All In The Mind

 Your natural memory is the result of an exceedingly intricate network of retention of facts, ideas, and physical activity--all of which are learned through sensory perception, and then stored in your mind and limitlessly cross-referenced, for future use. This is how it happens:

"Camembert just had six kittens." That sentence tells you, first of all, the fact that six kittens have begun to exist. It also reveals, in the word "just," the fact that their birth was quite recent. But, because of your mind's retention of other facts, previously learned, the sentence tells you even more-you know that Camembert is a cat, and that the kittens are her offspring, and that she is a lady cat. You know these things because of your previous knowledge that kittens--baby cats-are descended from female cats... information which comes from your mind's ability to register facts.

Now, what is a cat? Can you picture one in your mind? Unless you know Camembert, your impression of "cat" will probably not be an accurate picture of Camembert herself ... but still, you have a very good idea of her basic parts, at least. This impression is the image of an abstract idea, one built on a whole slew of impressions in your past involving cats and cat-ness. Then, too, how many are "six"? One more than you have toes on a foot, three and three, one less than days in a week, half-a-dozen... another abstract idea that is so well documented in your mind that you need give the word- and the concept- no more thought than it takes you to think of what letter follows "G" in the alphabet.

If you swim, or ride a bicycle, or climb up a step ladder to get things off a high shelf, or move you arm to avoid putting your hand into flame, or walk, I’m sure that you don’t spend every active moment thinking about these things; they come to you so naturally that you don’t even have to give them thought. If you type, no doubt you can now type many more words in a minute than was the case the very first time you tried a typewriter. But that took time and practice. Through repeated experience, effort and practice, your mind comes to retain memory of motor activity.

But all this mental memory-activity is only a part of the total picture. Remember, our definition of memory plainly calls for all means of making information available.

Even if you were going to be able to devote full time to the task of feeding your natural memory's supply of information, you couldn't possibly begin to nourish it nearly enough to satisfy your needs. When you come right down to it, you simply haven't got the time to remember all of the things you need to know every now and then. It doesn't pay to memorize the entire San Francisco telephone directory on the chance that you'll one day have occasion to call someone then ... when you need to, you can always look the number up. And when the time comes that you must call someone in San Francisco, the directory becomes a device for reinforcing your natural memory.

Few people can awaken themselves automatically each morning at specifically desired times, unless waking time remains constant (waking then becomes a habit, as long as retiring time is constant). But if you usually wake up at 8:00, and on one special morning you must rise at 7:00, you've got to rely upon outside assistance--an alarm clock. This is a device.

Suppose you have approximately 100 accounts in your sales

territory, or 100 members in the club of which you're secretary, or 100 relatives and friends to whom you must send wedding invitations. If you've come to know them gradually, one or two at a time over a period of years, the odds are that you remember the addresses of most of them, or at least of those to whom you write most frequently. But what if you take over a new territory, what if you join a new club, what if you take on the task of sending invitations to the guests of the groom? You couldn't possibly expect to remember all those new names and addresses right off, and it really wouldn't pay to set yourself to the task of memorizing them at the first possible moment, for, to make their recall habitual would be quite a difficult and time-consuming undertaking. So you condense the task in a very simple way: you prepare your own little address book, writing in it the names and addresses that you need. When you no longer require the bundle of information which it contains, you can put it away; or, if the information is continually needed, you simply make a habit of carrying it with you, or keeping it convenient. That book, too, is a device.

Do you get the picture? First, your mind is able to feed your memory directly--ideas, facts and motor information (physical activity)--from its own storehouse of knowledge. Because your memory is serviced by the mind alone in such cases, we refer to this activity as your natural memory.

And when your mind is unable to furnish the information which you seek, you can aid your natural memory with external devices: your alarm clock is such a device; so are your address book, your shopping list, the dictionary, your wristwatch, timetables, cookbooks, the letters on the typewriter's keyboard whenever you have to look, etc. All of this we call your artificial memory.

All sources of information--your own perceptions, books and newspapers, people, and in fact nearly every single thing with which you come in contact--can both supply information to your natural memory, and perform as artificial memory-minimizers. Why should you bother to memorize the population figures of Bechuanaland, when the almanac is right on your book shelf? No need to memorize travel directions you'll need only once, when one of the passengers in your car can tell you what turns to make while you're driving there.

But when the information you want to make available is of so specialized a nature that no standard reference works or handy authorities are at your service, you'll want to contrive memory-minimizers that are precisely suited to your needs. For instance, the salesman's address book; the student's lecture notes and class schedule; the housewife's clippings of favorite recipes.