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In the thread down below memory palaces are discussed, but I wonder whether there any benefits to mastering mnemonics apart from getting good at memorizing vocabulary, learning trivia, and mastering some tricks like memorizing thousands of digits of pi, or decks of cards?
Most of mnemonic techniques use "encoding" — you associate whatever you want to memorize with an image, or a place. Some knowledge is easily encoded this way: kanjis, for example, can be split into "primitives", those "primitives" can be associated with images, and a story can be constructed around those images. For example, a kanji for "tea" (茶) can be split into "grass" (艹), "an umbrella" (个), and "a tree" (木). The same with the reading — it is phonetically (and in this case, etymologically) similar to "cha" — "tea" in multiple Slavic languages. But even if you don't know Slavic languages, you can associate it with a "chalice" (imagine drinking tea from a chalice), or any other word with "cha" syllable in it.
The same with lists (of presidents, or historical events, or bones in your body) — you construct a dictionary (key:value pair) of sorts, then link it through a story. There are alternative methods — like using acronyms (e.g. HOMES for Great Lakes — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior), but they still use a hook of some sort.
Also digits — you can associate each one (or even a double-digit number) with an object, and then build a story with those objects. Cards. Names.
Less pliable are mathematical formulas, proofs, formulas of chemical compounds, programming syntax, general concepts and definitions. Sure, you can use the methods mentioned above for it — but it looks unnatural and just not practical; just look at some suggestions here
https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/memorising-maths-formulas/27834/14
At some point you might start thinking whether it'd be worth to construct an intricate series of associations for a single formula, or just to spend 10 minutes over several months using Anki, or even — gasp! solving problems — though, to be honest, I couldn't even memorize the formula for the square or the cube of a binomial back in school despite using it a thousand times, I had to derive it every time. And many would criticize such methods for substituting understanding for rot memorization.
Of course, mathematics, chemistry, programming — all of them already deal with more or less structured information. Knowing that a carbon atom might form only 4 bonds in an organic compound is already sort of a mnemonic. Or the names for standard methods in programming — it's "insert()" and "pop()", not "sldhslfjgfoophs()" and "fhsjhdyfty()". Do you really need tricks to supplement those in-built mnemonics?
Besides, is any of it really relevant in the modern world (apart from learning languages, and maybe some trivia)? In the age of GitHub Copilot and Wikipedia? Sure, you need to memorize the core concepts, but it can be done in sufficient time through the regular studying, practice and spaced repetition. After that, one might think, the memorization brings only diminishing returns. Are successful people in their fields — do they use mnemonics and make a significant effort to memorize things (apart from doctors and lawyers preparing for their exams)?
What are your thoughts?
It's worth keeping in your mental toolbox because it allows you to restructure information into something more human-readable. This makes it easier to work with for overall knowledge management.
As you've noted, this is most critical for memorization tasks. You'll get the biggest band from your spaced-repetition buck if you're integrating mnemonics into good card design. For example, I'll never have to worry about mixing up the layers of the OSI model because I know to ask people Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away.
And if the fate of the world ever depends on reciting trig ratios I can repel the alien hordes by telling them Oscar Had Another Hit Of Acid.
Outside of exams and party-trick scenarios, there's still value to keeping strictly-curated local cache:
Memorizing your ID numbers and emergency contacts saves you a ton of grief if your hand-brain is ever lost/stolen/broken.
Memorizing work-related references lets you focus deeper and expands your ability at back-of-the-envelope evaluations.
Having bigger pool of disparate ideas to-hand expands the capacity of your unconscious to generate creative insights.
A general knowledge of mnemonic techniques is still useful for information that you don't intend to memorize, such as whatever is going into your note-taking system. Useful notes are, after all, not just a copy of raw information but a record of your understanding for later reference.
So we break things into chunks, turn sets into enumerations, drill down to atomized concepts, find and codify arbitrary connections to what we already know. Everything distilled to down to be maximally useful and readable by Future-You. As a bonus, if turns out this information would be worth memorizing, everything has been pre-encoded and we just need to plug it into our spaced-repetition system for retrieval practice.
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