0 → Memorize for speed
A question that followed Juan from school to the end of university, finally answered on camera: why memorize anything when it is all on the internet? The resolution reframes memory entirely. You don't learn facts to hoard them; you learn them so you can act at speed. The paramedic who has to search the CPR steps online arrives too late; the person is already dead. The baker who has to ask ChatGPT how to bake can make a hundred loaves and burn half, not a thousand. Knowledge held in your head is response time, and response time, in the real world, is the whole game. It is the same reason speaking a language beats reading one: not more information, faster retrieval.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 8:00 (desde niño me preguntaba por qué memorizar si está todo en internet; el debate de pruebas con consulta o sin)
- ↳ video diary @ 10:10 (la respuesta es velocidad; aprender las cosas para utilizarlas rápido)
- ↳ video diary @ 11:26 (el paramédico que busca el CPR en internet llega cuando la persona ya se murió)
- ↳ video diary @ 10:49 (es como aprender un idioma; la diferencia entre leer un libro y hablar es el tiempo de respuesta)
The question is old enough that Juan can date it to childhood and follow it all the way to the end of university before it resolved: why memorize anything, when it is all on the internet? ▸ 8:00 In school it took the concrete form of a running debate, why do some teachers let you take an exam with your notes and others don’t, and the sharper version some teachers used: you can use your notebook, because those are your words, but not the textbook, because those aren’t. For years he sided with the shortcut, cramming the night before, half-memorizing, resenting the whole exercise.
The answer, when it came, reframed memory completely. You don’t learn things to own them; you learn them to use them fast ▸ 10:10. Everything is on the internet, yes, but between the moment you need an answer and the moment you’ve asked ChatGPT, checked Wikipedia, and read the result, time has passed, and sometimes time is the only thing that matters.
memorizar es tiempo de respuesta →
His example is a paramedic. The paramedic who doesn’t already hold the CPR procedure in their head, the compressions, how many, how deep, and instead stops to look it up, arrives at the answer at the moment the person has already died ▸ 11:26. His other example is the baker: you can buy the ovens and ask ChatGPT how to make bread, and you’ll make bread, but you won’t make a thousand loaves a day. You’ll make a hundred, and half will burn, because the knowledge isn’t loaded and ready in your head, and so you’re not productive enough to actually generate value.
It is, he says, the same as learning a language. The difference between reading a book in it and speaking it is not more information; it is response time ▸ 10:49. And it’s the same with everything. Memorization is for response. He wishes someone had told him earlier, then corrects himself: it is never too late…