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acl
12:00 AM
talk about reality being a social construct!
 
R.M
I wish I could submit 4 pages and 33 lines of nothing to a journal and get it accepted...
 
@R.M Many times the letters make the paper worse
 
acl
@R.M nothing may not work, but worse than nothing might
 
@Verde Consanguinity, affinity, or both?
 
R.M
12:03 AM
 
@acl This reminds me also of Lazarsfeld.
 
R.M
And you can generate your own here: pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen
 
@GustavoBandeira That performance is too deafening for me...
 
acl
@R.M I often get spam mail for that type of conference
 
@J.M. Get that sound low...
 
R.M
12:06 AM
@acl must be field dependent... I know in CS, conference papers are more important than journal publications and so there is intense competition for attending (and organizing) conferences. I've only ever received the routine email from the biannual society meetings
 
acl
@R.M this produces speeches for a particula greek political party. unfortunately it's in greek. the first time I sent it to a friend, he said "so what, it's their usual nonsense). he refreshed a few times and couldn't believe it was computer generated, it's so realistic
 
Sokal was a genius and a SoaB at the same time. The publishers were just infatuated idiots
 
acl
@R.M I think that's a particular type of conference, but anyway in physics it seems to be a bit less important than in CS. also there's usually no competition for conferences/workshops, but maybe I was lucky with my affiliations so far
 
@Verde I'd give a nonvital organ to be able to pull off Sokal's stunt...
 
acl
@Verde but why is sokal's a hoax and glass's not?
 
12:10 AM
What if all science is trolling?
 
@acl Good question. Who indeed has the job to draw the line?
 
acl
@J.M. it's all a social construct anyway
(if we ignore atomic bombs etc)
@GustavoBandeira to some extend it is; I had a boss who thought that good papers were those to which the reaction was either "this is groundbreaking" or "this is WRONG, it has to be stopped!"
(we never coauthored papers though)
 
@acl Big "if" you have there... ;)
 
acl
in particular, he says that if the reaction is "hm, that's probably right" then there's something wrong
 
@acl "Oh shit, this paper will make my specialty obsolete!!!1!"
 
12:15 AM
@acl Nice heuristic!
 
R.M
@J.M. it's even worse when they review your paper
 
Have anyone read about the N Rays discovery?
It's exemplary
 
acl
yes!
 
Science as a social construct
N-rays (or N rays) were a hypothesized form of radiation, described by French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot in 1903, and initially confirmed by others, but subsequently found to be illusory. History In 1903, Blondlot, a distinguished physicist who was one of eight physicists who were corresponding members of the French Academy of Science, announced his discovery while working at the University of Nancy and attempting to polarize X-rays. He had perceived changes in the brightness of an electric spark in a spark gap placed in an X-ray beam which he photographed, and he later attributed...
 
@Verde Are you trying to spam some academic prank on us?
 
acl
12:22 AM
@Verde of course but in a different way than 4.33 being music
@GustavoBandeira he's a prank himself
 
@acl Who?
 
@acl You gonna get baned, dude....
 
@GustavoBandeira He IS banned. But he can't realize it
Compared to other forms of scientific misconduct, image fraud (manipulation of images to distort their meaning) is of particular interest since it can frequently be detected by external parties. In 2006, the Journal of Cell Biology gained publicity for instituting tests to detect photo manipulation in papers that were being considered for publication.[33]
This was in response to the increased usage of programs by scientists such as Adobe Photoshop, which facilitate photo manipulation. Since then more publishers, including the Nature Publishing Group, have instituted similar tests and require authors to minimize and specify the extent of photo manipulation when a manuscript is submitted for publication.
However there is little evidence to indicate that such tests are applied rigorously. One Nature paper published in 2009[30] has subsequently been reported to contain around 20 separate instances of image fraud.
 
@Verde From where?
 
@Verde I remember that paper; everybody and their mothers were all abuzz over it in those days.
 
12:32 AM
@J.M. What paper?
For one second,I forgot I could use google...
 
acl
@Verde for something like the schoen case, common sense would have sufficed!
 
Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions: (reproduced in The COPE report 1999) *Danish definition: "Intention or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist" *Swedish definition: "Intention[al] distortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another resear...
 
Yep, I've found it.
Guys!
Let's chat about something.
 
Hello everyone, first time in a SA chat :)
 
@J.M. have you seen Theodore Gray's sodium party videos?
 
12:38 AM
Ouch....
And if I think that the only important theorem of mathematics is that $1+1=2$? I'm fairly certain that a computer can prove that from basic axioms (e.g., Peano Axioms). I don't see how what you wrote here is more than a [very] subjective comment. In fact, if I could I'd downvote the edit again. — Asaf Karagila 1 hour ago
-1
A: What am I losing if I decide to perform all math by computer?

Makoto KatoA computer cannot prove most of the theorems which are taught in an undergraduate course of mathematics.

 
wow cool oleksandr, I wonder if that's what they use in fireworks
 
@user31876 hello! Welcome to the Mathematica chat, then!
@user31876 barium, strontium, copper, various rare earths... all used in fireworks, I think.
 
how can I change my user31876 to a nickname? It works on forum (the nickname) but when I go to chat it goes back to default
test
 
@GustavoBandeira Not the article, but see this anyway.
@OleksandrR. Yes, for coloring. Usually the nitrate or chloride is used.
 
got it
test this is user31876
 
12:42 AM
@OleksandrR. Yes, though my "experiments" with sodium as a child were not that extreme... ;)
@GustavoBandeira Well, broad claims and all that...
 
Do you guys know the difference of Linear and Non-Linear? I've searched about but it was either something like this or something like: "On non linear, the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
 
@GustavoBandeira linear what?
 
would anyone be willing to remote view my computer and figure out why mathematica isn't doing this right :(
 
@user31876 This?
@user31876 If it's not doing right there, it won't do it right on our computers.
I guess...
Am I wrong?
 
http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/Conferences/7995/
the file on that webpage is a nb by eric schulz. he has mathematica code to build a table of contents from cell tags in a notebook. whenever I use it though, the dockedcells doesn't work and I'm trying to figure out if its just my computer (I reinstalled mathematica 4 times now and deleted all settings I could find)
eric schulz wouldnt make bad code i dont think
 
R.M
12:46 AM
@user31876 just wait for an hr... the names are cached and will automatically update from your math.se profile eventually
 
thanks R.M
 
@GustavoBandeira Hard to say anything useful sans context.
 
1000 pages ... hmmm
@J.M. A context or a vector space
 
@Verde I was lazy and subsumed "vector space" under "context"... :D
 
@J.M. 8 hours without a question. We are facing starvation
 
12:49 AM
Im posting one
 
acl
@Verde not to worry, someone's going to post a question on the diffusion equation soon
 
@user31876 Not the CDF one!
 
acl
@user31876 (wasn't referring to you :) )
 
@acl or about the Integral[ fec[x] q[t] ...]
 
@acl Next thing you know... "Why can't DSolve[] solve the Navier-Stokes equations?"
 
acl
12:51 AM
@J.M. IT CAN'T????
 
@J.M. You need NSDSolve
Internal'NSDSolve in fact
a non documented feature that uses rule 30
 
@Verde I had thought he had a poor choice of variables. Would have been nice to see fec[u]...
 
@J.M. fec_u_both
 
0
Q: Help with Eric Schulz's TOC Mathematica code?

Luke Allenhttp://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/search/?search_results=1&search_person_id=6018 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUobpMR04Kw Go to the first link and download the zip file. The presentation.nb, on page 7 of 10, has a 'build Table of contents from cell tags' code from an external file. I ...

 
How on earth could someone upvote a question that needs to download a file to understand it, upvote it before dowloading the link
And I know who was
so shhh
 
12:55 AM
whats upvote
 
@user31876 Upvoting is a mystical ritual we perform here, mostly at night
 
is it like bumping a thread on a forum
 
Our problem is that we have users from Australia, so "night" is not a well ordered concept
 
2 kangaroo + 2 kangaroo = lots of babies kangaroos
 
acl
@Verde yes, the antipodeans appear to upvote instead of downvote. upside down and all that
 
12:59 AM
@Verde There was one? I didn't see any while I was editing it...
 
