Einstein was referring to facts like a phone number, but why memorize anything?
Can a computer save everything you would normally memorize and allow you to access it as fast as retrieving memories?
A personal pattern database can function like as extension of your own visual memory patterns.
Since many of the patterns we need to remember involve digital information, a personal pattern database must
be able to store patterns of actual notes, bookmarks, emails, files and data.
If the ability to save and retrieve complex patterns of data is a measure of intelligence, then a person
with a well organized personal pattern database could have a nearly unlimited "artificial intelligence."
Creating a personal pattern database requires a complete change to how we approach
collecting, learning, navigating and managing the information we need over a lifetime.
A Lifetime of Data Patterns to Remember
Our information intensive world contains more patterns of data than any mind can possibly store.
Professionals in many fields are often expected to memorize:
- Mechanical, electrical, biological and information systems.
- Contracts, finances, organizations, schedules and requirements.
- Theories, data, patterns, rules, laws and exceptions.
...and then get up tomorrow and do it all again for 30+ years.
Associations that we observe between people, things, data and abstractions are temporarily stored as patterns of objects in
our short-term memory.
Observed patterns are committed to long-term memory when we observe the pattern many times or realize the
pattern will be important to remember.
Many people just assume that if they do not remember a pattern, then it must not have been important.
Managing vs Finding Patterns
A single forgotten connection can be critical.
Finding patterns requires collecting data objects and associations before you see the full pattern.
You learn to identify key patterns by developing judgment
and an eagerness to learn.
One approach to managing patterns is to search
the entire countryside for patterns.
Companies use large databases to find patterns in data stored
by billions of people.
It seems like common sense to put key data where you can easily find it later.
Most information systems store data without regard to how it will be found later.
Pattern Management requires that you:
- Save key data and associations.
- Associate key objects to help find them.
