“Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Joshua Foer tackles the subject of memory, knowledge, and mental capability through his personal experiences and research.
After a year of memory training, the novice not only competed against the country’s best mental athletes but also exceeded everyone’s expectations by winning the USA Memory Championships in 2006.
It is a common dilemma in many people’s lives — the passive acceptance of routine and formula that allows for monotonous year after monotonous year to melt into each other. In this account, Foer delineates from this tolerance with his belief that tedium collapses time and novelty unfolds it. Through mental exercises and concentrated awareness, Foer explains expanding subjective time by providing life with more chronological landmarks.
The chronicle of his metamorphosis forms the basis of this engaging book. He dares his readers to consider, “If to remember is to be human, then remembering more means to be more human.”
The author writes with fresh enthusiasm. Through his determination and curiosity, he is able to create an understanding of people’s capacities and to also revive the lost art of memory. The sophistication in learning has been largely forgotten, and every one of his readers of will be grateful for the reminder.
In the book, Foer provides a brief history of memorization and the declining role it plays in modern culture. With the ever-presence of books, photographs, museums, and digital media, the notion of intellect and meaning of an educated person has changed considerably.
Foer thoroughly explains how internal memory has become devalued. In this society, it is not useful to know, but instead, to know how to do. Erudition has evolved from processing information mentally to knowing where to find it in the convoluted world of external memory (e.g. cell phones, computers).
With access to so many devices that do the thinking for us, we are inculcated with the threat of a feeble memory. However, this perceived incapability to remember is not a truth.
Foer adeptly offers and elucidates scientific concepts about the brain in a breezy, accessible fashion. By providing helpful insights and lots of entertaining anecdotes, he details how people can engage their mind in a way they never have before. His encouragement for creativity and imagination, along with hard work and dedication, is inspiring and infectious.
Informed by philosophies that allow the author to place the inscrutability of the brain within a larger theoretical and cultural context, this book will have you view time and experience with fresh eyes.
Reach the reporter at mgrichar@asu.edu