@acl Also, I think Australia is a strange country. They are all women.
@J.M. I swear. By you
 
@Verde (parse error) Did you mean I had upvoted it, or are you swearing by me that somebody upvoted it?
 
@J.M. If you fail to parse my English, it means that your evaluator is not lazy enough
 
Maybe...
 
@Verde out of interest, do you use object-oriented techniques in Mathematica?
 
1:05 AM
@OleksandrR. No, I use Mma to solve or model small problems. I never did programming-in-the -large in Mma
@OleksandrR. perhaps Leonid
 
@Verde I think he could, but AFAIK he doesn't. Roman Maeder does. I was just asking since you approvingly mentioned OO earlier.
 
@OleksandrR. It is really a convoluted thing. OO is conceptually nice, but to deploy useful things, it requires a mastery level that you don't need in procedural or functional code. I saw so many OO projects fail miserably that I can hardly recommend it unless a few gurus are dodging the problems
 
Do you think that's a matter of the scale of the typical problems? I've never done programming-in-the-large myself and never had a great need or want for OO. But equally I can see building a large project without it might be unwieldy unless you were extremely disciplined or used another formal method of separation of concerns.
 
@OleksandrR. Modularization has been the main method of domain separation for 40 years
Then layered design
I managed big development teams effortlessly, by defining module's interfaces first
 
Okay. But my point is that modularization does not have to be done using OO methods; it is just the most common way. Failure to get it right in a large project will bring trouble, but isn't necessarily attributable to a poor understanding of OO concepts specifically.
 
1:19 AM
are variables and functions that aren't defined in a .nb a different color text than normal
 
R.M
yes, undefined symbols are blue (default)
 
ohh bingo
 
@J.M. thanks for doing the merge
 
@OleksandrR. My experience (and I deeply understand that it is biased by the projects I was involved) is that initial design failures are much more difficult to overcome in OO
 
R.M did you define the CreateContentLinks in that presentation.nb
that's the only blue thing I can find related to the TOC
 
R.M
1:23 AM
@user31876 nope, I didn't define anything. That could well be the reason for your docked cell issue
 
why would your createcontentlinks not need to be defined but mine does? it's the same .nb!
I also didn't define anything, just evaluated the cells before slide 7
this doesn't make any sense
 
@OleksandrR. which?
 
wow, I got it to work R.M
I was right it was not my newbieness
what the hell!
Createcontentlinks I manually changed to Createlinks
 
@OleksandrR. Ah, I see now. It's the Wizard who merged it, not me.
 
and it works, except I did not tamper with the original download, for some unexplicable reason, the word content gets added in there with a brand new copy of presentation.nb from the net
 
1:29 AM
@J.M. The infixed one
 
@Verde question1 ~WizardMerge~ question2?
 
I will run for moderator. My motto will be "Down with Infix!". Clearly a mature and peaceful platform
3
 
R.M do you use mathematica 64 bit or 32 bit
 
R.M
$Version

"8.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (October 5, 2011)"
Btw, does anyone know why it says 8.0 when it actually is 8.04, as mentioned in "About Mathematica"?
 
hmm, that could be it, the creator of the notebook made it in mac osx and im using win 7
 
1:40 AM
@J.M. oh, okay. I assumed since you closed, you also merged (and can't see otherwise as a mere pleb). In that case, thanks @Wiz!
 
R.M
@LukeAllen You're worrying too much about a small thing... that "content" is also present in my notebook. So it could've just been Eric's mistake in not cleaning up some old variables
@OleksandrR. you can find it in the history
 
You're saying CreateContentLinks was present in your notebook and it was undefined and it worked for you anyway? Then that confirms mac osx is the reason it doesnt work for me
Also, I jumped the gun when I said it was fixed - the dockedcell appears perfect now, but clicking on any of the sections doesn't jump to them or do anything at all
clearly, createcontentlinks is needed the way it is
 
@R.M oh yeah. Wasn't sure what history to look at in this case but I see it shows up in the question.
 
