怎樣成爲像福爾摩斯一樣思考的人(上)

If you'd told Alex Mullen a few years ago that he was capable of memorising a whole pack of cards in 21.5 seconds, he would have said you were being ridiculous. His memory wasn't anything special - "below average" even. Fast-forward to today and Mullen, a medical student at the University of Mississippi, has just been crowned the World Memory Champion.

如果在幾年前，你告訴阿歷克斯·馬倫（Alex Mullen），他能在短短 21.5 秒時間內記住一整副撲克牌，他會以爲你的想法很可笑。他的記憶力沒什麼特別的，甚至還"低於平均水平"。時間來到今天，已經成爲美國密西西比大學的一名醫科生的馬倫已然榮登世界記憶力錦標賽冠軍的寶座。

Mullen told me about a book he'd read called Moonwalking with Einstein. The book was written byJoshua Foer, a journalist who attended a US memory championship to write about what he thought would be "the Super Bowl of savants". Instead, he found a group of people who had trained their memory using ancient techniques. Foer started practicing the techniques himself, and went on to win the competition the following year.

馬倫告訴我，他此前讀過一本書，名爲《與愛因斯坦月球漫步》（Moonwalking with Einstein）。這本書的作者是記者喬舒亞·福爾（Joshua Foer），他參加過一次美國記憶力錦標賽，書中描述了他所認爲的"超級記憶專家"。他發現一些人會利用古老的記憶術訓練自己的記憶力。於是，福爾也開始用這些記憶術進行自我培訓，在隨後一年的記憶力錦標賽上，他一舉奪得冠軍。

Mullen was spurred on to improve his own memory by Foer's story. "I definitely didn't have a great natural memory," he said, "but in 2013 I started training using the techniques that Foer had talked about." A year later, Mullen came second in the US memory championship. "It was really motivating, I kept practicing and eventually ended up at the 2015 world memory championship."

受到福爾經歷的啓發，馬倫決定也要改善自己的記憶力。他說，"我天生的記憶力肯定不怎麼樣，但 2013 年，我開始利用福爾所說的記憶術開始訓練"。一年後，馬倫就在美國記憶力錦標賽上榮獲亞軍。"我深受激勵，於是堅持訓練，最終在 2015 年世界記憶力錦標賽上贏得冠軍。"

The championship took place in December in Guangzhou, China. It consists of 10 rounds of mental challenges, which include memorising as many numbers as you can in an hour, remembering as many faces and names as you can in 15 minutes, or committing to memory hundreds of binary digits. The final event is always the speed card round, where competitors memorise a single pack of cards as fast as possible.

錦標賽於 12 月份在中國廣州舉行。比賽分 10 輪記憶力挑戰，其中包括：在一小時內儘可能記住最多的數字；在 15 分鐘內儘可能記住最多的面孔和名字；或者要記住成百上千的二進制數字。最後的環節總是要比賽記憶撲克牌：參賽者要儘快記住一副撲克牌。

Mullen was in second place when they began the final task. He looked at the cards for 21.5 seconds - just one second faster than Yan Yang, the competition leader. It was enough to push Mullen into first place, winning the championship.

在最後的比賽環節，馬倫還暫居第二位。他用 21.5 秒時間觀察撲克牌，這個時間只比領先的 Yan Yang 短了 2 秒鐘，但這已足以將馬倫送上比賽的冠軍寶座。

Mullen now holds the world record for remembering as many numbers as possible in one hour - 3,029. "A few years ago, I would have thought that was impossible," he says. He also holds a half-dozen US records, which include him memorising 3,888 binary digits in 30 minutes.

馬倫現在保持着在一小時內記住最多數字的世界記錄：3,029 個數字。他表示："要是在幾年前，我會認爲這根本就不可能"。他還保持着半打美國記錄，其中包括，在 30 秒內記住 3,888 個二進制數字。

Enter your mind palace

進入記憶宮殿

If you're unable to remember a grocery list, let alone thousands of ones and zeros, these feats of memory may seem somewhat unattainable. But according to Mullen, anyone can do it. "You just have to create a mind palace," he says.

