Intelligence Amplification

A Man must get a thing before he can forget it. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Wisdom of Thomas Aquinas - Fresco by Andrea da Firenze

This fourteenth-century fresco is on the walls of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. It pictures the wisdom and virtue of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas is sitting on a throne, surrounded by flying figures representing the three theological virtues (Faith; steadfastness in belief, Hope; expectation of good and Love; selfless, unconditional, and voluntary loving-kindness) and four cardinal virtues (Prudentia=prudence; proper judgement of reasons for action with regard to appropriateness in a context, Justitia=justice; proper judgement regarding individual human interests, rights and desserts, Fortitudo = fortitude; forbearance, endurance, and ability to confront fear and uncertainty, or intimidation and Temperantia=temperance; practicing self-control, abstention, and moderation).

There is a lot to see in this picture on a theological level, but what is of interest now are the female figures sitting in niches symbolizing the knowledge of Thomas. The seven figures on the right represent the liberal arts, from right to left: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy. The first three are also known ast the “Trivium“, the other four as the “Quadrivium“.

Septem Artes Liberales by Herrad von Landsberg's "Hortus deliciarum" (1180)

The liberal arts are still the guide to education, aiming to acquire a general knowledge and developing intellectual capacities.However, the scope of our 21-century wikipedia is much bigger than Thomas’ Summa, so it is impossible to know everything about everything.

Google helps us to save all the available knowledge, yeah, but what is on a server @Google is not always accessible to my mind, so I still want to save, edit, recall as much information I can handle. Learning strategies may help us, so this is a round-up about some techniques I use to build up my brain:

• Basic study strategies: I made an outline of the book “Your memory. How it works and how to improve it.” by Kenneth Higbee. I used the Brain for representing the information, you’ll find it here (opens in a new window).
• Bloom’s Taxonomy:

• Mindmapping: I’ve written on this subject before, no reason to repeat myself. Only that the range of MindMaptools is stillexpanding: I prefer Freemind, but there are other applications: see my delicious bookmarks for a more extensive list. However, I have tried The Brain software recently, which offers a quite new perspective on MindMapping.
• The Student Academic Resource Centre of the University of Florida offers a lot of Learning Skill Handouts. Collect them all!
• Edward deBono’s CoRT: CoRT = Cognitive research Trust. You can find an outline of the principles at his website. But, again, The Brain put it all in perspective for me.
• Edward deBono’s Thinking Hats: Part of DeBono’s thinking Skills. I’ve adjusted them to my own habits, four example I only have a four-color pen, not six. So, when note-taking or -making, I use Blue for facts, Black for disadvantages, Green for what I like and Red for references, things I have to do or to evaluate someday/maybe. (it works good with my GTD habits)
• Finally There is the multiple intelligence principle of Howard Gardner, developed in 1983.
• Of course there are still four great “”Mental Filing” techniques. I will mention them here, but they require a lot of training:
• • The Link-system (or chain-system)
  • The Phonetic system
  • The Peg mnemonic system
  • The Memory Palace.

  The last system has been treated extensively by Frances Yates in “The Art of Memory”.

Well, as you can see, there is enough; you can make a study of study techniques without getting wiser:-).

I personally think there is not one style, but you need different techniques for different things you must learn. And, of course, the best way of learning is playing; doing things.

I will finish this blog with the lyrics of a song about the mnemonics of Giordano Bruno:

Vintersorg Ars Memorativa Lyrics:
THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF THE MIND.

You built all memories on a framework
of the zodiac and other known structures,
every thought was linked to a special picture.
You stigmatized their keenness and location
on a deep and shrouded level. Remembering, controling
was the way to higher knowledge.

In the nature you saw the outlines of an universal intelligence,
every process a reflecting mirror. Symbols meant to trigger
the shadow of the ideas in the maze of recollection.
A vortex of information reigned inside
and found its way,
THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF THE MIND.
With self-hypnosis you put it in
a dynamic pattern,
IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE MIND

No physical laws were rooted in your system
everything was forces of thoughts and sensations,
which is streaming through man.

Mist and rain just a condition of unawareness,
and volcanos a state of rage.

A prophet in cosmology, like Copernicus
you saw the stars as suns.
And a warrior who fought with intellctual swords,
with arrow-sharp words.

In the nature you saw the outlines of an universal intelligence,
every process a reflecting mirror. Symbols meant to trigger
the shadow of the ideas in the maze of recollection.
A vortex of information reigned inside
and found its way,
THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF THE MIND.
With self-hypnosis you put it in
a dynamic pattern,
IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE MIND

Getting Things Done and The Art of Procrastination

David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” has infected the Web, especially web 2.0. There are a lot of blogs on GTD, the most famous are probably Merlin Mann’s 43 folders, and Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits. The great LifeHacker website has some interesting articles on GTD and, more important, articles on other Life Hacks that make life worth living for a Geek.

I like GTD for it’s logic, it’s clarity, but a serious side effect is the discussion about operating systems (Windows or Mac) and software applications that help integrating GTD into your life. This, and the overkill of blogs with tips and tricks lead you necessarily reading so much about Getting Things Done, that you wind up with getting nothing done at all, or at least getting less done than you usually did before you read the book.

Last month LinuxFormat magazine had an article on GTD organization tools. I’ve tried them all, but the application that works for me wasn’t in the list: it is D3 TiddlyWiki (D3 means: Do, Delegate, Defer), which works perfectly well with Firefox from my USB drive.

