Cody’s observation gives a nice branch to Alexander Luria’s The Mind of a 
Mnemonist.

Patient S (I think real name Shevashensky) was a perfect-memory person (I 
forget autistic or not, but yes synaesthesic), whose life was not very 
functional but who made a living to some degree as a memory performer.

For a long time he did the things people could respond to, which were the 
semantically ordinary things: sentences or events etc.  Those are the things 
people find interesting, and it took the world a while to get bored seeing 
someone do reliably what they could not at all.

Only relatively late in his career did the performances become more 
technocratic, in the sense of wondering how much one could change the objects 
remembered and still preserve the effect.  So he would start to perform 
repeating long lists of randomly generated meaningless syllables.  Ta dee dah 
do si etc.

In order to do this he would invent these incredibly rich semantic narratives 
in the memorization phase, to wrap around each syllable.  Makes me think of 
Peter Gacs’s automaton that has lots of scaffolding to carry a small number of 
cells in which you can store arbitrary bits.  Synaesthesia was really central 
to making that construction capable of carrying the long lists.

Anyway, he could do it, but one gets the impression reading Luria that there 
was this enormous cognitive engine, running at higher and higher over-clocking, 
to produce ever more empty, slowly delivered, strings of syllables.  

I believe Daniel Tammet describes reciting digits of pi in their color, shape, 
and size packages, but I don’t think I recall hearing him say there are 
narratives of the same kind Shevashensky constructed.

Eric



> On Jul 22, 2020, at 4:53 AM, cody dooderson <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> After reading Glen's reply I came up with a mnemonic, "Fart Vapor Can 
> Distract Republicans" 
> Of course, now I can not remember now what the F stands for. Maybe "Fart 
> Velvet Church Daisy Red"
> 
> Cody Smith
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 1:15 PM <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Thanks.  Anybody else?  I need more data.
> 
>  
> 
> N
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,ik9N3_zbccJR5xYQ-kGUvf3aJItzB9wPRxN8QIR59wit0_3W4cel_WgqYV6Mgd9tSG0Q7QVjD9_yDr0SOB3CH2CNwp6P7brIP5Kh9Bp5pDq9_fc9z-Y-OM6t&typo=1>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> On 
> Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 1:09 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.
> 
>  
> 
> Are you asking me?  Face, red, church, velvet. ???
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 12:45 PM <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
> Can you do it now?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,0wk5SS-WL0FcSI4fYxHjTml6-Skwy4nVNO4__tbqkI0YVfyzf446CviBGA8iCX_MbOk1EsC3lcVZOJs-mYiPpCedkfARaNuQ6Y4tOUnKBg,,&typo=1>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> On 
> Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 12:42 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.
> 
>  
> 
> I go five after making lunch.  But I said it subvocally many times before 
> starting lunch preparation.  Does that count?
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 11:59 AM <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
>  
> 
> So the idea is that you hear the list, then you repeat it, then you repeat it 
> again. 
> 
>  
> 
> Then you do something entirely else for five minute.  Write an email on 
> philosophy?  Do a page of your income tax form?  Make a telephone call?  
> After  a few of these distractions, Now try to remember the number. 
> 
>  
> 
> Let me know what your experience was and then I will explain where this comes 
> from, if you don’t already know.  If you DO already know, don’t give away the 
> secret until others have had a crack at it.
> 
>  
> 
> Nick
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p0D8nxUeHmISaJz52HFNzZEtwx-3rSK9ANQki7T-RvvRs1QJ4d6c3db4o6gr7dxnCn9tvP5OXcZCLAJrW2tLscHICTJIinfgvWcsqI6o0SNy1Zqp9YEjkw,,&typo=1>
>  
> 
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