Chapter 10: Fictional Memory Management

The other day I was listening to an ad where it was being said "handwashing" can reduce the spread of germs etc by a lot! Got me thinking... Is handwashing a term we should have around? Its not a concept... It's just... Washing one's hands! Brainwashing on the other hand, is a concept.. You don't take the brain out and wash with water..

So instead of handwashing, I'm gonna write about brainwashing.. Just because I find that more interesting. Now before we dive into what that is, let's try to recap what we know about human body.. And compare that to a computer..

You have inputs like sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste etc etc which continuously feeds your brain.. The brain takes all that.. Refines the inputs into what it thinks is correct and passes it on to either the memory or the logic. Now the sensory organs are all third parties.. The brain don't trust them blindly.. So much so that you come up with statements like "I can't believe what I'm seeing".. Or.. "Is that a dead rat?".

Like most detergents it doesn't remove all the dirt in one wash.. And you have to go through a couple of rinse & repeat cycles, the inputs from these input devices slowly refines what mr brain knows to what it has to be. This is why it's called a brainwash when a constant banter of similar inputs usually inferring the same thing is constantly fed to a person. This slowly modifies what he or she knows into a different form. And like washing, it's not 100%.. The more cycles result in better results!

I was thinking hmm.. That's interesting... when there comes along the movie "Inception". That one literally revolutionized the brainwashing industry by avoiding the middleman.. The input organs are not completely trusted by the brain.. So let's bypass it. The concept is based on the fact that when a new idea is introduced into the mind, the thinking would mutate the idea into a measurable knowledge pretty quick! With hardly any loss so a refining is not required here. Instead, information is fabricated... And since the fabricator is the brain itself, the trust factor is way too high. Thus some bits of this information are recorded as baseline facts. As with the nuclear physics from controlled fission to the atombomb, the key is that the seed needs to be a very low amount of charge so as to keep it in control from wrecking the whole setup. In fact this post is in itself a mutated for, of the seed which was my disagreement with the term "handwashing". Thus with that i guess it is self-illustrated on how the mutation can sometimes completely change the nature of the seed.

That's for introducing data or logic into the head! Now what if they wanted to undo something? Unfortunately this is one of the scenarios where making is easier than breaking.. But how do you break it? The first step towards the same was probably by the creators of "Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind".. Any memory of a segment of knowledge is spread across the brain in an amalgamated form I'd like to think. This doing the reverse of brainwashing is definitely not an easy task. Thats where they have to find all segments where the memory was and to delete from those. This like removing the skin of an apple... It cuts out from some of the good memories as well. Which is sad but hey., that's better than nothing right!?

Well that's with fixing the memory.. Now what happens if some logic has gone wrong and u need to get hat fixed. The age old "shock treatment" is what they employ. Maybe it tries to short circuit some logic in brain and hopefully with positive results. Very crude way but might have worked in a few cases purely by luck. I usually do not say anything occurred because of luck. Here I am using the word because specific to administering the shock, the doc probably doesn't know what the dose is gonna do. He gave it a shot and it worked maybe. Maybe there are some studies and they target a certain area of the brain who knows.. Maybe like in "Analyze this", the doc should try to get to the root of why the abnormality came into being and administer a dose of fix by any of his methods of therapy. But not former crude ways hopefully.

Now there's the question of short term memory. Like in "memento". I am yet to come up with a theory on how the guy could have effectively lived his life in the movie with the condition. Unfortunately in the lack of long term facts, the brain assumes the figments of information analyzed on a realtime are actually facts! Thus he really believes in them as low as it lasts.

Since we have gone across all the good & ill effects of external manipulation, maybe letting the person be is the best thing to do. Let the person be a result of his surroundings than as a result of what you want him to be. Maybe he'll learn better than what we preach. Maybe If you want to still guide a person/child/a patient, fix the surroundings and the brain fixes itself..

Pseudo doc signing off... :-)

Chapter 9: A Rhetoric on Heuristics of Life

Often I feel like I have a mental stature of a newly born. I come up with stuff which upon announcing to the world, I'm told that it ain't anything new.. Everybody knows that.. Yet again here I jump into another one of my literary journeys, armed with naivety, full of enthusiasm, and an old sack of english. Fully aware that maybe the result is nothing more than just a fresh déjàvu...

I wonder sometimes about the similarities that are inherent in various aspects of life which might otherwise be thought of as apples and oranges... Meaning, cannot be compared. Here I am trying to compare a river, a living organism and the human brain.

Tracing time back to a point when some water accumulates at a certain mountain. Let's observe how the events might slowly unfold. Just a few seconds before the start of events in question, the ground around it has a very irregular surface. Rocks, crevices, mountains etc etc. Let's let the clock to start ticking away. The water slowly overflows from its source, slowly taking the route that's easiest and least troublesome. This continues until it reaches the sea. Also, through its journey, it keeps modifying its course in order to get to a stable state. Thus the river comes to being as an entity. The river can be thought as the output of change ie, the water flow brought about to the template ie, the ground. In course of time, the resultant entity gets its unique identity based on the amount of change stand the basic structure. 

Now let's look at any living organism. Most of them start off their life with a very similar pattern. Much like the ground around the water source in the earlier example. Slowly as time passes, the template of an entity gains rest of its unique features based on the conditions... Temperature, etc etc similar to the water conditions for the river.. And the difference in the beginning template like the terrain in the case of the river.

