙂 If you don’t score highly – I’ll be very surprised – but also very interested whereabouts you come out on the scale.
I only got 24. So I’m in the average range. What did you get?
Jim
Hi Jim,
Wow wasn’t expecting that at all!
My score was so high you might as well call me Rain Man as my son does 🙂
All the best,
Professor Emeritus Greg Parker
PhD in semiconductors
1st Class Honours Degree in Physics, Maths & Astronomy.
I put the “laser-like concentration” that Asperger’s gives you to good use as you can see.
What kind of score did you expect me to get? I thought the test was hard. I did make several choices that were similar to the right answer.
I’m amazed by your score. I thought people on the spectrum had trouble reading emotions.
I thought you might be around 30 or so.
Yep I do have trouble reading emotions – something makes you think I don’t? Big difference in picking up emotions from facial expressions and the written word.
Funnily enough I just did the “Reading the Mind” test in the book and scored a surprising 23 – I thought it would be lower than that 🙂
My score of 41 is of course the AQ test.
I’m about to do the other tests (which I haven’t bothered doing before). As you might expect I just went for the last one – and then I read the book 🙂
Best,
Greg
We have a niece with severe autism and she can’t read emotions at all. So when I hear that people are on the spectrum I expect theme to be like her.
I thought the photos were poor in that test and don’t let us see the faces well enough to read emotions. I thought many of the eyes could be interpreted in more than one way.
I’m certainly not very good at reading emotions, and I was just 1 above the bottom of the scale on that first test (23) which did surprise me – I thought it would be way worse than that. Like you I thought the pictures weren’t that good – so maybe a lot of my “guesses” turned out correct, when they shouldn’t have been ??
I hadn’t done any of the other tests until today, so here are the results from them.
For the second test, the empathy quotient (EQ) I scored 20 (which you can see in the book is what’s expected).
For the third test the Systemising Quotient (SQ) I scored 56 which is also expected.
My Autistic Spectrum Quotient (AQ), the fourth test, is as I said 41 – solid Rain Man territory.
I self-diagnosed at age 50 (mainly from this book) and this came just 2 weeks before giving my Inaugural Lecture at the Uni. As you can imagine, this really pissed me off beyond belief, and it was a great effort on the day to keep it all together.
You can’t get to age 50 without realising you are different from everybody else, but I always put it down to the genetics on my Mum’s side which is Burmese and my Great Grandfather was a Shaman-type character who was an advisor to the notorious King Theebaw and so I thought I had just inherited “the Burmese gene”. As an aside, everybody on Mum’s side (Beckinsale) was wonky, so that’s where I thought this “difference” came from. Then again, perhaps not, as several decades late I worked out that Dad was 100% an Aspie, but he of course had no idea. I had 3 brothers (all now dead) and the oldest who was a Forensic Photographer at New Scotland Yard was also an Aspie (and also didn’t know it). My other two brothers were both neurotypicals.
It is a very difficult thing to deal with during your school years when you realise most kids just don’t like you and you can’t make friends and you don’t know why. It becomes a bit easier in your working life as you have by then started to learn how to act normally. But even then, if you are amongst mostly neurotypicals, the stress of acting normally day in day out becomes too much, and 5 years is about the maximum you can tolerate. I was very fortunate to end up in a University as most of my colleagues were even more wonky than me, but even there I eventually got fed up with the place and got out with Early Severance at age 56. Fortunately, 23 years there gave me a decent pension so I have enjoyed a happy retirement away from neurotypicals.
I am married, and as is typical for an Aspie she is foreign (German) as foreigners are not so tuned into Aspie behaviour as are the locals. She now knows of course (after 40 years) that I am an Aspie and it answered many of her puzzling questions from early on in our relationship.
Asperger’s is a complete pain in the arse for social behaviour – BUT – the “laser-like concentration” it gives you can be made to work wonders for you, as it did in my profession.
I am thinking of writing a book, but I’m not sure there would be that much interest to warrant the effort.
Best, Greg
I just pulled the book off the shelf and was pleased to see I had pencilled in all the answers. My score was 41 🙂
All the best,
Greg
I only remember Oliver Sacks having prosopagnosia, which is the inability to remember faces. Of course, I had to look up the word prosopagnosia. I did remember he couldn’t remember faces.
You are right, I don’t make the effort to memorize. I loved computers, and studied them for years, working in the field. So I used to be able to talk endlessly about computers. I could remember models and the years they came out. I could remember computer languages. Since I’ve retired, that knowledge has started to fade. It’s the old use it or lose it.
I also love science fiction, and can remember a great deal about the history of science fiction. It’s the only subject I still work at keeping up with.
When I was young I would see a movie and then bore my family and friends recounting in detail everything that happened in the movie. Now I see a movie and it fades away in days, or even hours. My friend Connell says he only has to wait a short while before he can watch a TV show or movie again and it will be like he never saw it.
When I reread a book, even one I swear I haven’t read before, as I read it, often I see certain ideas or sentences again come back to me. With movies I think I haven’t seen, I’ll reach a certain scene and then bingo, I’ll go “I’ve SEEN this before!”
My wife and I are watch ER again, a show we followed back in the 1990s. I can predict some events and scenes because I remember what will happen. But I couldn’t have told you that before rewatching the episode.
Are you sure we’re not twins separated at birth? I found out that Oliver Sacks couldn’t form a mental image of anything (which I found almost unbelievable) in an email discussion with him.
I’m in my 70’s and having the same problem. I’m trying out a new (well, new to me) application called Readwise. I get a daily e-mail with 5 random highlights and notes that Readwise has pulled from my reading (my personal setting, could be more or less). I was an early adopter of the Kindle, so I have a ton of highlights and notes out there. It’s surprising and intriguing to see my notes from years past. I can manipulate and space the data in many ways, and add notes and reading selections manually. Readwise can import notes from many sources. I especially like the “Mastery” feature. I can select a significant phrase in a highlight and create a flashcard. The next time that highlight comes up, there is a blank where that phrase should be and I’m asked to recall it. It is effective. Apparently, the principle of “spaced repetition” to improve memory has scientific backing.