title: Hierarchical Memory
tags: learning memorisation

```quotes1
No astronaut launches for space with their fingers crossed. That's not how we deal with risk.
What I learned from 21 years as an astronaut is that the more you know, the less you fear.
When the clock hits zero, start focusing and thinking of nothing else but the moment you're in.
Study every system on a spaceship and then boil it down to what I call a one pager.
You've got to be able to solve your problems in one breath. --- Chris Hadfield (masterclass trailer)
```

The general idea here is that you memorise *short lists*, or *one pagers*.
Items on these lists or one-pagers can then point to additional pages.
You can then learn each page or list through repetition.

# Example 1: Scripture
For example, when memorising a text like the Dhammapada, I would
take longer verses, e.g.
```boxed1
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
```
I break this into the following chunks:
1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: 
2. it is founded on our thoughts, 
3. it is made up of our thoughts. 
4. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, 
5. pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox
6. the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

Note the occasional overlap. Now these are learned by repetition. Then we can start *gluing* by having longer, overlapping chunks:
```marginpar
*Just so you know, I practise memorisation when working out on my exercise bike to make it less boring: the exercise bike makes the memorisation less boring, and the memorisation makes the exercise bike less boring: win-win.*
```
1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, 
2. it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. 
3. it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, 
4. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox
5. pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

And from here, we can then recite the entire passage. By having overlapping chunks, we have memorised the progression from one of the original smaller chunks to the next.

We do this for each verse, then practise reciting small groups of verses, and gradually build up until we have memorised the entire thing.

In memorising the entire chapter, we then compose the short list:
* Our Mind
* Angry with me
* Hatred
* Mara Temptation
* Saffron Robe
* Deluded and Wise
* Thatched Hut
* Selfish1
* Selfish2
* Scriptures

Which can again be practised by repetition. By having a short list, we can do a large number of repetitions in the same time, which intensifies the memorisation. Indeed we can practise lists like this as smaller chunks (say 5 at a time) building up to the whole thing. Then we tie the two things together: we learn to go from
> Our Mind

to
> All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded
on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts
with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of
the ox that draws the carriage.

> All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded
on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts
with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never
leaves him.

# General Idea

In this way we have a hierarchy of lists, each item of which points to either another list, or an item. We thus build up our memory like we organise things on our computer using folders.

The thing with this approach is that it *it is applicable to **anything** where a sequence, or even an approximate sequence, needs to be learned to the point of memorisation*. One place I aim to use this is music production (see [When To Cheat](WhenToCheat)).