Memory
Functional-biological memory is needed to store useful for future actions models and the subjective experience of the agent in general. This means that information is processed, stored, and reproduced in a way that it can be conveniently used in the future.
Essentially, instead of storing pure "raw data" in biological memory, some "semifinished products" are stored. For example, rather than a list of data on how you worked yesterday in the format "role - function - period," the memory stores a representation of what and how you did. The representation often differs from how you actually worked. If you qualitatively completed task #2 on calculating work capacity, relying on timestamps fixed by the exocortex rather than biopmemory in the calculations, you probably noticed some differences between what you remember about the work and how you actually worked.
Memory stores various "semifinished products." For example, "implicit" knowledge / tacit knowledge is stored in the "automatic" memory, which a person receives associatively simply by performing actions in a certain environment. For example, a child gains experience in solving everyday problems by living with their parents: they learn to cook, lock the door, understand the need to pay for utilities. Children raised in orphanages may lack this implicit knowledge if they were not specifically taught to live independently. An employee coming to a company internalizes both written and unwritten rules of behavior.
One can organize the acquisition of implicit knowledge in several ways:
- immerse oneself: consume quality information and process it through written/modeled thinking and verbal reasoning;
- create a quality news feed: it can be even more important for immersion, as you encounter information from the feed daily, absorbing it implicitly every day;
- work with a mentor to "observe" quality behavioral models even before the mentor realizes your need;
- maintain focus on carrying out activities regularly.
In controlled long-term memory, there is stored procedural information, or information on how to perform operations with objects before turning them into skills. How to count, walk, identify objects, operate with them. To develop a skill, one will need to repeat procedures using approaches, in 1-2 approaches over a sufficiently long period, for example, 66 days (the median time to form a habit). This way, the law of accumulation and distribution of repetitions can be activated. The law states: a few approaches (for example, 1-2) over a longer period (for example, 12 days) allow for more efficient information retention than a short-term intensive study (8 repetitions over 3 days).
Also, controlled long-term memory stores conceptual information, that is, useful models obtained after integration. This information is stored in the form of a conceptual network. Therefore, when you maintain a concept base in your personal or collective exocortex, you are actually enriching the conceptual network in your biological memory with the content of technological memory.
Overall, for memorizing information, it is recommended to:
- use the exocortex - it allows you to keep track of a larger number of objects and reminds you in time about the need to perform operations with them;
- not only consume but also process information as deeply as possible - due to the generation effect, agents remember what they create themselves better. Therefore, it is essential to practice written/modeling thinking, describing notes and concepts in a language understandable to you and the group instead of just taking notes;
- focus on performing work well and obtaining high-quality work products instead of memorization. Memorizing on its own, detached from activities, is much less effective. So if you want to learn something really well, you need to apply it and apply it again.
Since memory is needed for future actions, it is essential not only to memorize information but also to extract it at the right moment. This can be aided by:
- the exocortex, which, when correctly configured, will remind you to take action at the necessary moment;
- connections between concepts and associations that help retrieve the needed memory faster;
- regular repetitions - not frequent but definitely long enough for you to get used to extracting the necessary information at the right moment.
If your external technological memory - the exocortex - is set up in a way that is convenient for you and is regularly utilized, information from it naturally "rotates" within you, transferring to biological memory. Thus, the use of special memorization techniques (mnemonics) becomes non-essential for most agents: a quality symbiosis with the exocortex will strengthen you more, allowing you to preserve models more accurately with minimal distortions.