Episode 052 53 Ed Cooke

Summary

• Ed Cooke is a grandmaster of memory and cofounder of Memrise.
• Becoming a grandmaster of memory involves memorizing a 1000digit number in an hour, a pack of cards in under a couple of minutes, and 10 packs of shuffled cards in an hour.
• Ed and Tim first connected several years ago when Tim was writing The 4Hour Chef.
• The world record for memorizing a shuffled deck of cards was 149 seconds in 1990 and is now 21 seconds.
• This progress is due to a competitive culture, prize money, prestige, social media, and the ability to travel and compete.
• Experiment conducted to incentivize people to memorize a shuffled deck of cards
• Technique used to remember cards is to associate each card with a person
• People can learn the technique in an afternoon
• Competition was launched with a $10,000 prize
• Winner was able to memorize the deck in four days
• Technique involves transforming boring information into interesting forms
• Technique also involves stringing the people associated with the cards into an amusing story
• Experiment demonstrated that people are capable of doing more than they think they are
• 13 people in the listenership were inspired by a story of two young lads who won the US Memory Championships by a margin of three times
• Joshua Foer wrote a book about the experience called Moonwalking With Einstein
• Irina, a Ukrainian woman, learned to memorize a shuffled deck of cards in less than a minute in four to five days
• Ed Cooke suggests that people can prove their mental athleticism and memorization potential by forming images in their mind while talking
• Ed Cooke tested Tim Ferriss' memory by describing a scene with 20 items in it, which Tim Ferriss was able to recall in order
• Ignite interest through imagination; allow yourself to experience information in a way that is stimulating and interesting.
• Separate experiences and thoughts spatially to prevent them from fusing together and becoming a blur.
• Spatial constraints can be used to create richer memories and experiences.
• Merit is a concept associated with effort and success that is seen as morally justifiable in Western American culture.
• Clarifying feelings in a relationship is a source of pain and can be difficult to do.
• It is important to recognize that emotions are not always related to the current situation and can be part of a complex tissue of emotions and judgments.
• Goethe is the first person that comes to mind when thinking of the word "successful" due to his questioning of the concept of merit.
• Merit is problematic because it is not always chosen, and the categories and concepts used to determine merit are not always accurate.
• Goethe was a German poet, novelist, and scientist who wrote a novel at age 25, wrote some of the best sexual erotic poetry ever written, and wrote Faust, his greatest work.
• He was passionate and intuitive, and transcended the local context.
• He studied plants and humans and came up with a theory of evolution.
• He wrote a theory of color which is still an amazing source of knowledge for philosophers.
• He wrote aphorisms which had a fundamental perspective on life.
• Memory is important because it turns data into meaningful connections with the world.
• Ed Cooke is an extrovert who gets energy from interacting with people.
• He has a visceral reaction against being bored and hates doing things that bore him.
• He believes that intuition is a much more efficient process than rationality when it comes to making decisions.
• He believes that allowing rationality into decisionmaking can lead to overthinking and paralysis.
• He believes that making reversible decisions quickly can lead to a better life.
• He is still trying to figure out how to balance intuition and rationality.
• Ed Cooke and Tim Ferriss discuss the importance of selfdiscipline and externalizing rewards and punishments to motivate oneself.
• They discuss the concept of merit and how it is often associated with tangible outcomes such as getting a Harvard Law degree or being Bill Gates.
• They then move on to discuss San Francisco and how it is a fascinating city full of intellectually vibrant people, but also has a homeless problem.
• They compare San Francisco to New York City and how Giuliani and Bloomberg have done a great job of making Manhattan a pleasant place to walk.
• San Francisco has a wide range of opinions, making it difficult to address systemic issues.
• The entrepreneurial ecosystem is fluid and dynamic, with clear concepts and generosity.
• There is a stark contrast between the tech world and the homeless population.
• Tim Ferriss and Ed Cooke discuss the question of whether it is better to be selfish now and selfless later, or to give back now.
• They also discuss Bill Gates and the idea of power corrupting.
• Tim Ferriss asks Ed Cooke what financial security means to him.
• Starving is not a common occurrence in Western countries, although there are situations that can get close to it.
• Ed Cooke has a dream of creating a philosophical academy in Greece, where people can contemplate the meaning of life in luxury and sunshine.
• Aristotle's virtue system includes magnificence, which is the correct use of energy that is wealth to throw amazing festivals, build awesome buildings, and foster great artists.
• Burning Man is an ordeal to get to, but it strips away money, ambition, and obsession with what one is supposed to be doing.
• There is no agenda and the temporal horizon is long enough that it might as well be infinite.
• Interactions at Burning Man occur at four scales, including camps, and it is a place where people can be stripped of their normal tendencies and be creative.
• Take a group of 20 people on a hero narrative road trip to a distant location
• No phones, money, or motivation to talk about intentions
• Collaboratively come up with a way to make everyone else happy
• Enough time to not worry about it ending
• Rejoice in the fact that people are cool
• Participatory, not driven by concepts experience
• Burning Man is an example of a peak experience that can be recreated in different ways.
• Doug Aitken's "Station to Station" project is an example of a nomadic happening that recreated the Burning Man experience on a train.
• Ed Cooke suggests that people should take time to appreciate their insignificance in the world and to turn off their phones for one day a week.
• Tim Ferriss and Ed Cooke discuss the challenge of balancing present moment appreciation with the drive to build things.
• Bertrand Russell's essay "In Praise of Idleness" suggests that work should be done in moderation.
• Ed Cooke is a British writer and educator who discusses the concept of moving objects at or near the Earth's surface.
• He believes that making things twice as efficient and working the same amount is not the correct response.
• He recommends British comedy such as Monty Python and Alan Partridge as a gateway drug for Americans.
• His father was a coder and his mother was a teacher.
• He attended a school with precociously intellectual characters and their favorite film was "Withnail and I."
• Withnail and I is a British comedy film about two struggling actors in their late 20s on a road trip
• Ed Cooke recommends it as a gateway drug to British humor
• Ed Cooke has a favorite childhood memory of discussing visual perception with his dad
• He later encountered the theory of exteroception and the philosopher Maurice MerleauPonty
• Ed Cooke studied under Kevin O'Regan in Paris and learned about the tactile visual substitution device
• This device allowed the blind to see through touch
• Kevin O'Regan's theory is that the quality of experience is based on the pattern of movements and the expected consequences of those movements
• Ed Cooke discusses how our perceptual experience extends beyond the current input and is based on expectation.
• He did a PhD in philosophy of perception to consider the difference between color and smell.
• He proposed a thought experiment where someone sees in black and white, but when looking at a green object, they experience a particular smell, and when looking at a blue object, they experience a different smell.
• He believes that when we look at an object, we attribute to it all the emotions and sensations it evokes in us, and that these come from us, not the object.
• He has experimented with removing different types of sensory input, such as going a period of time without sight or hearing.
• He recommends going out in the rain with a blindfolded friend to experience the world through sound.
• Ed Cooke and Tim Ferriss discuss the potential of using technology to help blind people navigate the world.
• They reference an article about Daniel Kish, a blind man who taught himself to see through echolocation.
• Ed Cooke recommends Alan Watts' essay "The Joyous Cosmology" which examines the phenomenology of hallucination.
• Ed Cooke can be found on Twitter @TedCooke and his website memrise.com