Read book

>read book
>take notes
>forget everything apart from the title within a few months
How do I remember everything of value from a book for many years so it actually contributes to my overall cognisance?

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Read Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, brainlet and stop wanting to be spoonfed.

>Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Meme
I read this and it told me nothing other than what seems like common sense repeated over and over again

Because you're taking notes, turning what should be pleasurable into a chore and overtaxing your mind.

>childhood memories only exist in minute fragments and vague feelings
>don't remember big details of any book, movie, or video game I've ever experienced
I should probably just end it all

Then you're a moron then, and you're not actually capable of digesting books. Adler has a bunch of straightforward but effective tips on how to read books well. It's up to you to change your habits based on the advice he gives you.

stop taking notes nigger.

Note taking enfeebles the mind's natural memory capabilities. It's like using a pulley system to help you with your weight lifting and then wondering why you're so weak. Note taking has its place (e.g. you need to record references for citations while doing research), but as soon as you write a note on something the mind goes "well there it is all written down, no need to expend the mental effort to keep it in memory" and it evaporates from your working memory.

Just read it and, as you're reading, carefully think about what you're reading. That's it. If you have YOUR OWN thoughts, not notes, then you might want to stop to write those down but stop banally recording every little detail you think is important.

>>take notes

the fuck?

I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me

Can you back up what you're saying? Could you provide some sources?

How do I even remember anything simply by thinking about it?
For example pic related I read a few months ago and I remember only reading a few pages an hour just for leisure. I remember nothing now, absolutely nothing even though I read the entire book. All I remember is the basic definitions I already knew before I read the book.

You absolutely NEED to take notes when reading non-fiction. I thought you were asking about fiction books.

But surely taking notes will just enfeeble my minds natural memory capability and act as a pulley system to help with my mental effort and result in it evaporating from my working memory

units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.htm

books.google.com/books?id=pUSG1BONmekC&pg=PA1873#v=onepage&q&f=false

science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/13/science.1207745

There are plenty of other studies and writings on it I can dig up if you want more but you should be able to do your own research from there. I think Hemingway also wrote on a similar topic but I couldn't find it. The idea is that as soon as you write a note, it brings the mind closure (to use Kruglanski's terminology) or in Zeigarnik's terminology releases the psychic tension. The mind then only remembers where it can access the information and not the information itself.

Memory works by forming links between concepts. If you write a note, and relieve yourself of that bit of information, then read some more, then relieve yourself of that, it makes it more difficult to form the complex web of relations needed for a strong memory of a subject. Instead, if you keep the psychic tension going your brain will start sorting it out for long-term storage. Don't you think it's strange you can't even remember the basics of a book you just read, but people remembered long works like the Odyssey and the Iliad for generations without writing it down anywhere? Of course those works had some special poetic features to help with remembering them but hopefully you see what I'm saying. Human memory is extremely powerful, but research indicates that the mind is also lazy and will take any shortcuts it can to avoid expending unnecessary mental energy.

Of course, these are just theories, not practice. I urge you to just try it yourself since it's not going to cost you anything. At worst it doesn't work for you and you're back to where you started. It works for me or else I wouldn't be telling you to try it. Just try reading an entire book without taking any notes, then at the end write down everything you can remember. Start with a skeleton of the basic outline of the book (doesn't matter if it's fiction or nonfiction) and then fill in as much as you can.

Also look up the Iverson method for learning vocabulary, it's not a formally researched method but it's just a technique some guy came up with for vocabulary learning that's gaining a lot of popularity and is based on this phenomenon. I highly recommend it if you're learning a foreign language.

Read a part. Close the book and form what you just read in your own words. You can write it down if you want I guess. I don't know if doing that with the book closed would hinder your memory.

This instead of notes. Read a chapter, close the book, then recount it in your own words. You'll also discover new intrigues this way - it's similar to reading your own work aloud to find issues.

real advice: spaced repetition

here's what i do:
1. take notes while reading on scrap paper.
2. organize those notes into a coherent outline with all the bloat removed after you've finished the book
3. transfer it to a notebook
4. transfer major concepts/keywords to handwritten notecards and periodically review them. (i prefer physical cards over something like Anki)

also, watch videos about what you've read.
tying information to as many senses as possible has worked well for me. often times i can recall information just by remembering the physical act of writing or hearing it.

this works well if you're reading as a generalist and want to tie concepts together as they accumulate over time

no

How do you take notes? I mean, do you try to copy down/summarize what you're reading?

This is why you reread. I've read some of my favorite poems 20 times.

The way I think about memory is like a Walmart. You can fit a few things in your short term memory cart, and you can find the things people use everyday on the shelves pretty quickly, but if it's something that no one buys like a two in one fire starter and phone charger they send it back to the warehouse and you have to go through a long process to get it back to the store. If you know you're going to need to start a fire and charge your phone on a camping trip next Friday, you should probably place an order ahead of time instead of just hoping it's in the store the day of. In the same vein if you know ahead of time what knowledge you'll need, review your notes and it'll be available for a while, but if you want to be some sort of walking library who can instantly cite everything you've read you need to convince management that becoming a bookstore is more profitable than being a Walmart.

Read the book in as few sittings as possible. Remove all distractions and devote yourself wholly to reading the book. Read/take notes through as much as you can in that one session. No breaks for any reason besides emergencies. Ideally for most novels (between something like 150-300 pages) you can read them through in one sitting. Breaking up books into chunks you read over time is for non-fiction. If you split up a 3 hour movie into different sessions you're bound to have all kinds of holes as well, to a lot of people this may seem extreme but not far into the past reading for 3-4 hours a day wasn't exceptional.

Step 1: Read book carefully, and understand the meaning behind what is being written. Don't just engage reading neurons.
Step 2: Talk about book and what it meant.
Step 3: Do background research on book.

You're also forgetting the unconscious which stores and uses everything you come in contact with.

>as if we're all walking hard drives

me too senpai

>I should never use google because it's just going to hinder muh memory
how retarded can you be

Is that not normal?

this is the most brainlet shit I've ever heard. If you seriously need SRS just to remember what you've read I feel sorry for you, but if you make it work good for you.