What is that, Peg system, sound association, chaining, and Major system? There are better things, and there probably isn't anything new in the book that isn't already out there. He's just some d____ who decided to make some money selling techniques that have been around for hundreds of years. Imaginative memory is not a new idea.

There are far better books out there than his.

Last edited by alyks (2008 August 30, 5:08 pm)

alyks wrote:

What is that, Peg system, sound association, chaining, and Major system? There are better things, and there probably isn't anything new in the book that isn't already out there. He's just some d____ who decided to make some money selling techniques that have been around for hundreds of years. Imaginative memory is not a new idea.

There are far better books out there than his.

Compiling information together and explaining it is not easy.  Before you call someone names for working hard and making money off it, try doing it yourself first.

Heisig, BTW, did the same thing.  He just compiled information that was already out there in a format that was easier to take in.  It's not like the jouyou kanji are a new concept, and neither is re-arranging the order to make more sense when learning them.  Heck, even the memory concepts aren't original.

Is this the man you're talking about? Looks like he's quite the controversy...

Trudeau was born in 1963. Heisig published RtK first in 1977...

Either Heisig is just very smart and learned to use mnemonics by himself or (my bet) he read about the "art of memory" through his studies in philosophy and put that to use when he arrived in Japan.

Having checked his background on Wikipedia I can see where alyks is coming from

Have you checked Tony Buzan's books on memory and "mind maps" ?

Also according to Art of memory on Wikipedia:

It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE

The article seems much more digestible than the book of the same name (though the latter could be a good investment if you have insomnia).

alyks wrote:

wccrawford wrote:

Compiling information together and explaining it is not easy.  Before you call someone names for working hard and making money off it, try doing it yourself first.

Yeah, I have. For free.

But this guy isn't creating anything unique or more presentable, it's the same exact information in the same format. Heisig actually put 1 and 1 together, applied the mnemonics to an order - something original.

Have you looked up the author? Read the reviews on amazon.

I'm not saying your work is bad...  I actually think you've done a good thing with it.

But it's hardly on the scale of a 368 page book...  And it only MSRPs for $15.  He's hardly ripping people off, and they are completely free to not buy his book if they don't want to.  I haven't looked at the content and don't need to...  Compiling information and explaining it is never a bad thing, especially when nobody is forced to even look at it.  33 people even gave it 5 stars, so it's obviously useful to some people.  (34 gave it 1 star, and almost nothing in-between.)

I can reccomend a book called "YOUR MEMORY-how it works and how to improvie"
It was written by Kenneth L. Higbee (PHD), and academic professor.
He is pretty objective and honest about the fact that most memory books are just complied information of techniques that have been around forever.

He wrote the book I beleive to use with his college courses, so it is backed up by a lot of data and research, as well as giving one techniques for mnemonics and such.

Its a good book that bridges the gap between academic and layman ...

I was observing the night sky with my telescope the other day, and thinking "even though there are so many stars randomly sitting up there, people (including me) can recognize and remember a good number of them".
Then I realized that the so-called "constellations" are nothing more than mnemonic devices. Each constellation, in any mythology of the world, has a detailed story and history, and relations to other constellations. It's heisig applied to the sky... and it's been devised thousands of years earlier!
I was kind of enlightened.