R.M
@LukeAllen No. I answered your first question in saying that you didn't evaluate the previous slides. You took that to also apply for your second question about CreateContentLinks
 
@LukeAllen Mathematica is not significantly platform-dependent. People often think otherwise and usually it is a red herring. On the other hand, conference presentations are frequently published with various errors or assumptions that they will be running on the presenter's computer.
 
acl
1:45 AM
@Verde you have my vote, and Mr.W my downvote. maturely and peacefully of course
 
@Verde your slogan can be "Look forward, not back! Use prefix form!"
 
R.M
@LukeAllen The docked cell looks the same as in your screenshot without removing "content" from the symbol. But switching sections works. I don't think any of this is platform dependent... usually platform dependent issues are localized to features that can only be materialized using the hardware and drivers for that platform. For example, you can't record sound on Macs, but can on Windows; you can't capture images on linux (at least, not easily), etc.
 
Someone else can run on a platform of "Value the past! Use postfix!"
 
acl
@OleksandrR. Mr.W can go for "brevity and versatility: infix!"
 
Oh, well if you change the CreateContentLinks to CreateLinks you will see how amazing it looks and how it's supposed to look, but then it won't function
 
acl
1:48 AM
and: "Kill the empty Module[{},]!"
 
R.M
@OleksandrR. I shall moderate with $HistoryLength=0. If you tell me anything now, I shall forget it the next instruction
 
if I search for CreateLinks or CreateContentLinks there is nothing in google or wolfram documentation, but CreateLinks exists in this .nb? How??
 
R.M
@LukeAllen because the author defined it?
 
acl
I'll run as anti-Mr.W: Compile everything in sight, to C no less. procedural code all over, etc
 
Is there a way to search all pages of a .nb for a keyword (such as CreateContentLinks) to find out where?
 
R.M
1:50 AM
ctrl-f?
 
only searches single page
 
@acl one thing I will say for infix notation: it cultivates a better familiarity with precedence values than I have. I find Mr. W's code quite hard to read at times because of uncertainty as to what binds more tightly than what.
 
R.M
@LukeAllen ah, go to Format>Screen Environment > Working
 
@OleksandrR. That one doesn't mention the enemy
 
R.M
@OleksandrR. but that also makes his code useful only to himself and no one else, which is not the real purpose of this site
 
1:52 AM
@Verde Will you be wearing a beret while campaigning?
 
R.M
I don't mean that literally, but just pointing out that relying on extreme knowledge of precedence orders and exploiting it makes code unreadable and inextensible for most people
 
"Dude, nobody's taxing parentheses!"
 
@J.M. No need. I shall hold a big Feynman Diagram in one hand, and a bag with amends in the other
 
@R.M I think it's particularly troublesome for a language with the sheer number of operators that Mathematica has. On the other hand, if you paste the code in to Mathematica you can easily check the InputForm or FullForm. It's reading such code outside of the native context that I find difficult.
 
Ok I have determined that CreateContentLinks is actually supposed to be CreateLinks, so now the problem is indeed that the dockedcell TOC simply doesn't jump to the celltag (doesn't function)
I guess I can take the example he provided that does have a working dockedcell toc
 
1:57 AM
Anyway, I'm off. See you guys later!
 
and somehow see the code of it
 
@J.M. bye!
 
R.M or somebody, could you please open my saved CDF which has the correct DockedCell and see if it jumps to different sections for you? On my side it doesn't, but this could be because I have dynamic capability somehow disabled or I'm in the wrong screen mode or it's not deployed or something and I'm confused mediafire.com/?oxno5xwrka21fr0
SOLVED! I had to evaluate the notebook the dockedcell was created in!
I never thought to do that..
Finally, closure to a 3 day issue
R.M thanks for your help
 
 
2 hours later…
3:51 AM
anyone here? I'm wondering why mathematica hasn't updated since 8.04 in 2011
 
@LukeAllen it takes time to develop new versions. In the 2 years since 8.0 launched, they have been working on version 9. It should appear in the next few months.
 