In fact this is the only thing I use @computer: I do have a RememberTheMilk-account, with all the necessary add-ons in Thunderbird, Firefox and Gmail, but although I send every task to my RTM inbox, I forget to check it regularly.

I think there is nothing wrong with good old-fashioned pen and paper. So my HipsterPDA is the cheapest (€ 0,90) and smallest (10,2 x 6,3 cm) note-blocks you can buy in The Netherlands. I wear them in the pocket of my shirt. With a four color pen (€ 0,95) I write down my task:

Then I use the following codes:

• Red: Do the task asap.
• Blue: Do task today
• Green: Do task this week
• Black: This goes into my somewhere/maybe folder.

When the task is done I tear it out and throw the piece of paper in the trash bin.

A more high-tech capture tool I use is my Olympus Voice recorder – When cycling to my work (or back home after work) I simply record whatever comes to my mind (a tune, an idea for my blog, a task I may not forget, a present I have to buy) into my voice recorder.

Well, that’s all there is. Quite simple eh? Never a dull moment, but some time left to read a book, to study, to program, to compose or just to have fun; that’s after all the purpose of life.

Don’t live to geek, but geek to live (Gina Trapani)

What’s in a Name?

Or… what’s all this Kuehleborn-nonsense about? Why such a difficult name? Well, as explained before, there was a time when I called myself “giorgio”, the italian form of my daily-life name. That was in the olden days, but when signing up with hotmail for an account I noticed that I was not the only giorgio in the web anymore…hotmail suggested I should use the name giorgio238!

So I decided to chose a username that nobody else would use. I thought about it, and choose “kuehleborn”, simply because it is a character in one of my favourite opera’s (Undine) written by my favourite opera-composer (Albert Lortzing). But when I became more and more familiar with this name, I noticed that I began to identify myself with this character. So, in fact I *am* Kuehleborn.

Facebook’s application “Name Analyzer” brought me closer to this conclusion. When I typed it in, it gave me this analysis of my name:

Yeah, that’s me, and I’m proud of it

Music Theory Geek

A little fun from the Classical Archives website. Since I am a musician by profession and Major Geek I’ll quote it here unabridged. Of course I feel sorry for stealing someone else’s work, but consider it as a token of appreciation.

You Might be a Music Theory Geek if….

* Your favorite pickup line is, “What’s your favorite augmented sixth chord?”
* You can look at a piece by Bach and say, “You know, I think he could have gotten a much better effect this way . . .”
* You like to march around your room to the rhythms of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.”
* You love to quote Walter Piston.
* You long for the good old days of movable G-clefs.
* You like polytonal music because, hey, the more keys the merrier.
* You dream in four parts.
* You feel the need to end Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony with a picardy third.
* You can improvise 16th century counterpoint with no trouble, but you frequently forget how to tie your shoes.
* You lament the decline of serialism.
* You enjoy the tang of a tritone whenever you can.
* You like to deceive your friends and loved ones with deceptive cadences.
* You only drink fifths, and then you laugh at the pun.
* Instead of counting sheep, you count sequences.
* You only sing tunes that make good fugal subjects.
* You find free counterpoint too liberal.
* Moussorgsky’s “Hopak” gives you nightmares.
* You wonder what a “Danish Sixth” would sound like.
* The Corelli Clash gives you goosebumps.
* You can hear an enharmonic modulation coming a mile away.
* You have ever done a Schenkerian analysis on “Three Blind Mice.”
* You have ever tried to do a Schenkerian analysis on John Cage’s “4′33″.
* You have hosted a “Gurrelieder” party.
* You have ever pondered what an augmented seventh chord would sound like.
* Bass motion by ascending thirds or a sequential pattern with roots in ascending fifths immediately strikes you as “belabored.”
* You know what the ninth overtone of the harmonic series is off the top of your head.
* You can name ten of Palestrina’s contemporaries.
* You can answer your phone with a tonal or a real answer.
* You have ever heard a wrong note in a performance of a piece by Berio, Stockhausen, or Boulez.
* You suspiciously check all the music you hear for dangling sevenths.
* When you’re feeling particularly prankish, you transpose Mozart arias to locrian mode.
* You keep a notebook of useful diminutions.
* Those “parasitic” dissonances make you queasy, especially when left unresolved.
* You have composed variations on a theme by Anton Webern.
* You know the difference between a Courante and a Corrente.
* You have trained your dog to jump through a flaming circle of fifths.
* You have ever used the word “fortspinnung” in polite conversation.
* You feel cheated by evaded cadences.
* You have a poster of Allen Forte in your room.
* You know who Allen Forte is.
* Every now and then you like to kick back and play something in hypophrygian mode.
* You wonder why there aren’t more types of seventh chords.
* You wish you had twelve fingers.
* You abbreviate your shopping list using figured bass.
* You always make sure to invert your counterpoint, just in case.
* You have ever told a joke that had this punchline: “because it was POLYPHONIC!”
* You know dirty acronyms for the order of sharps.
* You consider all music written between 1750 and 1920 to be “rather elementary.”
* You memorize dates and times by what they would sound like in set theory.
* You can not only identify any one of Bach’s 371 Harmonized Chorales by ear, but you also know on what page it appears in the Riemenschneider edition and how many suspensions it has in the first seven bars.
* You got more than half of the jokes in this list.