MS(If you are not familiar with this abbreviation, i would use them going forward as a “Mid script" to warn any potential readers of the dangers ahead): Before proceeding further, you should take a deep breath. Ask your self if anymore of the similar content as above might kill you. If yes, consider not reading the rest. If no, know that "what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger"..

Now the third comparison that I promised... The brain. Again.. The brain when it's just formed, starts off with a pretty similar pattern/template. Now it can be visualized as a web. An intelligent web which refines itself as and when the stimuli gets fed in. These could be the sense of touch, sight etc... Each time the same input goes in, the web refines itself trying to eventually get into a steady state but it never does. Much like an ever changing course of a river even when the flow is steady. What i am trying to say is that the intelligence may not be just a characteristic of brain but the internal mutation of the template.. how it learns etc. For example, evolution. How certain animals decided to mutate into something a bit more suited for the conditions around it. 

Any entity has a building block which has a logic sewed into it which serves two basic purposes… One is defining a degree of self mutation. The other is the distinct characteristic that is developed overtime with varying inputs. An example of the latter would be, a tree that curves itself around another tree to get better light. Another base function that the logic has is to assess the result of the self mutation. I reckon that if apple trees are grown in a controlled environment where they get enough light only with altitude, the next generation of those trees would be inherently slightly taller! Look at the coniferous forests. How may they have to come to be? Maybe they were a bit too tired about the weight of snow that they adapted slowly to avoid the snow from latching on to them. So you see, the intelligence is not only an aspect of the brain. You have Integrated intelligence which makes any living thing what it is, and sometimes you have dedicated self assessment units like the brain in some. Both works on the same criteria of adaptation. My theory on why this distinction was brought to being or why a brain was created is that the at some point, the self assessment logic figured that hey, i need a drastic change but if i change my integrated logic, its affecting me in a bad way. Thus, let me separate out a few trivial logic functions into a separate part which modifies faster than the others which are integrated. 

Talking about one worldly concept that always made me think, i believe that repeating a certain input ensures a slight consistence in the output. This would also be known as Practice. Practice doesn't make a man perfect.. It only makes him consistent. Much like a river that has found its course. Years of floods would ensure the river would get more and more predictable.. Much like the predictable honey bee that starts its day looking for flowers and returning to the hive etc. Much like the kid who always says 4+2 is 6.

We could learn a lot from the nature's way of doing things. If the template for a river is the rugged surface of earth, the template for a life form could be the DNA. A self modifying network could be the basis for a pretty humanbrain-like AI. I only started with a river in this case, but i guess with a careful study, a similar pattern could be identified on a much bigger scale.

Chapter 8: The day after tomorrow

If tomorrow never dies, what's the point of the day after tomorrow? Now I'm not trying to be a try hard wannabe philosopher. It's just a simple question that came to my mind. 

I've had my share of dreams, mostly shattered, some still withholding their shiny "you'll get there eventually" aura. A very very small portion of those had actually come true. Now what connection does this have with tomorrow and the day after? Actually, I don't know.. :-)

What I was postulating is that maybe those two concepts together can bring us to try better to get to our goals a.k.a wishes. Say you make a wish today. Now the two days you have left to fulfill your dreams are here.. Tomorrow and day after tomorrow. How long does it take for a dream to be fulfilled? I'll say exactly 2 days.. once tomorrow is done, and day after tomorrow comes, your dream will be fulfilled.

Now before you thrash me up for throwing some messed up crappy logic, let me try to explain.

Day 1: the day of the wish

Day 2: the day(s) (because we have already established tomorrow doesn't die) that you need to put your effort towards meet in your goal

Day 3: the judgement day where the almighty/the top guy in question looks at your effort and decides to grant/deny.

Now, the days I am talking about are 1. the individual "tomorrow" and 2. "day after tomorrow". Which means to say that the day 2 can be more than a single earth-day. Of course since tomorrow never dies, you keep it alive till you reach your goal. You just need to put in effort from your end and work forward because you never know the day after tomorrow may be right around the corner. Also the more effort you put in, the fruits would definitely be better. 

Now what happens if the day after tomorrow, you realize the dream was not realized but instead shattered.? Well they say, do not be afraid to dream again. Depending on the importance of the shattered dream, it again has a two day cycle. You work towards getting over it tomorrow and day after, it will be done. Again.. Not talking about the earth days.. It is globally suggested that this tomorrow where are you letting go be way shorter than the tomorrow where u try to achieve something. But rarely does that happen either. But one can still try! 

One may still be confused on how can the day of the wish or, the day after tomorrow actually come if tomorrow doesn't die! Very valid and a very good question. The solution to the same would be a small action that you can take from your end! You can decide to simply just, put it to rest and welcome the day after. Smart guys/gals would think.. "Why not we decide to put it to rest soon?". Well I did talk about the effort evaluation on the day after tomorrow. If the effort was not enough, maybe the outcome may not be in your favor. The question is, are you willing to risk it? Have you raised your chances enough to submit to the evaluation committee?

Remember.. Day after tomorrow is the future. It's the day people dream of. It's the day your efforts tomorrow shows its true brilliance! Even Martin Luther King talked about the dream he had Today! Now if he fulfilled it or not, we would not know until he certifies it. Maybe his tomorrow has been put to rest maybe not.

If you are of the peace loving kind, you can stop here.. If not, you could visit a YouTube video about peace and let me live for writing this blog till I come up with a next chapter! 

Cheers!! :-)