Thoughts And Trivia

How and what our mind, recalls, is a great mystery. Sometimes we marvel at it, when it dredges out long forgotten things - in mint fresh condition. Other times, we rue its incapability to recall the name of a person, we seem to know quite well. How is it different from the way a Computer recalls data from its data-base.
In computer a data-base is organised in such a way that each piece of information and its closely related data (together called a record - the thing you see in a row of data in printed form)is stores in memory that is assigned an address number. Thus basically if you know the memory address of that data, it can be retrieved. But Data-Base software shield you from this memory address problem and allows you to recall whole record if you know even one piece of data in that record.
But human mind does not function this way. It has no user accessible memory location address. It fetches data if you know the contents of that data itself (then there is no need to retrieve it) or other pieces of data which your mind thinks were linked to that data at the time of storage. Thus at the time of storing, mind forms association of that data with other data. This association is the key to retrieval. Therefore for recalling a data mind requires triggering hints or a series of them
The number and complexity of such associations is peculiar to each human.
When younger, I had phenomenal memory for faces, although I never recalled the name.
Even if I saw a person once, 20 years later, I could recall the place where we had met and other persons associated with both of us. Also what had he said to me at that time!
I was also good at weird linking of obviously un-connected data.
At the same time I was very poor in medium term memory - where had I put my reading glasses yesterday?? My mind would give seemingly weird hints. "I had placed it at secure place, where nobody can accidently step on it". "When I was helping my wife in kitchen". "What about eating an orange?" I used to tear my hair deciphering these hints - I don't want to eat an orange, I want my reading glasses. Of course I was butt of various family jokes about this memory failure. Reading glasses were finally found in the Refrigerator Freezer!!!
Things have changed a lot during last 40 years. Pressures of job and wife have made me very good at medium term memory. A picture immediately flashes, where had I put my glasses. But I have also to a large extent lost that complex connectivity of data in brain. I neither remember the name nor the face of a person I had spent hours with only last year.
Mind is a pliable tool, the way you use it, it responds to the needs of your life.
As they say - Use It Or Loose It.
Take Care!!

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at Tuesday, September 27, 2005