Any clue where I could find hints at what's going to be in that version?
 
Mathematica development work is usually not just "think of a feature; implement it". Rather it consists of a lot of algorithmic development, probably a fair amount of pure and applied mathematics work, reading the academic literature, and so on.
 
well I was thinking the next 'wolfram alpha free form type' features
since I'm not into the math stuff
 
Well, nobody who knows is at liberty to say. There will be a FEM-based PDE solver and a theorem prover, that much we know. Beyond that there will probably be a lot of other things, but we don't know what they are yet.
 
3:58 AM
what would you be hoping for?
 
Well, multiple undo would be nice (but isn't coming). As would a JIT compiler (not coming either).
 
why would they not do something as simple as multiple undo
 
They tend to focus mainly on the mathematics and algorithms part.
I don't really know; there have been suggestions that because Mathematica is a dynamic environment, multiple undo doesn't make sense. Not sure I really buy that.
 
dynamic environment?
as in it would cause too many bugs to multiple undo?
maybe they could just make an autosave feature instead so you wouldn't lose your work
 
As in, it's not really clear what constitutes a user action and what is something the kernel or FE did (possibly under user direction or possibly by themselves). Autosave already exists; no need to reimplement that.
 
4:05 AM
alright I got a question and I know what you're going to say or want to say, you're going to want to say 'start simple don't attempt that, yes it's possible but you'll probably never be able to do it'
but dont say that please I catch on faster than you might think
ok.. so there is a program which interprets a code book (think the national electrical code) and lets you define a situation that you would encounter on the job, like 'oh there are sparks flying from the ceiling'. then it finds everything in the code book related to that problem and spits it out for you, so you don't have to go digging through the dense 1000 page book.
this program uses a microsoft access ODBC database, whatever that is, and i guessed the password to it
so, im thinking, i could make the same thing in mathematica
or port it to mathematica
 
Doesn't sound too difficult. Problem is, how to define "what is in the book". Do you have to enumerate all the contexts in which a given situation might be relevant or is that laid out in the code? Because obviously an electrical code is a specification meant for humans; it isn't a formal specification that's readily understandable by computers.
If I might ask, what other languages do you have experience with? (Mathematica is quite different to most other languages so it might be helpful to know what you're familiar with.)
 
that's what they did in the microsoft access database - they did all the work for me
i have no experience except some with html
but im on the computer 24/7 NOT playing games, but actually learning stuff lol
just never got into code because it wasnt elegant enough for me
and i understand computers i just dont know any of the terminology for mathematica or other langs
but im learning bits of mathematica, all the bits i can find related to 8.0 and ebooks or whatever is relevant
in order to learn all the stuff you guys do you almost need a background in math which i dont got
 
Fair enough. I am not sure I'd normally recommend Mathematica as a first language but if you feel comfortable with the idea then that's fine.
 
well, my main skill in life is being resourceful
i basically steal skeleton code from other people, utilize experts like you in chat, learn the fast way
:)
it's those little things that get me caught up
like earlier I didnt even realize I need to evaluate a notebook which has had changes to it by an external notebook for it to update
and besides with an ebook, once you learn one thing, like how to make an image rollover when it's over some text (like having the image of a Cat show in a tooltip when you hover over the word cat) you can just copy paste
 
Right. Well, that is fine of course, but let me just warn you that StackExchange does expect some give and take. Questions for your own gratification only without anything interesting for other people generally don't go down too well, and you are expected to vote on other people's contributions if you read them. If you follow those community guidelines you will find StackExchange is a very pleasant community to be a part of. :)
 
4:17 AM
hey, I didn't even post a question here until someone said 'we haven't had a question in 8 hrs, we're starving'
so I just assumed you were all bored
 
Sorry, I didn't mean for that to come across as criticism, which it wasn't. Just thought it would be worth providing a heads-up as to the community culture.
 
