Analog's the brain,
That's the strangest title I seem to have come up with for a blog post in a long while.
Analog and digital, two methods which make instruments work. It can be understood with the help of a wrist watch. A digital wristwatch displays digits on a cold green lifeless screen whereas an analog wristwatch tells you the time with the help of hands pivoted on gears against the backdrop of a beautiful dial.
My affinity towards analog wristwatches is evident here. In a digital wristwatch, the digits change without us even noticing it, they simply seem to flip. Not that we can notice how the hands move in an analog watch but we seem to feel or at least perceive them to be moving, slowly.
Digital means instant, bits and bytes of data, going back and forth over the connections between a control centre or a central processing unit (CPU) and various input and output devices connected to it. Analog, on the other hand, means metallic parts, pivoted on gears and resting on fulcrums which move with the help of several interdependent parts and pieces.
For some time now, I used to think of my brain as some sort of a computer, which stores memories in a hard disk, which processes problems at lighting speed, and so on and so forth. But recently I realized that my brain was more like a mechanical machine.
When I was trying to recall someones name I was finding it difficult to do so. I tried to remember. It did not come to me in an instant. That did not happen. The first thing that came to my mind was an image of an object which helped me get the first part of that persons name. The second thing that came to my mind was another memory which helped me get the second part of that persons name, in a distorted manner. My brain then pieced together these two parts and they did not fit. It then tried combinations, changing the first part a little, interchanging the first and the second parts and slowly after some effort I could remember that persons name.
That is when I realized that my brain does not punch in data in my mind like a Dot Matrix printer, complete with the screeching noise or like words which form on archaic fluorescent computer screens, accompanied by a 'ploob, ploob' kind of noise. My brain processes and delivers like a lathe machine perhaps, first scraping some of the metal piece, then observing the metal piece and again deciding how much to scrape and after some time trying to look at that piece and understand what it resembles.
When that persons name was shared with me, I must have thought of that natural object and that memory in a random manner, in that silly, inconclusive and obtuse manner in which the brain sometimes tends to make connections. Oh your name is so and so, reminds me of so and so, and that no, and ha ha ha ha. Unknown to me these silly observations had been stored by my brain and tagged to be associated to that name. When I wanted to remember or recall that name, my brain followed the same process in reverse. It looked for the tags, replayed the memories, built associations and then gave me that name.
My brain doesn't work in the digital manner, Some people are gifted with photographic memories, sharp memories etc, but I guess they are few in number. Most of us have brains which work in the manner I stated above.
Step by step, steadily, correctly and decisively, in short in an analog manner.....
That's the strangest title I seem to have come up with for a blog post in a long while.
Analog and digital, two methods which make instruments work. It can be understood with the help of a wrist watch. A digital wristwatch displays digits on a cold green lifeless screen whereas an analog wristwatch tells you the time with the help of hands pivoted on gears against the backdrop of a beautiful dial.
My affinity towards analog wristwatches is evident here. In a digital wristwatch, the digits change without us even noticing it, they simply seem to flip. Not that we can notice how the hands move in an analog watch but we seem to feel or at least perceive them to be moving, slowly.
Digital means instant, bits and bytes of data, going back and forth over the connections between a control centre or a central processing unit (CPU) and various input and output devices connected to it. Analog, on the other hand, means metallic parts, pivoted on gears and resting on fulcrums which move with the help of several interdependent parts and pieces.
For some time now, I used to think of my brain as some sort of a computer, which stores memories in a hard disk, which processes problems at lighting speed, and so on and so forth. But recently I realized that my brain was more like a mechanical machine.
When I was trying to recall someones name I was finding it difficult to do so. I tried to remember. It did not come to me in an instant. That did not happen. The first thing that came to my mind was an image of an object which helped me get the first part of that persons name. The second thing that came to my mind was another memory which helped me get the second part of that persons name, in a distorted manner. My brain then pieced together these two parts and they did not fit. It then tried combinations, changing the first part a little, interchanging the first and the second parts and slowly after some effort I could remember that persons name.
That is when I realized that my brain does not punch in data in my mind like a Dot Matrix printer, complete with the screeching noise or like words which form on archaic fluorescent computer screens, accompanied by a 'ploob, ploob' kind of noise. My brain processes and delivers like a lathe machine perhaps, first scraping some of the metal piece, then observing the metal piece and again deciding how much to scrape and after some time trying to look at that piece and understand what it resembles.
When that persons name was shared with me, I must have thought of that natural object and that memory in a random manner, in that silly, inconclusive and obtuse manner in which the brain sometimes tends to make connections. Oh your name is so and so, reminds me of so and so, and that no, and ha ha ha ha. Unknown to me these silly observations had been stored by my brain and tagged to be associated to that name. When I wanted to remember or recall that name, my brain followed the same process in reverse. It looked for the tags, replayed the memories, built associations and then gave me that name.
My brain doesn't work in the digital manner, Some people are gifted with photographic memories, sharp memories etc, but I guess they are few in number. Most of us have brains which work in the manner I stated above.
Step by step, steadily, correctly and decisively, in short in an analog manner.....
