Report from the Middle :: the Multi-Taskin' Brain

Brains’ Industries of the Multi-Task
By Pat Darnell
It is difficult for almost all humans to access multiple data banks simultaneously in their conscious daily life. Lets’s skip the night time dream states... and although the human brain is functioning on a multi-task level as long as the human is breathing... it cannot for instance negotiate the proper punctuation of a group of triads in a musical score, while mulling over the percentages of fragmentation on its owner’s hard drives over a long period of time. Or can it.

“Can do” is, in human terms, a “should do,” but not universally achievable. A brain works fast enough to simulate foreknowledge, as in playing music or performing gymnastics. For instance, musical scores can be practiced until the performance is automatic... and any accidentals are easily covered. Furthermore, constant defragmentation of hard-drives will yield a baseline of data for anyone concerned with the life expectancy of those drives. Empirical evidence glares in the face of human reasoning... no?

Some folks are prone to do certain activities because their mental state requires them to multi-task in an altered state of mind. Washing the dishes has long been a task that stimulates the other wavelengths available to human thinking.

You know a person who has an automatic dishwasher, yet still washes the dishes in the sink before placing in the DW? Maddening to some observers, but that person is seeking comfort of alter wave length brain activity. Why do you suppose we designers have been placing the kitchen sink at the kitchen window for ‘umpteen generations of homebuilding?

Like playing music, which uses motor and memory skills in hand-eye coordiantion, washing dishes sets the tone of the similar bunches of your brain’s industries. Don't ignore 100 generations of washing dishes; and don't forget your American Musical Heritage.

So in fact one might be able to negotiate a stack of dirty dishes while mulling over the likelihood of hard-drive crashes. Multi-task just means a couple of things happening at one time, while the other functions go on as usual. All that other stuff about multi-tasking is silly; bells and whistles, distant thunder.

Pray for Providence, and that’s Brain Industry as MooPig sees it: Report from the Middle, where all the women are strong; the men are good-looking; and children are all above average.