but so far most people seem to like the idea of a noob trying to make a computable book which can do smart things just like apps, like filter code references or show images over text to help explain
i dont know why more people havent done this already it's clearly the future
pdfs are a disgrace
it makes more sense to put things in a word 2013 format almost now
speaking of which, i have a way to nearly perfectly convert PDF to Word with formatting intact, but can this be imported to mathematica?
I'm thinking maybe mathematica has OCR like onenote for screenshots of PDF pages
or a way to import word docs
 
Not that I know of. You can import RTF, but I think that's not really what you're after.
 
actually that is great news
my converter program also converts PDF>RTF
but i dont think that keeps images intact :/
never worked with rtf
google says nope
 
You can definitely use Mathematica notebooks in the way that you want. It is not that commonly done, though. Years ago there was a drive to popularize the notebook format for publishing but it didn't really come to much.
 
4:25 AM
the main guy, eric schulz, who made the calculus early transcendentals mathematica interactive book was highly successful for 100,000 students
but, other than that you're right, almost nothing
he didnt even scratch the surface tho
have you ever heard of the giordorno memory system
 
I was referring to Publicon. The new emphasis on CDF (which is really just a notebook) and the CDF player (which is really just the Mathematica front end and a functionality-constrained kernel with no docs) is something slightly different.
 
oh yuck
static paper is what im trying to get away from!
 
@LukeAllen not until just now.
 
its not just another human memory gimmick
it explains and exploits how our memory actually works (real research behind it)
basically, it claims (with evidence) that our brain is a visual generator. much like you wouldn't look for electricity inside an electric generator, you cant find memories inside a human brain
they are built in realtime due to patterns of neurons firing
which creates images, no matter how faint or subconcious or vivid
even abstract words that dont have apparent images, such as 'if, are, since' etc are visually represented in the human brain, even if they are just modifiers of images before/after them
for example 'if you cross the road' would be visualized differently than 'cross the road'
it could be as simple as visualizing yourself on the curb for the first example, looking at the road, but not crossing it
if you aren't an artist, you arent this visually capable probably
most people this happens faintly and subconciously unless it's a narrative
but it explains every single memory phenomenon, the most basic being why we can remember this 'the cat lazily crossed the street' but not this '1232 9934953 32543 943' or the cat lazily crossed the street in russian if we dont speak it
obviously, the sole factor is being able to visualize things
repeating things out loud (speech evaluator) is a subsection of the brain but it has a very small memory capacity
you are basically getting your vocal muscles in a rhythm to repeat things and keep it stored that way for a minute or so
 
Okay. My impression is that there is no general technique that works for everyone (some people do not find visualisation helpful for instance). Giordano Bruno lived in the 16th century when almost nothing was known about the brain and definitely nothing about neurology, so it might well have worked for him but I think you have to assume that it was not on a firm theoretical footing.
 
4:35 AM
he wasnt the inventor of the GMS system
 
Oh. Well in that case I know nothing about it at all...
 
I think you are reading an alternate version or something
this was developed in 1990
here i will get you the book for free, its for free online anyway
dont get too excited though
even though it's earth shattering information, very few adults have the willpower to train their memory, but again this isnt the traditional 'memory gimmicks' where you memorize pi using a system
it's the same natural way you memorize things, like through rote memory, but with conciousness instead of hoping and praying
the reason its hard to find is its in Russian
the English version is on a private forum
not indexed by google
if you are young, and will have children in the future, or have young children now, then teach them this skill and they will be set for life, they can learn it 100x easier than you or me
this is how poets of the past could memorize such long stories
it wasnt the gimmicky tricks
it's visualization skill
nikola tesla had a rare form of synesthesia which is basically the same effect this skill produces
anyway my point with the cdf ebooks is, visualizing EVERY piece of information in a book is critical, a single unknown word can totally lose a reader
only computation can deliver that kind of visual aid, pulling images from the net, etc
making 3d models, embedding them in the cdf
 
I see. Thanks for the link. AFAICT, this is just a mnemonic chain method?
 
no
not even close man trust me
what you do is encode everything in the world into an image, even numbers
you do this by training it to reflex level, such as drawing a "1" (the number 1) over an image of a 3d realistic cow in your mind every day for days as well as other numbers up to 100 for example
everytime you see a 1, you will see a cow in your mind
now 1 is just as easily remembered as the actual word 'cow', it MEANS something to you
you first have to encode common information like this, THEN
 
So, a cow is the mnemonic for the number 1. Alright.
 
