May 8th, 2008 | Brain | 4 Comments
A phrase that has been really bothering me since I was a teenager is “Chain of Thought” or “Train of Thought” - it even has its own wiki page! As I have recently realized that one use of blogs are meant to be a personal ranting space, so let me do that.
A chain is a lot like a vector, so when I hear the phrase “Chain of Thought”, I see a thinker/brain jumping from link to link, much like an iterator, and most of the links are identical. I don’t think like that, and I’m sure most people don’t either.
When I try to visualize thinking, the picture that comes to my mind is that of a set of stacks, with thoughts popping out of some and being pushed into others.
At other times, thoughts remind me of a tree, with the brain traversing it, sometimes depth first, and sometimes breadth first, but more often, thought looks to me like a graph, with the brain hopping from node to node however the hell it pleases.
A tree is a graph, and a vector is a tree, so why do we have to chain our thoughts by making them look like they follow a linear pattern? They are seldom that linear! Ok, a “Graph of Thought” sounds modern, but trees have been around for much longer than chains!
To me, analogies and models are dangerous oversimplifications. Whenever we use a model to represent something, the thing that is being represented loses a certain part of its being. By sticking to a chain model, we are simplifying our thought process, and perhaps, becoming just a little bit more stupid in the process. I say, let us kill the phrase “Chain of Thought” and climb one teeny weeny step higher on the ladder of evolution.
After this post, I will take the nested brackets that I love (and I do love them (honestly (yes, this is a forced example))) as deep as I want to, without bothering about grammar.
Grammar needs a redesign.
Jan 20th, 2008 | Books, Brain, DVORAK, Etc, Life, Pakistan, Scifi | No Comments
… from last year that couldn't grow into posts. Now I can clean up my 'TO BLOG' bookmarks folder and continue pretending to be a blogger:
Dec 18th, 2007 | 3D, Brain, Life | No Comments
Its been one year since I started working with the Blue Brain Project team. Dr. Felix Schürmann, the Project Manager of the Blue Brain Project, informed me last week that the project is officially entering its next phase very soon, which has got me pretty excited.
Meanwhile, here's what the rest of the world of Brains (aka. neuroscience) has been up to recently:
PS. On the number of 'n's in the post title (18), I became curious how people actually spelled brai(n)+s, and spent the next 5 minutes charting out the Google hits. Here are the results:
Sep 4th, 2007 | 3D, Brain, Etc, Life, Pakistan, Scifi, Smoking | No Comments
The rest of the websites/articles/phenomenon that have been on my mind during August. I can finally empty the 'TO BLOG' folder. So here they are…
→ continue reading
Aug 26th, 2007 | 3D, Brain, Scifi, Smoking | No Comments
I just took a look at my 'FOR BLOG' bookmarks folder and was amazed to see the number of pages (66) I have bookmarked during August, with the intention to write about them here, but never got the chance. So, in an attempt to cross that task from my TODO list, I'm posting some of them here (minus the planned commentary/discussion/blogging) and deleting the rest. They should have converted into 66 posts, but oh well!
I need a break from all the copy/pasting now, and will have to split this post in two parts. So these are the things that have been using up my brain cycles this month. If you find any of the above things useful/fun/entertaining/offensive, do leave a comment so that I can justify spending the last hour or so on this.
