When memory athletes look at the above they often call it a binary number, even if they don't know how to count a binary number. 01=1, 10=2, 11=3, 100=4, 101=5, etc. Knowing a number is knowing its value and how this value is contained in the form of the number.
1001= 9, but memory athletes tend to memorize, or to prefer to view the binary number as a 100 followed by a one, or 4 and a decimal 1, instead of a 9. So, you have the option to memorize a binary number by its value, or by its form. If you use the form method, then you simply don't know the number you are memorizing as you don't know its value. But the time it takes to get to know the number, to evaluate it, is time spent without memorizing its shape. And if the objective is to memorize quickly the shape of the number and not to have in mind its value or worth, then can you truly say you are memorizing a binary number?
I think you can't say that. I think you can't claim to have memorized something you haven't seen.
Often, top memorizers will see the shape of a series of binary digits and see a letter in them, 100 will become a b, 001 a d and 010 a g sideways, etc. And so, what it is that effective memory athletes memorizes isn't a binary number at all but only a series of letters.
So the memory athletes isn't focused on the job at hand of memorizing a binary number; he/she memorizes weird shaped letters that can be made to resemble certain specific 3 digit groups of binary numers.
What becomes evident here is that top memory athletes memorize the shape of the things they are supposed to memorize and not what it is that is represented by the form. This is especially true when what the form stands for is an abstract concept such as a count, or number.
The actual things which memory athletes memorize are the mental images that the letter conjure up in their minds.
What's my point here? It's pretty clear that memory athletes are memorizing forms of numbers and so my question is, why isn't that being made clear by calling the memory disciplines of binary numbers the discipline of binary number forms?
There are other questions raised here. If you not even try to find what it is that you memorize but only what it looks to you because this is more memorable, are you becoming poorer in the sense that you are either missing out completely on the reality of what the number actually is and you are apparently deceiving yourself into thinking that you have found a clever way to memorize a binary number when you don't even know its value and when in fact all you have done is to memorize its shape?
Interestingly, I find that similarly, history can have only a shape once it is past, but when history is being made it is actually possible to know it for what it is. That's just a side thought though, looking into the nature of human understanding of history.
This was just a compelling case to change the memory disciplines named "binary numbers" to "binary forms."
But even this suggestion isn't accurate as we have seen how memory athletes don't even see these binary forms; they see letters that conjure up words that conjure up live images which memory athletes are very familiar with.
So where does that leave us? Maybe, that will be the topic of my next post.