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Harry Floyd’s essay The Things You Used to Know by Heart argues that information stored in memory and information available to look up are not quite interchangeable. Its point is not that everyone should memorize more, but that knowledge already in mind can influence what a person notices and wonders about before they think to search.
What is “The Things You Used to Know by Heart”?
It is an essay by Harry Floyd, published on DEV Community on September 30, 2026. The listing says it was originally published on Floyd’s Substack and places it in a short series called “The Quiet Part,” about living alongside AI. The piece is a reflection on relying on AI to remember, not a product review or a report of a scientific experiment. DEV Community
What distinction does Floyd make?
Knowledge carried in memory
Something remembered is available to the mind without first formulating a query. Floyd’s argument is that this kind of knowledge can accompany a person as they encounter a situation, shaping what stands out and which connections occur to them.
Information that is findable
A fact saved on a phone or retrievable through a machine may still be accessible, even if it is not readily recalled. But retrieval requires a person to recognize that the information might matter and ask for it. In Floyd’s framing, this creates a difference between having information available and having it present in thought.
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How does the grandmother example illustrate the idea?
Floyd imagines someone remembering that their grandmother salted food heavily and that she grew up with little. Later, while cooking, those two memories might meet and prompt a question: did her seasoning reflect an earlier experience of scarcity?
The example does not establish the grandmother’s motive, and Floyd says the person may never know whether the inference is correct. Its purpose is to show how remembered context might generate a question without an explicit search. It is an illustration, not evidence that memory or AI use produces a measured cognitive effect.
Does Floyd say people should memorize everything?
No. Floyd allows that many things are appropriately looked up. His concern is narrower: some knowledge may matter because it can enter a person’s thinking and help shape their attention before they know to retrieve it. The essay asks what demonstrates a person’s capacity to think when understanding can be borrowed so easily; it does not offer a rule for deciding exactly which facts to memorize.
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No. The available text names no study, statistic, or quantified finding supporting a causal claim about AI and memory. Floyd’s distinction and examples are an argument for readers to consider, not an experimentally established result or scientific consensus. The DEV listing identifies him as the author but does not state a separate professional role.
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- Book/CD Pack
- Pages: 24
- Instrumentation: Piano/Keyboard
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