Discussion on:

The brain, the smartest and most amazing thing of all

And to think, as it has often been said, we use so little of our
brain's potential.

Yep, somehow you zeroed out the table containing the pointer to Leatherman, Location, Current.

Adn you couldn't rebuild that file from the usual associated tables, nor from your reinput of all possible leatherman locations.

You were only able to retrieve the location pointer when you were cycling and part of your brain was doing reassociation maintenance, and found a pointer in another, unused table that had a matching name to the "leatherman" entry in your "things I need to recall but can't" table.

Congratulations on your data recovery.

And aren't you glad you didn;t rush right out and buy a new leatherman?

I an very glad I did not buy another Leatherman! Good explanation about the pointers....JD

Years ago, I was trying to learn to crochet from a book. Not the craftiest match in the box, I just couldn't seem to get the flow of it. However, I persisted as I wanted to make a gift for someone with my own two hands. I gave up in the wee hours, long after my usual limit of patience. On waking in the morning, it was all quite clear, and I had a nice scarf nearly complete by afternoon. I think there is something about "trying too hard" that can set up an obstacle course in the brain. Taking off the pressure by sleeping, exercising...engaging in another type of activity where you aren't focused on (whatever) clears up the fuzzed path.

I don't know how many times I've been puzzling over why some bit of code wasn't working at the end of the day, but is obvious when I come in the next morning. And I am NOT consciously thinking about it in the meantime. I'm pretty good about flipping that Home/Work switch in my brain.

Now that I have become 81 this memory thing is getting worse when I want to do something like working in my yard I must put varous tools in sight to remind me that has to be done next or it never gets done. I have put down a tool and could never find it until sometime in the future like next year it comes to mind.
I am a story writer of true events but now names fly out the window just as I was about to use.

The moments like this one seem to have access to something else at times. If the brain had access to the 4th D ? it sure would solve some questions of ?how come this action happens??.

Check out some of the 4th dimension videos on Youtube ? they are very accurate.

fredsc,

I will have to remember your method for placing tools in yard work. I'm sure i will be needing something like that. I've known some folks who religiously carry a small notepad and pen in their shirt pocket to write things down.

Donald.Nagy,

I watched Carl Sagan Youtube video on the Fourth Dimension...pretty interesting although I am not sure I fully understood it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0

High school sophomore year, geometry class. I hit a solid brick wall with proofs. Spent weeks with axioms and theorems whirling through my head, but simply could not put it all together in the step-by-step logic required.

Then one day, sitting in class morosely watching a friend whiz through a complicated proof on the overhead, I GOT IT! In an instant, it all fell into place. It was, literally, a physical sensation. I sat straight up in my chair, and I wish I had a picture of the look that must have been on my face.

Apparently, there are times when you just can't rush your brain.

mmoran,

Cool and wonderful story. That's basic learning although it's hard to figure out how it all comes together like that. A Eureka moment for sure!

I have had numerous moments of ?inspiration?. One was in 1972 when I could not solve a programming problem. Yet on the bus home the solution quietly slipped into my mind. Another time I awoke with an idea and much of the script for a ?skit? which I wrote for our young people to present at our church?s Christmas Eve carols service. Today I resort to the little notepad (or pieces of paper!) I often forget a name straight after someone is introduced to me. Yet the moments of inspiration keep coming. Scientists are only beginning to understand this wonderful organ which our Creator made.

I'm convinced that our brains truly work on a quantum level. There
is just no way a simple series of circuits could make the jumps and
leaps that we often find ourselves making. Deja Vu seems to most
easily illustrate it - as I will swear on all that's holy that I
have had dreams and instances where I have imagined a certain
circumstance happen and months and sometimes years later - pow - it
hits me - I remember this! I had a dream or imagined this very
thing happening before - very freaky - to put it in scientific
vernacular. It has happened so many times to me - this sense of
Deja Vu and the accompanying realization that it was actually
revealed to me previously in a dream, that I don't even think about
it much any more. Besides, no one believes me when I do tell them.
If, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so what is
the man with a third eye?

