Ask HN: Why can't we write down something in our head?

6 points by dothis 10 years ago | 6 comments

I always scribble down a short note or sentence so I don't forget to think of it tomorrow. Why is this function not a built in in humans?

informatimago 10 years ago |

It is built in. But since we learned writing and reading, we're underutilizing it, so it's decaying.

Plato, putting words in the mouth of Socrates in Phaedrus wrote:

...for this discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phaedrus#On_the_decline_of_Gre....

Chess players can play without the chess board.

Some writers prisonners wrote books in their head.

Similarly, if you were separated from your computer you could still write programs, in your head. You would have to be very carefull, but you could reach a stage where the program is debugged well enough that you could just type it out (once you've left out the the prison), and have it run on the first time.

Just avoid TV and its brainwashing (cf. Fahrenheit 451, http://www.laweekly.com/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-mis... ).

coldtea 10 years ago | |

>Similarly, if you were separated from your computer you could still write programs, in your head. You would have to be very carefull, but you could reach a stage where the program is debugged well enough that you could just type it out (once you've left out the the prison), and have it run on the first time.

Which while exaggerated a little in your version, is more or less what earlier programmers (without monitors or even terminals and with expensive test-runs) did. Of course they also used paper, but it's interesting how much of the program they could keep in their head.

Heck, even something like "ex" (the editor, which only showed the line you operate on), needs some of that capability to note stuff in your head to ever work.

wglb 10 years ago | | |

Heck, even something like "ex" not to mention TECO or ed.

bbcbasic 10 years ago | |

Weird I thought about this the other day. If I were sent to prison and there was a lot of alone 'thinking' time I would try and develop systems in my head. I would turn myself into a compiler :-).

My memory is bad because I rely a lot on technology and paper to remember things for me. One are I have improved is by learning Haskell using Vim and not having an IDE like I do for .NET I have found it has improved my memory. Also starting to learn another language has probably helped me.

dragonwriter 10 years ago |

It's a function humans can develop, and in the past did. Once writing was common, it was less necessary, and the effort to develop it more often went elsewhere, though people still memorize short things frequently, and longer things occasionally. (Interestingly, many find that the act of writing notes aid memory even when the notes are not later consulted.)

auganov 10 years ago |

How short are we talking about? Pretty sure most people can remember a sentence? I very rarely make notes tbh. The "don't forget to think of it" part is a bit trickier IMO. You have to have some kind of a trigger. With an odd, rare thought it could be tough without a non-mental trigger.