Tony Buzan (born 1942) is the originator of mind mapping and coined the term mental literacy. He was born in London and received double Honours in psychology, English, mathematics and the General Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 1964. He is probably best known for his book, Use Your Head, his promotion of mnemonic systems and his mind-mapping techniques.
The Mind Map Book, Buzan and Buzan (1991)
- Did you know that you use less than 1% of your brain? The good news is that mind mapping can help you to access the other 99%!
- The mind map will change your life.
- The world is historically mentally illiterate.
- Even traditionally well educated and literate individuals are significantly restricted by the fact that they are able to use only a fraction of the biological and conceptual thinking tools which are available (the mind map)
- Normal linear note taking and writing will put you into a semi-hypnotic trance, while mind mapping will greatly enhance your left and right brain cognitive skills.
- As knowledge of the alphabet and its permutations and combinations is to traditional literacy, and as a knowledge of numbers and their permutations and combinations is to mathematics, so a knowledge of the biological and conceptual alphabets of the brain and its apparently infinite permutations and combinations is to mental literacy.
- The human brain has left and right brain symmetry with its own nature and can process information which initially appears to have no pattern or order. However, the brain has the ability to process visual information much more efficiently.
- The old linear pattern of thinking by reading and describing from left to right, top to bottom has many problems in organizing information coming from eyes, ears, etc. For example, the ability to read and understand the context of a book is different from memorizing them simply as sentences.
- During the renaissances in thinking led by Shakespeare and Goethe, the first new development in memory techniques for 1,700 years appeared: the Major System. This was the first system that enabled the user to transfer easily and instantaneously from numbers to letters, thus creating the opportunity for a system that could stretch from zero to an infinite number, and which allowed the user to translate any word into its own special number, and any number into its own special letter. This multiplied the opportunity for developing memory techniques 100-fold.