I am 81 I can't stay awake reading manuals or instructions like I need lots of sleep but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a subject of inspiration to write about a true event climb out of bed get on the computer and start writing suddenly its light outside and can't stop till my story is completed where the energy came from is a wonder of mind.

Fresc,

Nice story and wonderful that you have such great moments of inspiration!

JD

I had exactly the same experience as JD but it wasn't a pocketknife, it
was ?760 cash.

John Dodge,
The Carl Sagan video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0
is a good explanation.
Scientific American (SA) has a story that describes what happens when you do go into the 4D.
From SA ? to go between 3D to 2D ? you project a 3D object onto a 2D surface. To go from 2D to 1D you do the same thing. I understand that the 4D to 3D is a projection. In other words - we are the 3D shadow of 4D.

Often when I am sitting at my desk, stumped by a SQL coding problem or how I should structure a report or a response to an email, I'll simply get up and head for the men's room. I've solved many a problem there!

Steve_jonesuk,

Did you find the money?

Chilliguy,

Ah, yes, the Stinkatorium, er, I mean the Thinkatorium!

The brain could be considered to be the most advanced computer on the planet. It is incredibly power efficent, bio-degradable, and we all get one for free! The brain is in constant use, even when you're sleeping. It can hold a lifetime's worth of information (talk about storage capacity!). And the biggest selling point, is that it can think creatively and rewrite it's own code!

But, in the end, it's greatest flaw, is that is is still human. And as we all know, humans aren't perfect.

There was a lot of thought about brain function in the 1960s and 1970s and one conclusion is that the memory architecture in the brain is a push and pull stack about seven items deep. When the eighth item was added, the first would drop off the stack. Now that i am getting on a bit (75, but don't tell my friends!) I reckon my stack has shrunk to about four levels. There is another phenomenon which may be related. I will start a sentence, then half way thrugh an important word will simply disappear from my memory, usually because it has been overlaid by another word, which I simply cannot get rid of. Five minutes later, the right word will float into my memory - too late to be used, of course. Now, when this happens, I try and totally empty my mind and this usually accelerates the recovery process. I now think that the brain, left to itself, indulges in a garbage collection process (in the computer sense - not local government) and that with appropriate training, we can put such features to active use.

Jimw,

Garbage collection certainly sounds plausible...but how do you "empty" your mind?

Mr. Dodge, Unless you are selling your bicycle, you don't peddle it. If you are pushing the pedals to make the bicycle move, you are pedaling the bicycle.

Since everybody's talking about brain/memory and mentioning age, I'm at the edge of my 20. It's been more than 5 years ago I realized this feature of our brain which is the harder we're trying to remember something, the harder it comes to mind, so, whenever I'm at lost of memory I just let it be and don't think about it at all (practice makes perfect, ya know). In this manner I usually at lost for only about an hour or less (and, yes, beside the fact that I'm still young). One more thing that I also realized at that time was like what fredsc@... said, utilizing the energy of motivation/inspiration for any project needed to be done ASAP. I know that training our thinking pattern to be as I've said is not easy, but it's attainable as long as we put our mind/heart for it. Hopefully this is useful for anyone.

John3347,

Good point but I could have lied and said I was selling my bike...fixed

I'm more than a decade older than you and I have come to lament the
fact that I just can't swap out the hard drive for a new one and start
all over. My RAM still functions fairly well but when you jest that
you have forgotten more than a newbie knows....well, in my case that's
painfully true.

There is the idea of a mental operating system for each individual. I know a professor who has taught people on this very subject, his name is Rock Oakeson and he lives in Salt Lake city area. He studied how their are basically three types of Mental operating system, Single Visual, Multi Visual, and Non-Visual. Anyway, you are obviously Multi-Visual like I am, where you have done follow steps easily, where you have to instanlty understand the big picture and fill it in gradually. Where as a single visual looks for the next step, you and I most like look for the next leap.

