Cognition Café

We are physically unable to remember everything. Our brains, left to themselves, forget most of what we see. And we do not have control over the few things our brains do remember by default. Even worse, we do not know what we forgot. It is forgotten, out of our memory and awareness. There is a process that counters this, and lets us reliably commit things to memory. Writing things down and reading them regularly. This is what I call Taking Notes: The second part is often neglected, but it is in fact the only one that is necessary. Notes can be written by someone else (or even by an AI!), but reading them can only be done by yourself, and is the part that commits things to memory. When I speak to someone who does not take notes, I know that they will remember at most like 2 facts and 1 vibe from the conversation. To get someone who does not take notes to remember something, I must treat them like a child. I must manage their learning schedule and make sure they get the repetitions in. T

saved by

• Saheb Gulati
• Arunim Agarwal