The Round World

latent memory, but it doesn’t go away, and that is a good thing. You don’t want potentially useful references to get lost with it. It does not take up any active space in the present.

This is why you can remember how to say frog in French, even though you haven’t used that language in sixty years, or how to solve a geometry problem even if you were always terrible at math, just because you remember word for word the way the teacher did it.

Don’t underestimate the usefulness of memorization.

Not everything can be deduced or rediscovered every single time you need it. We would get nothing done. Algorithms, chemical formulas and, yes, layers, are shortcuts for your mind.

Wouldn’t that clutter your thought with things that have no immediate usefulness?

When your mind is cluttered with a lot more information than you need to perform your immediate tasks we call that being an educated person.

Do waste mental space on knowledge!

No, layers are not the only way you can structure your understanding of life, there are other strategies, like using cycles or folds.

We will talk about cycles tomorrow, and it will be another long lecture.

Can you please make sure there is enough ink before we start? The well is almost dry.