| How my brain works (4) | Wednesday, Sep 2, 2009 11:10 am |
I'd like to present a glimpse of what goes on in my head when processing a simple task. For this example, I'll assume someone has just asked me the extremely simple question, "How are you?" I've written about this in the past, but I feel like quantifying and graphing my thought processes, since that's sort of what happens in my head anyway.
Human: How are you?
Me: [Brain, engage.]
Me: [I've been asked a question that requires a verbal response.]
Me: [Typical answers: Great, good, pretty good, not bad, nothing much (though this is a wrong answer), bad, awful, terrible, null.]
Me: [Calculating response...]
![[Image: moodminutes.png]](/img/moodminutes.png)
Me: [Events in the past 10 minutes that affected mood: Thought about something funny that happened earlier, talked to a friend, ate a hot dog. Average mood = 8.5, or in human terms, "good".]
Me: [But what about earlier in the day when I was stuck in traffic?]
Me: [Recalculating...]
![[Image: moodhours.png]](/img/moodhours.png)
Me: [Events in the past 10 hours that affected mood: Got stuck in traffic, hit every single red light, listened to a person talk about their dog, sat around in a meeting. Average mood = 3.8, or in human terms, "bad".]
Me: [But I had a good day yesterday. And two days before that. Should I factor that into my calculation?]
Me: [Recalculating...]
![[Image: mooddays.png]](/img/mooddays.png)
Me: [Events in the past 10 days that affected mood: Went to the beach, got sunburn, relaxed on the couch, slept in. Average mood = 5.5, or in human terms, "pretty good".]
Me: Pretty good.
I'm speechless...
Ok, I'm almost speechless...
I suppose that's why you take longer than me to answer that question. I usually just factor in the past 5 minutes and answer. In David terms that's half of time plotted on the first graph.
Interesting.
So whats the time from being asked to response? Assuming its shorter than the span of time outlined covered in the thought process your example brings me to a question I have pondered even attempted to calculate. What is the speed of thought? Can thought be an example of travelling faster than the speec of light? Thinkback to your oldest memory. In your minds eye its real and you arrived there pretty quickly............ What is the speed of thought?
For once, Yahoo Answers has a good discussion. Main idea: The speed of light is much faster than the speed of thought. Also, Johns Hopkins researchers did a study that showed that it takes a person about 300 milliseconds to understand a pictured object, and if we make the ridiculous assumption that a thought needs to travel from your toes to your head and you're six feet tall, that's 6 ft / 300 ms = 6.1 m/s, which is significantly less than the speed of light (3x108 m/s).
Taking a more abstract perspective and I can arrive that my memory thought is faster than the speed of light. I am 39yrs old. I can recall an image in my minds eye back to when I was 4yrs old. Thats 35yrs. Now ask, how many miles (or Kilometers) have a travelled in those 35yrs. Assume 15 trips by plane at 2000 miles round trip, 13000 miles/yr by car and 4500miles/yr walking for a total distance travelled of approx 47,000miles/yr. So in 35 yrs thats approx 2,668,775 Km. How fast are the neurotransmitters? Round about 30ms for the old guys. So thats an unbelieveable speed of approx 88,959,166,667 m/sec. Compare to the speed of light 299,792,458 m/sec. Speed of thought is nearly 300 times faster than the speed of light........