Bette,
Please read the Wikipedia article on Rote Learning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning While there is criticism of the article based upon references, the material covers the subject very well. You do not memorize a Rote in Robert Monroe's sense by repeated going over the material and memorizing it. Instead it is presented directly to your non physical mind as a block of information which you memorize instantly as it enters your mind. It is not understood however by you until you work your way through it over a period of time. Just as you may memorize in the PMR conventional sense a block of information by the process of Rote Learning and may over time convert that block of information to something which you understand fully. The reference to a gestalt is to explain that there is an aspect to a Rote of being more than the sum of its parts. When you reach the point that you do in fact fully understand it, you have a greater understanding than of just the individual items of information. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
I say this having in my understanding received such a 'Rote' of information before, probably more than once, and only with time and multiple delvings into that source been able to gradually assimilate it all. That is why I created the Forum, Communication within Consciousness Space. Unfortunately no one was ever interested in taking up the discussion and understanding what Tom and I had been discussing that led me to starting the Forum. It is an important concept for understanding communication with NPMR entities and why they find it difficult to communicate with us in the limited and linear manner of PMR languages. They either provide you with a Rote or a gestalt of information encompassing a great deal of information in a massive and instantaneous dose or they are forced to deal with you on a yes/no communication basis because of your limitations and the limitations of PMR language. Communication could be much more powerful there if you could understand this. Do not force communication on a limited linear language model and you will likely be given a great deal more information but which you must work over time to delve down through the layers like peeling an onion in order to finally comprehend the whole. Modern humans are going even further in the opposite direction by 'tweets' and sound bites and making the assumption that this represents true communication and understanding, just because they have a word or two that they recognize but do not necessarily have the same definitions of the words in common between them. Our children are losing the ability to communicate with written language at a high level where effort is made to use common (to those communicating) definitions of words and use one's words precisely to exchange meanings clearly and accurately.
I encountered something analogous to this in my last year of college where I walked into a class in Kinematics and noted the telltale signs of a test about to begin. A test which I had not heard about and had made no preparations for. So rather than being able to just go into memory and pull out the required formulas, I had to quickly derive the solutions in the sense of working from principles, conservation of energy and momentum, vector force diagrams and such instead of just having the formula at my fingertips. I ended up receiving a score greater than 100% and a note to come see the professor. He talked me up to his friends among the professors and I ended up with an invitation to accept a full fellowship for graduate school through the Ph. D. level where another professor was moving to accept a full professorship. I understood the subject fully but not on the basis of Rote memorization in preparation for the test but rather having the Rote or gestalt of the understanding of the material in my mind, making it available to me when I needed it. This is what a Rote can do for you. It is an extremely powerful method of communication but very much contrary to our approach to communication here in PMR where there is so much, 'yeah man, I gotcha' while in actuality the supposed communicators are using different definitions of the same or similar words and communicating superficially or not at all. That is why video communication or verbal communication is taking the place of the written word. Imprecision and speed are replacing precision of meaning and a slower but more in depth communication. This is being done all the time here on these forums where it is not noticed that homonyms are substituted as in words that are spelled differently and have different meanings but sound the same or are spelled and sound the same but have different meanings. Clearly few use the spell checker function that is available on the BB system. Be careful that I don't put my cane tip down on your toe as I pass by.
Ted
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