Remember Everything

Ah yes, the past ... what a wonderfully vague concept made available by our human brain.

If you're like most other people on this planet, you have long-term memory. This gives you the ability to recall events, stories, plots, and the like, since you were around 4 or 5 years old till the present day. This is useful, since it let's you learn from prior experiences, and hence was selected for evolutionarily.

Don't be fooled, however, into thinking that your long-term memory acts like a tape drive with the record button pushed, recording the input from your five senses continuously since you started to remember things. That's way too demanding on your little gray-goop-matter computer. Let's see how much space I would need to store my long-term memory's information if that were indeed the case:

Given that the DivX file format is approximately 10MB/sec for lossy-compressed-yet-good-quality video, let's double that and say that we can encode human vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste at decent quality for about 20MB/sec. That gives us:

20 x 1048576 x 60 x 24 x 365 x 23 = 253,520,510,976,000 bytes, or roughly 250 TB of data over the last 23 years of my life. Nope. My brain is not that awesome.

So what's happening then?

That is a question that probably won't be answered in our lifetimes. In fact we have such a weak understanding of how memory is actually encoded in our brains that it's really not worth hypothesizing about.

You probably have heard, however, that emotions affect the quality of the memory of a certain event. You probably have witnessed this effect yourself. Do you remember the first time you had sex? Of course you do ... you were excited, nervous, happy, scared and all sorts of other emotions. You will probably never lose that memory for a long, long time.

It turns out emotions and long-term memory seem to be processed by the same region in the brain: the Limbic System. This is no coincidence. It's evolutionarily valuable to be able to remember occasions and events that occurred during high levels of emotional arousal, such as while being "angry" or "sad" or "happy". Generally speaking, the stronger the emotion at the time of the event, the stronger that event will be "remembered" or encoded in the brain's long-term storage. Events that don't carry much emotion are generally considered as "unimportant" by the Limbic System, and hence are not remembered as well. This process allows for "efficient" storage of memories.

It is generally accepted that most animal species have a limbic system, yet few have a powerful Neo-cortex like us humans, supporting the fact that emotionally-linked-long-term memory is more essential to survival than complex problem-solving or linguistic skills.

Now the juicy part.

You and I can recognize these facts about the human brain, and exploit them. This is a very small view-port into the massive world of NLP:

If you want to remember an event better, generate a lot of emotion during the event.

I realize that sentence is easier said than done, though it is quite doable, and you should try it. Next time you need to remember a phone number, recall a very emotional event during the act of memorizing the phone number. Associate that emotional event with the number as best as you can. If you can't recall any specific emotional event, just make one up. Strange? Very, yet still practical.

Let's consider a simple example.

Suppose I tell you to remember this 7 digit number: 134-9910. Now think of something that was emotionally charged for you in the past, and work that number somehow into your memory's "plot". It can be something totally crazy, like you can imagine these digits as being the serial number to the coffin your grandmother laid in that day you went to her funeral. Go back to that day, and really feel what you felt at the time. The sadness, the uncertainty, the etc. See what you saw at the time, and try to recall the smells and other aspects of that past environment.

If none of your emotionally charged past events come to mind, make up a plot. Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting next to the TV with a lottery ticket, when you realize, that your number is being built up ... first comes the 1, then the 3 ... then the 4 ... then the 9 ... oh my fucking god, can this really be it?? Another 9 shows up on the screen ... hooolllyyy shit. A 1 follows that nine, and by now you freaking out ... then bam! the number 0 is the final digit. What an emotional roller-coaster.

Generally speaking, the memory "storage" will be stronger the stronger the emotions were while remembering/imagining the intense event.

It's important to note that these kinds of NLP techniques have been met with various amounts of criticism, and many times rightfully so. It's more important, however, to realize that stepping outside the box and using strange techniques for solving life's problems might be quite beneficial to you and me, so this is at least worth a try before being rejected.


Until next time,
--Shafik

Richard Dawkins: A Wired Thinker

Richard Dawkins is a person that no matter how hard I try disagreeing with, I always fail. Here's a short 20-minute lecture given by him on his thoughts about the universe and existence:

http://ovablastic.blogspot.com/2008/09/richard-dawkins-jaw-dropping-talk-on.html

Give it a look when you have some free time. Sometimes I wish I could bring all great thinkers like this guy into one room and see what ensues.


Till next time,
--Shafik

To do What?!

Somewhere in the ACA office where I work, a co-worker of mine, named Craig, and I were discussing the aging process in the human lifespan. Byron is a 56 year old coworker who happened to eavesdrop on our conversation and contribute his two cents ...

• Me: After about age 35, your body begins to slow down, and it's pretty much downhill from there.
  
• Craig: Aright, so I have got about 7 more years ...
• Byron: To do What?!
• Me: Hahahaha ...
  
• My internal voice: Wait a minute, this is actually quite profound.
  

Those 3 simple words from Byron have had the most profound influence on my general outlook in life in the past 2 years. Think about it for a second:

Do you have any idea what you're doing with your life? What purpose are you serving on this planet? Why are you alive? More importantly, why do you want to stay alive? Why do the vast majority of people that can't answer that question still strive to stay alive? Curious ...

Since I am an avid reductionist, I am going to put you in one of two categories:

There are basically two scenarios:

1. You believe in an after-life, and you believe you can work towards a pleasant one by behaving or living a certain way in your current life.
   