4:46 AM
once you can read something in a constant stream of images, you implement the next step which is to summarize it into a sequence of images in your mind which have to be large, detailed, 3d, and in color
only 2 images at a time
when you visualize the first image in a chain (im not finished, dont think it's just a chain yet)
and i mean visualize it in the EXACT same way you did when you encoded it
otherwise different neurons will signal
you have to learn to visualize things the SAME way to trigger the memory of the next image
then, you see that image the same way, the next image is triggered, just like a real life memory
there are clearly defined time periods in GMS in which this form of memory, this neuron-plasticity or memory will 'evaporate'
you basically have to relive the memory every other day, then every week, then every other week, then every other month. it's really fast because its just speed-of-thought images in your head,
but if you follow that system, the information will never get lost and be easier to retain
you can even memorize things to reflex - touch a hot pan, you will pull your hand away - reflex
we have our english language memorized to reflex for common words, too
 
Okay. So what if you have poor visual memory? Many people report that their strongest memories are related to smell or sound... so I don't deny it can be useful as a mnemonic technique, but the idea that it's an ideal system seems to me a bit far-fetched.
 
you see the word cow, you will visualize it reflexively
 
(I am a naturally skeptical [some may say cynical] person, as you probably can tell.)
 
the smell or sound is simply a trigger for visual images, even if they are so faint they only exist on the subconcious level. you are right, the visualization skills for ordinary people are at terrible standards today. children can learn this skill much easier, but so can adults. there are many factors such as diet, exercise, and other usual suspects to take into account. other than that, it's SOLELY up to two factors:
how much you visualize per day, you have to make it a habit and a lifestyle to visualize everything AND it has to be large, detailed,3d,in color, basically realistic not cartoon images, 2 images at a time only, any more and you will not make a strong connection, AND you have to push the limits of your brain
if you dont, your brain will get relaxed and lose its visual skill
people who are really bad at visualizing can start by simply visualizing something easy, say a glass of water, and a matchstick
 
So, the idea is to train yourself to visualize things reliably, and then use the visualization as a mnemonic tool?
 
4:52 AM
then they visualize putting the matchstick in the glass of water and stirring it around
they can do these exercises everyday and build up
right, you have to have extreme control over visual skills, once you do, you will memorize things naturally 100 times better than everyone else PLUS you will be able to do it intentionally
eventually it will become a habit, just like speaking english
speaking english requires creativity and attention, but we are so used to it, we do it so much, we are fast
havent you ever tried to memorize something and kept repeating it over and over in vain?
to prove this to yourself, focus on visualizing whatever the sentence is, and totally ignore the word-for-word format
you will memorize it , partially, every single time
depending on your visual skill at that point
there is also a way, using GMS, to memorize word-for-word
it's harder, but not hard for people who have been doing GMS as a habit
im a skeptic too
 
I can understand that. Speaking is not a very good reinforcement method; language skills are not very directly connected to memory (rather they are more involved with processing information).
 
if i wasnt a skeptic, i would still believe in conspiracy theories and stuff like that, being a skeptic is the only thing that has led me to filter through the BS all around me
for example, and you might get offended, i dont have a religion even though i was raised with one, i dont have a tv, i dont have many morals, etc, im as close to a computer morally and judgementally as you can get, but
i lack willpower because willpower oddly enough is a total illusion based on your previous circumstances and nothing else (determinism)
once you fully realize that, you will be stuck in a kind of helpless mouse churning the cheese in the bucket type deal
 
So you claim willpower has nothing to do with goal-seeking? I think that is a hard argument to make convincingly.
 
when people are trying to rationalize the universe, and option A (free will) is a very pleasurable idea (I'm POWERFUL and UNIQUE) and the alternative, a slave to physics just like a baseball trajectory, which is highly distasteful, then yes, it's hard to convince people of the obvious truth
most people in their minds will say
 

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