Spaced Repetition Systems
Spaced Repetition Systems are a category of Readwise/Books/Tools for Thought.
Notable Spaced Repetition Systems
- Anki
- Orbit - Andy Matuschak's experimental SRS.
Example of a Cloze Deletion
Spaced Repetition Systems use an {exponential backoff} to schedule when I should be tested.
Q: Spaced Repetition Systems use an __ to schedule when I should be tested.
A: exponential backoff
Spaced Repetition and Epistemology
Spaced repetition works at a purely intellectual level, but it must be more akin to praying or calling a friend - it's an act of intimacy with the knowledge. My children practice enormous amounts of repetition and therefore memorization with Pokemon, Minecraft, Legos, and the many things that they love.
Spaced repetition is like putting your fingers on the pattern of knowledge - it's touching the tapestry, running your hands along the grain of it, feeling it's warp and woof. It's not rote or mechanical, but contemplative, an attending and seeing that brings forth not merely the facts but
Why does visualizing the basketball going into the hoop, seeing your body making the shot, make the shot go in more often? Why does visualizing our own failure deform us and make us more likely to fail? We aren't controlling the future - rather, we are attending to specific things, habits, forms, that shape and conform our body and cause our body to do the right or wrong thing.