2. You don't believe in an after-life. You believe that this current life is the one and only life you will ever experience.

Most religious people are in category #1, and most atheists are in category #2, though this does not always have to be the case.

Now let's say you are in category #1. You believe that this current life is merely a transition, and not the end goal. The stronger your belief in an after-life, the more you "discount" the current life as being all that important, and the more content you are with just "getting through" the current life so that you can reap the benefits of a wonderful after-life.

On the other hand, let's say you are in category #2. You believe that after you die, *nothing* is going to happen, in the sense that you will no longer exist, and anything else that happens to the universe at that point will not be "known" to you. This is indeed quite an unsettling fact, and many-a folk would rather not think about it, especially if they are of a young age.

The interesting thing is that in both cases, you realize that life is more or less "useless". Personally I think category #2 is harder to be in ... since you will die someday, and there's absolute nothing-ness after that. Why would you deal with life's hardships? Why would you bother having kids? Why would you bother making sure these kids are financially secure *after* you die? Why not just get shoot heroin and feel artificially euphoric all the way up to the moment you die? Why be a "good" person?

I believe humans in category #2 go through a lot of cognitive dissonance when their life gets really tough: in one hand, life is useless anyway, so why go through this nonsense? On the other hand, their Selfish Genes keep them from committing suicide. This is why "motivational speaker" is an actual profession, and quite a lucrative one I might add. A better title would be "Existential Cognitive-Dissonance Resolver".

If you are in category #1, things might be a little easier. If life gets tough, you might say to yourself "nono, I must not give up ... this is just testing me". This keeps cognitive dissonance levels low. It keeps your hopes and happiness levels up. It keeps you from lashing or acting out, which is good for society as a whole. This is probably one of the reasons why religion is so widespread.

This can get really dangerous, however, when there is a way for suicide to become "legal" in one's religion or beliefs. Take the case of Muslim suicide bombers ... they believe that by being a martyr and dying for their country/religion, they will enter an ever-lasting life of pleasure in paradise. If their current life is filled with poverty, illness, problems, and major unhappiness, the decision to suicide becomes quite appealing. It's that simple.

What should one do then? This is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't type situation. Well I believe that the best study of life is how it is, not how we want it to be. If you realize that life is just a temporary existence, one way or another, you might begin to take it easy on yourself, you might realize that you don't have to work yourself to death in order to leave a huge amount of wealth for your offspring. You might be able to stop yourself and enjoy the "little things" in life, as horribly cliche' as that is. However you will have to work harder at convicing yourself that having morals, being good to other people, being honest, etc are good things to be. I suggest a healthy dose of Epicureanism.


It seems, then, that the only way to fully enjoy life is to realize, one way or another, that life is completely meaningless ...


Until next time,
--Shafik

Awesome Post!

Now comes with 30% less grammar mistakes. 100% proper English, all natural.

Yeah right. Just because my post claims that in big letters at the beginning, it doesn't mean that this is a good post, or that it's worth reading.

Same goes for stuff you buy in the grocery store ... if you see something that reads like "this is healthy!!", don't just trust the marketing department of that brand. This has become increasingly sneaky with food products. Make sure your perceived value of the product is not being manipulated in any way.

Here is a list of common phrases on food packages and their actual translations:

• "Fat free!" ---> "Loaded with sugar or salt!!"
• "Only 100 calories per serving!" ---> "The serving size is small as shit, and this food is not good for you!"
• "Tastes great!" ---> "Does not taste great!"
• "All natural" ---> "Does not contain known carcinogens, but might still be bad for you"
• "Light" ---> "Same product, just less dense ... maybe mixed with water or something". Check this out for an example.

You get the idea.

Don't let some marketing department persuade you. A food package in the store should be judged by nothing but these 4 things:

1. Nutrition label
2. Ingredient list
3. Price
4. What other people that you trust say about it.
   

#1 and #2 are regulated by the FDA, aka the law, and even though producers try to stretch the limits of truth to their advantage as much as possible, they more or less have to be honest.

Now you might be thinking "ah, I'm smart, this marketing stuff doesn't affect me", think again. It could be more sneaky than you'd expect, especially if you're hungry. You might pass by a deli-cheese pack that has a drawing of a perfect hamburger and subconsciously think "Yum ... a hamburger sounds really good right now ... lemme check it out", and you end up with a pack of cheese in your fridge.

If you would like to see the delicious hamburger drawing, come on over and look in my fridge.

It begins with Meta

What does every single person do when they first start a blog? They talk about what that blog is going to be about, of course. Usually something along the lines of "This is me, and this is what I do, and this blog will be about this or that".

Well, I'm going to do no different, though one can argue that at this point this is not just a meta-post, it's a meta-meta-post, since it's a post talking about the meta-post ...

This blog will be about interesting yet seemingly random thoughts about life in general. Mostly things that are not usually discussed. The kind of thoughts that might pop into your head during that "drift-off" phase of sleep, right before you lose consciousness.

The subjects of the post will come from a wide variety of categories, including but not limited to:

1. Psychology
2. Religion
3. Relationships
4. Philosophy
5. Biology
6. Technology
7. Too-complex-and-weird-to-have-its-own-category


This blog is not for the close-minded or the faint of heart.