如果你連購物清單也記不住，那就更別說成千上萬個數字了，這種驚人的記憶力簡直是不可企及的事情。但據馬倫說，任何人都能做得到。他表示："你必須要建立一個記憶宮殿"。

For those of you who aren't familiar with Sherlock Holmes, a mind palace is an image in your mind's eye of a physical location that you know well. Perhaps it's your house or your route to work. To remember many items, be it cards or groceries, you just walk through your mind palace and drop off an image of each item at specific places along the route.

對熟悉神探夏洛克·福爾摩斯的人而言，記憶宮殿就是腦海中自己所熟悉的實際位置所組成的畫面。它也許是你的家，也許是你上班的路線。爲記住很多東西，無論是撲克牌還是生活用品，你只要在腦海中走一遍，把各種東西的影像放在特定的位置就好了。

You just walk through your mind palace and drop off images at specific places along the route

你只要在腦海中走一遍，把各種東西的影像放在特定的位置就好了。

The technique is attributed to a Greek poet called Simonides of Ceos, who lived in 477 BC. legend has it that Simonides was at a dinner party held by a rich and mean nobleman. Halfway through the banquet he was called outside to meet a messenger. As he stepped through the door, the roof over the banquet caved in, killing everyone inside. As friends and relatives sorted through the remains of their loved ones, crushed beyond recognition, Simonides thought back to where he had been sitting. Suddenly, he could picture speaking to the guest opposite him, another was sitting to his left, a third was at the head of the table; he realised he could identify the bodies by remembering the exact order in which everyone had been sat. This event was said to have led him to discover that the best way of remembering a group of objects or facts is to attach images to a specific and orderly location.

這種記憶術還要歸功於生活在公元前 477 年的希臘詩人西蒙尼德斯。據傳說，西蒙尼德斯曾參加一個富有而吝嗇的貴族所舉辦的晚宴。宴會進行中，他被叫到外面去見一名信使。在他出門時，宴會廳屋頂突然坍塌，宴會廳裏的客人無一倖存。親朋好友紛紛前來尋找親人遺體，但都已面目全非，於是，西蒙尼德斯設法回憶坐在宴會桌旁的人。突然，他想起自己和宴會桌上坐在對面的人說話的情景，另一個人坐在自己左側，第三個人坐在宴會桌最前面；他意識到，自己能按回憶起來的準確座位順序，幫助辨認客人的遺體。據說，這件事讓西蒙尼德斯發現，記住一系列對象或事實的最好記憶方法是，將影像與按特定順序排列的位置聯繫起來。

When I see the seven of diamonds and the five of spades I think of Michael Jordan

看到撲克牌方片 7 和黑桃 5 時，我想到的是 NBA 的邁克爾·喬丹（Michael Jordan）

Centuries later, Eleanor Maguire at University College London and her colleagues scanned the brains of 10 people who had placed at the highest levels of the world memory championship. She hoped to identify whether they had any structural brain differences that predisposed them to having such an extraordinary memory. The tests could not establish any difference in intellect, nor any structural changes in their brains. The only difference appeared to be in the preferential use of three areas involved in navigation. The super-memorisers were better at remembering purely because they were walking around their mind palaces.

幾百年後，英國倫敦大學學院的埃莉諾·馬奎爾 （Eleanor Maguire）和同事掃描了 10 個人的大腦，他們都曾在世界記憶力錦標賽上名列前茅。她希望能發現讓他們具有非凡記憶力的異於常人的特殊大腦結構。但試驗既未發現任何智力差別，也未發現他們的大腦有什麼特殊結構。惟一的區別似乎是，這些人會優先使用大腦中與導航相關的三個區域。有超凡記憶力的人擅長記住東西，完全是因爲他們會在自己的記憶宮殿中四處走動。