Finally. Done with school, done with work, chillin out maxin and relaxin at home. This semester was a shit show, and finally being home without having to do any work for awhile is a nice change indeed. I'm hoping to write more over summer since my brain isn't really working too much. I find the easiest times for me to write are when i haven't really been forced to think a lot. Guess i just have idle time for my brain to really get going.
So ill just continue from where i left off those many months ago.
Lately I've been thinking about the wonders of the human body and mind. A couple of weeks ago i needed to get into the fridge, but both of my hands were full. (Yes. there IS more to the story...) With peanut butter in one hand and my two slices of bread in the other, i put the bread in my mouth and open the door. I grab the jelly, and now i have two hands occupied. The door continues to swing open and now I'm left with a new situation, "How will i close the door before it swings too far and hits something?". Reacting, calculating, and deciding at a blazing 215 milliseconds, in a very fluid-like motion, i stick my foot out, catch the door softly, and quickly close the door shut while putting my delicious snackysnack ingredients on the counter. All this happening within just over a second. I realize this doesn't sound like some sort of impressive feat to most of you, but let's take a second to put ourselves in the place of a child, or even more sci-fi, a newly born sentient being. Whether it be a robot, a human, or a lil puppet-like droid-type... thing (the movie "9"). You have just been born/created/booted-up, and you do not yet have any sense of mobility, muscle movement... you are barely even aware of the fact that you HAVE limbs. You look around, using your neck muscles for the first time, your eyes for the first time, and you look down. You notice that you are attached to a body with arms and legs. Some quick brain causes your appendages to twitch, and lets assume that your natural/built in self-awareness kicks in. It takes you awhile to understand that you are in control of these bony fleshy sticks. Break time.
Think about how incredible it is for one to be self-aware. Robots, after years of development, are only beginning to scratch the surface of what we could even consider "self-awareness" ( Here is an amazing TED Talk that might give you an idea)
The process of understanding ones self, ones body, and how to manipulate the body is not a simple task. Let's bounce back shall we?
So in the great case of the peanut butter n' Jelleh (... and fridge).... (and bread.) what exactly was i thinking? Well, looking at it from above, i seem to have a full understanding of my body and how i wanted it to move, the current situation, the physics of the current situation, the possible solutions to said situation, and was able to make a decision on how i should act. It was effective, it was brilliant, and it was FAST (brilliant being a relative term, but so be it). Researchers spend YEARS of development and testing in order to create a machine that would catch a ball thrown to it, resulting in a machine that is TOLD what it looks like, TOLD how it should act, and THEN allowed to act (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxzh3pFr3Gs gotta cite ma sources! =] ) (<-- ugh i also hate how a smiley in parenthesis looks awkward). Most of us do what these machines are built to do without even giving it a second thought.
Next time you're going about your daily activities, give it a second to think about how incredible it is that you DO that things that you do. Catching a ball, balancing on one foot, breaking your fall while tripping on a step, all these are, in reality, thousands of calculations being done in the blink of an eye. So when you hear about the "power of the human brain", and how people are able to muster up the strength to save a life, or resist pain, or even cause one to see things that aren't there... Back up a couple million years of cranial development and think about how far we've come, and how far there is to go.
Heh, 1:43 AM, and im still awake watchin movies.
Its gonna be a good summer...
-Slates
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