Cover - courtesy of wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange

The Hive Mind

Nowadays, our brains are literally connected to the hive. We are constantly online, in touch. On our ends, however, we feel social polarization, group think and all those great things social psychology derives .

Internet exchange

I've pondered over how we transfer information, and concluded - our brains are coordinated by a monkey who sits in a "exchange" room of 1970s, where channels of information are connected, intertwined and interlaced manually, by command of the client.

Monkey, is the operator who initially answer your call on " Hey, connect me with... information pointer)." What happens then is that operator (the monkey in the brain) goes(tired, restless, prone to errors and generally lazy) goes through listings of information resources available at hand and connects you with the right one. Sometimes you see great recall of arbitrary information in individuals who trained their monkeys very well, and who provide them with whatever they inquire for their utilities, while others... well, some tax the monkey too much, or do not provide sufficient benefit or income to it - it grows tired, restless, and finally simply unresponsive, throwing the phone apparatus against the wall to turn off the ring. It's when you sometimes stumble over a question you thought you knew answer for.

The keen monkey.

It has it's own brain and circuitry of connections. Some connections are first on listings, information is generally easily accessible, you're keen on subject. Some information is simply too old for recall, and at the bottom of those listings - even though you studied your elective hard previous summer - you probably have tucked all that knowledge far away in cerebellum. All other unstructured information we here, learn, digest through the day, rarely gets to those listings, for it's no order, the monkey would refuse to even try to find out what you want and, instead, go default burp "Try googling"

Googling

Your brain goes like: "Well, previous time it worked, I got the intel requested quickly (noone subjects to google's powerful search engine)", and so you pull up your phone and in seconds you got the intel required.

Short Feedback loop

What just happened is instant gratification. The monkey Will remember that, and next time you ponder over question, it would automatically, for it's already in it's serotonin and dopamine feedback loop circuitry, suggest you googling. It's so easy anyway!

The Flaw in this sysytem is not the Google, nor is your monkey. But it's your conscious decision to go and google instead of trying to recall. The Monkey is your employee, or, some call it memory-muscle, it you train it, pay it appropriately, provide healthcare benefits etc. it will flourish, otherwise it will degrade.

I\O

What's interesting to mention is the information throughput registered in the brain. Any time you command to recall an event from your memories to jot it down in blog or fill up the diary, you "GET" information from the brain, whilst when you google, read, or learn something - you "WRITE" the information into your brain. What this distinction gives is statistical imbalance that approached millennialls.

Reason to Blog

"I forget things I wrote yesterday" - an often excuse for programmers I hear when ask "Why do you blog ?" And righteously so, we, programmers, google stuff constantly. As soon as you figured out efficient googling techniques for yourself, it's no longer exhaustive and problems are solved — that's what's required on our jobs — solve problems.

Why do we google ?

But what about other professions and "types of searches" ? Do you ever remember what you sought out in google by the end of the day ? Epidemically, information gathered fro google is simply forgotten the next day. Thus, we aren;t really smarted in storing information as much as in locating it. And in location - we deem to be the masters: "Hey Siri, what's ... "

Subjective cause of depression

I observed this tendency of gradual increase of INPUT in sight of diminished OUTPUT of information in the brain, and came to conclusion, that I actually become depressed when there's too much of information consumed. It's like this: I grow tired and grumpy, my recall worsens with each unrelated professionally google search.

Remedy

I tap into search engine of an electronic book or index of paperback, which I hopefully read previously, and which hopefully contains information I require. This pleases me, for it requires real action and effort. I feel good after pulling down the piece of intel I so dramatically wanted.

"Contemplation is an activity appreciated for it's own sake" Aristotle

Afterthought

Do you find books to be appreciated for their own sake ? Do you find google seach tiring ? What do you search for faily ? How many requests ?