You can probably contact him at www.neumont.edu where he has worked for some time. But he is one of many different ideas surrounding this... You should let him hypnotise you with the "Tree" visualization.

Marc N.

It is just a marvelous bridge, a path. The place where The thing comes
rely on the Other.

It has been said that if we could ever find the place where all unmatched socks' missing mates could be found, we could determine if there was enough matter in the universe to cause it to eventually collapse upon itself.

I suppose the same could be said for everything else we lose.

I have a digital voice recorde slung around my neck. It's much handier than peencil and paper.

Guillaume

I'll go you one better! I've taught my self to always put my leatherman, (a Wave), back in its belt sheath just as soon as I have finished using it for a task or even just a part of the whole task. I have found that the few seconds spent putting it away then hauling it out again were more thrn offset by the minuites or even hours I spent looking for it when I didn't put it away. I've recently begun applying this practice to all of the other tools and items I use on a daily basis.

Now if I can just find a safe and easy to find place to keep clever ideas and witty comebacks that I think of in the middle of doing something else, so that I can find them and use them just when I need them. I am also 60 and 40/20ish in my mind. Buck of El Cajon, CA

John,
Your initial effort to remember where you left your knife activated
a number of neural circuits that are associated with your knife.
Examples would be memories of what your knife looks like, what it
feels like, what it is used for, etc. Those circuits remained at a
higher-than-normal level of activation after you mentally "moved
on"--your "daydreaming" period. While you had been trying hard to
remember, there were probably some other active neural circuits that
were interfering with (think "overpowering" or inhibiting) the
memory of your last use of the knife. When you were "daydreaming,"
those interfering circuits probably became deactivated allowing your
memory of cutting edging on the table to be brought forth by the
associated memories (circuits) that had remained active. Eventually,
all these knife-related memories "energized" each other enough to
bring them to consciousness: "aha," now you remembered your last use
of the knife.

Or something like that.
Kelly Carter

Go ahead and buy another Leatherman, or something like a Swiss Army Knife. Redundancy is relatively inexpensive compared to spending time searching all over the house, until your brain finally remembers where you put your knife.

At 60 you are worried about misplacing your knife? Hell, I'm 91 and when I can no longer memorize and then retain the many, many classical guitar flute accompaniments and solo arrangements any more, I'll chuck the guitar in the fireplace and then start worrying. Frank

When I was 7 years old (I am 53 now), our civics teacher introduced us
to 'memory'. I decided on an 'experiment' to remember two things,one
real life and one a dream i had, and see if I could remember the events
for life. Well, I still remember them today like it happened yesterday.

I heard recently about a study on the 'moment of insight' and how it happens most often in the shower -- free your brain from the stress and it works best I guess....

Is it the daydreaming which restored your memory, the bike riding (aerobics) or your diet which includes Omega3; which one helped?

amasys

>>>Is it the daydreaming which restored your memory, the bike riding (aerobics) or your diet which includes Omega3; which one helped?

It certainly isn't my diet! I'm betting aerobics.

Buck-of-El-Cajon - 99.9 per cent of the time I put the Wave back into the sheath. I violated my own rule this time. But I've lost the whole thing on several occasions too. Want to get out to El Cajon for some train watching!

One day my mom was running late for work. She always brings an extra pair of socks because she plays volley ball after work. As I watched tv, I noticed she was rushing around through out the house. Each time she passed I noticed she was annoyed. I asked her if she was ok. She couldn't find her socks she just had a minute ago, and she's late for work. As usual I got up to help her look for them. As she passed me I told her, 'mom, they're in your hand!'. She replied, 'no this is my extra pair.'. I noticed she was completely dressed for work. So I asked if she was looking for the ones she was wearing. She stopped, looked at her feet and said 'There they are!! I forgot I put my shoes on.' and started another hunt, mumbling 'now where did I put my glasses!'. I reminded her that it was on her head. She went laughing out the door. It was hysterical!

Books on creativity note this happens frequently. First you have to
immerse in the subject, read the books and journals, try a few
experiments, and then you let it all cook. Out pops the answer -- whether
it's a "vision", or seeing some real things that associate in a new way, or
coming up with a certain phrasing.

