Notes based off the following post Long term memory
Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
Thought 1
For creative work and for problem-solving there is something special about having an internalized understanding. It enables speed in associative thought, an ability to rapidly try out many combinations of ideas, and to intuit patterns, in ways not possible if you need to keep laboriously looking up information.
Fluency matters in thinking. Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg have proposed** Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, Personal Dynamic Media (1977). the thought experiment of a flute in which there is “a one-second delay between blowing a note and hearing it!” As they observe, this is “absurd”. In a similar way, certain types of thoughts are much easier to have when all the relevant kinds of understanding are held in mind. And for that, Anki is invaluable
Thought 2
There is a famous story in physics, told by Richard Feynman, dismissing the value of knowing the names of things. As a child, Feynman was out playing in a field with a know-it-all kid. Here’s what happened, in Feynman’s telling** Richard P. Feynman, “What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character” (1989).:
One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?”
I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.”
He says, “It’a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!”
But it was the opposite. He [Feynman’s father] had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida… You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird! You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts.” (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.)