Ariadne's Thread

If one keeps everything one wants to be able to remember, in a "repository" in which any item in the repository can be found by following references (aka links...) from a single starting point, then one needs only to remember one thing -- that starting point --, to effectively remember everything, no matter how much one forgets (other than that one thing: that starting point!). The ancients built such referential networks "in their heads", with "The art of memory"; I propose us doing it on the computer (See: implementation proposal).

One important (even if not "elevated"...) use for such a repository would be for schoolchildren (if this is still done to them, as it was done to me in the 1950's and early 60's...) to record all the characters and their interactions, in books they are assigned in English class, so that when the teacher gives a "Who? What? Where? When?..." quiz, the student could quickly satisfy the teacher's curiosity. Note that the student would truly have had to read the book to create such a database about the details in the book, so that this is not a way for the student to try to "fake it". Since practice makes perfect, each time the student created such a database as he or she read a book, the student would get better at it, thus honing his or her skills in both extracting information from text, and also being able to recall it when needed (or even -- although this might not occur frequently in "school"...) when desired.

Organizing one's knowledge this way might also help address in a systematic way what are euphemistically called "senior moments" -- at least so long as the person retains enough orientation in life to be able to keep in focus what they are trying to remember.

A benefit of any effort to organize information into a logical referential network, for persons of any age and station in life, is to provide both occasion and motivation for seeing previously unrecognized meaning (connections...) in the data.

One of my purposes in maintaining and ever further elaborating this website is to make it be such a mnemonic repository for myself. Albeit -- and alas --, certain "personal" things cannot be included in such a public place. But, I think, such an endeavor is still well worth while, since even many of my "private" thoughts and feelings have public aspects and therefore can be recorded here.... This purpose is one reason I work hard at providing this website with effective navigation aids (aka "apparatus"). Please let me know if you have trouble finding your way around or finding what you are looking for in this website, or if you have any other thoughts for me.

 

Read  proposal for using PDAs ("Palm Pilots", etc.) as PKAs (Personal Knowledge Assistants): A Role for general encyclopedias in our digital age.   Fax vs facts? Navigate a (HTML) labyrinth....   Go  to website Table of Contents. Return  to Brad McCormick's home page. Return to site map.
http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/GO/ariadnesThread.html Copyright © 2004-2005 Brad McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net 09 March 2006CE (2006-03-09 ISO 8601) v03.02
Example: (1) In October 2002, I had added to my "Quotes" section, a quote that invading Iraq would help al Qaeda, along with a picture of Osama bin Laden in a take-off of the "Uncle Sam Wants You" U.S. military recruiting poster from World War I: "I want you to invade Iraq". (2) When, in March 2004, a former U.S. government anti-terror chief said it was as if Saddam Hussein had exercised mind control to get George W Bush to invade Iraq, I immediately had an "anchor" for the new material: I linked this new quote to the old quote and picture, and linked the old quote and picture to the new quote.