Study study study. Work work work. Relax/divert/recreate. Poof!

The last significant one I recall had to do with some complicated parameter
passing that didn't seem to be working as advertised. I had a dream of
one of those bank drawers where the teller pushes it to you and it opens,
you put your papers in and he pulls it back, the door closes on your side
and opens on his side. By adding another layer of indirection (and the
reverse on the other side), everything worked as desired.

To John Dodge I am back again to say how I try and keep my brain active. I am true story writer of true events in my life.
When I was goung around 8 years I was a day dreamer of better things to do in instead of the drag of school.
My ccomputer is full of my stories when I write about them it brings back many events I have forgotten many of them are like they happened just yesterday. I have written so much about what I have seen and done in my life of 81 keeps me young looking as many say you don't look that old at all.
Makes a fellow feel good to hear that

Our brain is greatest thing in this world but nobody believe it, believe them-self so it just a normal thing it's house.
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Self improvement articles

I was recently in Utah at the doTERRA essential oil convention and one of the doctors was speaking about the power of aromatherapy. His studies suggest that just smelling lavender and/or other specific scents triggers serotonin production in the brain. Couple that with the strong memory recall associated with smell, and I can't help but wonder if you are the beneficiary of some good old fashioned aromatherapy.

The human body has 100 trillion cells?
Each cell performs approx. 100,000 activities/functions per second?
Which each cell's activity/function simultaneously interacting, correlating directly and/or indirectly with every other cell?
When we think of the number of transactions our brain performs per second and ..think that is a lot.
In the universe we are insignificant.
To think we are amazing is amazing!
Bettter to focus on becoming better than thinking we are already so great.

Our 'pea sized' brains may be fairly large on this plant...though, I have my doubts, we have an unfathomible way still to go.

The human body has 100 trillion cells?
Each cell performs approx. 100,000 activities/functions per second?
Which each cell's activity/function simultaneously interacting, correlating directly and/or indirectly with every other cell?
When we think of the number of transactions our brain performs per second and ...think that is a lot.
In the universe, we are insignificant.
To think we are amazing is amazing!
Better to focus on becoming better than thinking we are already so great.

Our 'pea sized' brains may be fairly large on this planet to most other creatures here...though, I have my doubts, we have an unfathomable way still to go.

Does spell check count as how smart we are?
I forgot what we were talking about.

Anyone know what Tina10 is implying? :?

An unexpected event such as a car racing toward you against the red lite is perceived but your reaction occurs a few milliseconds at a minimum later.This delay time has been verified by experiment in many studies. This is in contrast to perceiving an expected event where there is no measurable delay time before the result.
combine this time delay with the concept that Everything is connected
leads to the conjecture we are all connected thru this Time synapse in a universal mind. What do you think?.

I have found that many times, when attempting to learn new things or perhaps work out a solution to a challange, that if I sleep on it---my brain helps me to accomplish what I couldn't while conscious.

I proposed this to my daughter when she was younger and trying to learn how to ride a two wheeler bicycle. She wanted to keep attempting to learn the balance technique untill she mastered it. After several hours, I talked her into taking a break, sleep on it, and perhaps her brain would 'develop' nuerons to handle the task easier, or that her brain would better understand what she was trying to do and that it would become a matter of logic next time she attempted---or that it would at least be much easier. I use to think of it as allowing my brain to sort things out, and put them in their logical order--sometimes a 'logic' we can't see while conscious. I had been taught that during sleep, our brain DOES keep working, sorting things out that it has been exposed to during the day---and placing it in a logical filing system based upon what it already has stored away.

I've used this technique in everything from learning ATC procedures, to learning a musical instrument. I think sleeping (GOOD, quality sleep) on things is a natural order to learning. Kind of like letting your brain work on it while YOU sleep.

OH, BTW, my daughter seemed to have a much better grasp of riding that two wheeler on the next day. That's been a few years ago. Now, I hope she gets back here with my car soon!