First Blog

 Although I'm not a fan of President Biden, I did write him a letter recently on his memory issues. Here is what I said.  ------------------ Dear Mr. President,  I understand your memory problems, and your reluctance to take a cognitive test. I have them as well, and I'm 80. Here is what I do. I have made of list of names, dates, and events I should recall. Every morning I review this list. It helps me recall essential facts, and it helps my general recall of other events as well. I slowly add items to the list. Please consider. The country needs you to to look sharp.  Best wishes, Don -------------------- Memory recall is a fact for all of us. I recall when I first noticed this years ago. So, I made lists of things "To Do."  This helped for a while. Now my daily list helps. Believe me, one recalled memory makes another easier to recall. Memory must be constantly used and tested, or it fades. 

  It’s natural to think a note on memory is about improving one’s memory, say tips or advice. All agree that having a poor memory is undesirable. But today we consider the opposite. This note is about those men and women gifted with excellent memory, or even beyond excellent. Courtrooms are transfixed by memory-gifted attorneys citing case after case in support of their clients. Students are mesmerized by faculty that communicate like walking encyclopedias of information with complete ease. World leaders invite memory-rich consultants to give historical aspects to current problems. Yet, the at-home housewife can demolish her husband in a dispute over the point of contention by recalling in minute detail what happened last time or recalling past sins and errors. The boss who remembers every mistake of every employee has an uncomfortable staff. As well, adults who vividly remember only childhood punishments may have problems with authority. So, is perfect memory a blessing? Consider.

Did you ever consider the complexity or development of your mind correlates and corresponds with your dreams? The caveman who hunts by day and eats at the campfire has dreams little more than this and the world of his senses. The engineer, with immense training, living in a complex world, performing complex tasks by day, necessarily has more complex dreams intertwined with everyday events of friends and family.   While this seems natural and simple, a step more complex is involved. All those complex dreams of the engineer use the advanced workings and training of the mind and memory, testing, working, and variating those same mental features used by day.   In fact, during the dreams, the mind gets a “nighttime workout.” The result is a more pliable and active mind for the next day.   Although most of us enter adulthood with a mind mostly trained, we can simulate or actuate higher-order mental features by giving the conscious mind a boost before dreaming.   One way is reading befo

Learning is the task of schools and us all.  Yet, learning has its own components: memory, understanding, application. The first step, memory, precludes all others.  A person with no memory of the “something” can never learn much about anything. From memory, a student has a chance of understanding through various mechanisms, not the least important of which is analogy through previously understood concepts.  Thus, understanding and learning are bootstrapping processes. But now comes the most important stage of learning, and that is applications or better known as problem-solving.  We  conclude… The greatest learning engine is problem-solving.  Give a lecture and only a fraction learn. Call for a group involvement and more learn.  Ask them to solve a problem, and all learn. Not solving a problem is a key learning experience.  It exposes gaps in understanding. It points to needs.  It is an essential component of growth. How many times has the teacher heard this, “I understa

Learning is the goal of schools.  Yet, learning has its own components: memory, understanding, application.  The first step, memory, precludes all others.   A person with no memory of the “something” can never learn much about it. From memory, a student has a chance of understanding through various mechanisms, not the least important of which is analogy through previously understood concepts.   Thus, understanding is a bootstrapping process. But now comes the most important stage of learning, and that is problem-solving.   We   conclude… The greatest learning engine is problem-solving.  Give a lecture and only a fraction remember. Call for a group discussion and more remember.  Ask them to solve a problem, and all remember - and learn.

When taking a family vacation...  Visiting a museum or ruin is an exciting adventure, full of surprises, and photo ops – except when you get overdosed on so, soooo... much.   I give at most four hours/day for quality fun.   Sometimes, in the heat of jobs, kids, and growing up, we never really get to know our kids - except as kids.   An adult-style family vacation is a fantastic eye-opener to review the results. In your adventures, you may stumble, trip, or even fall.   Of course, that painful muscle or bruise is all in your mind - except where it really hurts. On vacations, shoot hundreds of pictures. The only penalty is you have to look at them later.   Spare no expense when taking breaks. Remember, the memory plays tricks.   You never quite know which of them will shine in the sunset.

One thing you don’t know is which of your memories will be your favorites twenty years from now.   They may not be your triumphs, awards, or a special love.   In fact, those favorites can be the most unlikely yet cherished events. They may be with someone you knew, perhaps recalling a deep breath on a fresh spring morning or that moment when you finally figured something out. Smiles and memories from the distant past are the best but unpredictable.

Here is a letter written to my nephew on his high school graduation. C ongratulations on your achievement.   You are awarded a certificate for a mission well accomplished.   This is your day to celebrate.   The real celebration is that you have now jumped up one rung on the long, difficult ladder of life.   Y et, your life so far and to come will be a bounty of achievements. Celebrate, enjoy, and remember these. This is important.    Life will also deliver to you an assortment of failures, some from bad luck and others from bad judgment.   Learn the difference.   Learn from these, but do not allow them to dominate your pathway.   Too many do so, causing their gradual defeat in the game of living. Y our memory is most important; after years it becomes what you are.   It is your stamp of uniqueness.   It is a personal warehouse of you - your experiences, your expertise, your achievements, your loves, and so much of everything you will have become. Cherish your memory, but c

A memory is an event or object stored in your brain.   Memories are neither perceptive nor conceptive as these are more-or-less contemporary events.   Objects of the memory are therefore objects of the past.    The principle two types of memory are the acts of remembering and of recollection.   Recollection can be regarded as imperfect memory that singles out similarities with perhaps a large group of memories each having some commonality to the presence of event at hand.     In this note, we expand the idea of memory beyond remembering and recalling.   These are the more subtle memories we need and which allow us to survive and thrive. Instincts.   First, consider a new approach to instinct .   It is differentiated from the hard-wired instincts (discussed below).   It is discussed here as a aspect of possible forgotten memory.   It forms a type of memory in the sense that when an event occurs, there can result an “instinctive” reaction without the benefit of either recall o

Impossible Problems by Don Allen Impossible problems are everywhere.   They are in your life, your friends’ lives, your work, your family, your dreams, your future, and your expectations.   No matter what you do, no matter what you try, you can’t avoid them.   Impossible problems come in many flavors. ·          Problems you can’t solve ·          Problems than change when you try to solve them ·          Problems solved on the basis of past knowledge ·          Problems involving a change of scale ·          Problems about systems exhibiting memory In this note, we take up the nature of impossible problems.   We will illustrate some, but naturally we cannot solve them.   We’ll consider these topics, though the last one is problematic. ·          Definitions ·          Categories ·          Sources ·          Creating ·          Solutions But we should begin with the nice problems – those that actually have a solution, and not only that a unique so