I still remember the day I first saw the video about Google's new 'Knowledge Graph'. The concept was as amazing as it was simple. For those who don't know what it is yet.. see this video.
Now after watching it, an epiphany came to me.. that maybe this is how our brain works!!!!
This was a pretty awesome idea.. so I needed something to convince myself.. and here's what points thought of to prove this fact-
Now after watching it, an epiphany came to me.. that maybe this is how our brain works!!!!
This was a pretty awesome idea.. so I needed something to convince myself.. and here's what points thought of to prove this fact-
- Think of every event or object as a node in this knowledge graph. So there you get millions of nodes interconnected in this weird 3D structure.
- Now lets see you want to remember what you did yesterday- What you'd do is go to yesterday's node and start travelling to the today's node from there.. the way would illuminate what you did! and that's pretty easy to remember as it was recent. So what about like a year ago?
- To overcome this hurdle, I took the paths i.e. line connecting 2 nodes as a line drawn in a desert or mountain or whatever.. just that it must deteriorate with time. So if there's no path connecting to that node, then we can't remember it!(if you are a programmer, think of it as a memory location with no pointer)
- So this way I can theorize how we don't remember what we did a year ago.. But now the question comes.. how do we remember somethings from the past, like last christmas, or 9/11?
- The answer is.. first of all, we don't travel to that node through time node.. There's nodes for Christmas, and other events which are linked to their counterparts making the travel to the node very short. and also we take one more assumption-
- i.e. The more we travel a path, the more deeply ingrained it becomes and the more time it takes to forget it! or some paths are sudden and like laser-burned paths.. too difficult to erase like murder and stuff!
- Now lets take an example- Lets say, I asked you what was your answer for the 3rd question in section B in English exam you recently took(almost like google explained it)(or facebook's KG). What you'd be doing is- First travel to the time node, and find it difficult to go to our desired node; then go to the exams node and yep, there's this recent path towards recent exams.. you travel through it to the English Exam. then you feel the close nodes and find the questions you found interesting, or events related to that day.. from there you go to different paths and try to reach what was asked.. if the path is there, you can find it.. It can take some time depending on the algorithm you used, but you'd find it!
- If you've read through the example, you'd see that we went to the time node, exams node instantly..
- These are the nodes that are traveled through a lot, making them Hubs or lets say international airports or nodes in cache memory.. fast access!
Okay.. so this far we have established that nodes are events, paths deteriorate with time with exceptions, and the more we travel through one path, the more ingrained it becomes. Also there are Important nodes which we use a lot, and different people use different algorithms when they want to remember something: thus taking different times!
- Now, I started to explore this theory.. as it has started to make sense to me!! What about multitasking? Like do you remember the times when you were riding a bicycle, going somewhere you visit a lot- like home, or school and talking with friends. That's a crazy amount of load on memory even though it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes you get into a conversation too much to notice that you've reached your destination.. its like your body has a mind of its own!
- This all happens due to brain.. the common events like riding a bicycle somewhere everyday for a long time are interpreted by the brain as something useful and the whole node+path combo of it is put into a compartment.
- so whenever we want to do that thing, brain would just kind of 'play' the event and the focus on your part is marginalized.. Brain then uses your senses like eyes and ears to direct the process and only alerts you if something out of the ordinary thing is there! this way you can talk among friends and use that focus to remember things used in that conversation. Atleast that's what made sense to me!
- Take this example too- You know sometimes we try to forget things and end up memorizing them? that happens due to traveling down that path a lot. But sometimes we forget it, by just braking down at some nearby node like going to the night of murder, but not going to the node of murder(I know its morbid.. but its kind of what we'd want to forget and end up doing)
- Another example- The simplest one.. During exams when trying to memorize something, we read that thing again and again to do that! Classic path traveling, path engraving example! Now people say they forget stuff after a few month of exams.. and I'd say why not! You never ever read or use that knowledge again(like brith date of some important figure).. thus path fades away!
So I'd ask you readers(if any of you reached this end) to come up with examples disproving this theory.. or proving it!
Cuz if its true.. and this is how our mind works.. nothing spectacular would happen, but atleast we'd get a temporary answer to this unexplained mystery!
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