Have you ever noticed how in your dreams you jump from one location to a, seemingly, unrelated place with ease. Or how people you are sure have never met in real life all know each other or are working together in your imagination?
Have you even noticing something similar happen when you are surfing the web? Have you ever started searching for one thing, or just been browsing? You click on one link, and then another. All of a sudden you are on a page, and it's really cool, but you haven't a clue how you got there?
Have you ever been awake and thinking, and one thought leads to another. And then another, and all of a sudden you have an inspiration or a clear idea of just something that you should try out now?
The reason I brought up those references is that the brain and the internet work or are constructed in similiar ways.
What is the web? It's a series of web pages that are linked to each other. The challenge is finding how to get from one page to another. If you know the address of a particular page its' easy, you just go there. If you don't, or if you don't know the page even exists but want to find out if there is a page with the information you want you search for it. You go to yahoo, or bing, or ask... oh yeah, or maybe you check google. You google a term and then go thorugh the search results to try and find the information that you are looking for.
Hopefully it exists and hopefully there is a search engine or a page with a link to that information somewhere.
Before google came along and algorythmicized and page ranked the search process, searching was a pain in the ass. YOu could check each of ten search engines or go to the dogpile, a site which compiled searches from all the other search engines.
It was less than perfect.
Then google came along and made searching relatively easy.
How'd they do it?
They swallowed the web whole. Well actually they swallowed the web piece by piece until they had a model of the whole web. With this model of the web within the googles collection of computers, they could see all the links within pages and via these links they evaluated each page, assessed its content and gave each page a rank for each type of content that page contained. Then they were able to create "ranked" search results based on your search terms and their ranking of the content of each page.
The interesting thing is that google isn't an outside observer. It is actually a part of the internet. You could think of each search page or each "results" page as a separate page on the internet. They all link back to google. Google directs you to which even page best suits you needs. On each page (or collection of pages) a collection of links that just might possibly take you to the page that you desire.
Of course, as the web changes, as content is added (or taken away), the search results pages change. But effectively what google has created is a web of its own inside the giant mass that is the internet.
And this network of pages and links allows you to get to the information you want fast, if it exists.
The question is, can something similiar be done for our brain? and if so, how?
And perhaps and better question, why?
Why googlify or algorithimicize your Brain?
Chances are you don't think of google as a network in and of itself. Or maybe you don't. I didn't think of it that way until I started writing this article.
Putting that aside, google makes it easier to access information. You can get to it reasonably quickly and google doesn't get in the way, much. Not unless you click on an add but in that case you may be clicking on a context sensitive add because the add points to the information you want.
The other nice thing about google is that it can pull up results that you might not have expected or didn't think were relevant, but when you think about it they are.
If you had a google equivalent in your brain it would not only make information easier to access, what was that girls name, but it would also help you come up with associations you might not have thought of by yourself. This could amount to being more creative or being better able to think outside of the box (or at least outside of the box that you are used to thinking in.)
Could it aid in concentration? If you don't have to think too hard you can stay on task. Instead of looking for information it is there as you need it. And so you can get on with what you are doing. Of course if the information isn't there, well then you might have to go about creating it. But that's true with google too. If the information isn't on the web then google can't provide it. What can then happen is that you decide to become a provider of said information. You figure out how to do whatever it is that you are trying to do by yourself.
But that's an aside.
The benefits of a googlified (or googlized) brain are quicker access to information, greater creativity, and possibly greater concentration.
Time to look at how google ranks each page. Why is this important? Actually what I think is important is how google breaks down each page to rank it. It doesn't actually rank the page, it ranks elements within the page (I'm guessing) and so each page has various ranks according to the topics it relates too. A porn page might rate 50 for one type of act and 29 for the type of actresses it contains (blondes vs brunettes.)
This is important because it determines the many different ways (or few ways) that google will link to that page. The more links the easier that page is to find.
And that might be one way in which our brain sorts and links information. By its relevance and by the little bits of data that each "memory" contains.
The more vivid the memory the more likely it is that a number of different triggers can bring that memory up.
A friend told me of a femal chess player, european. Her father (or teacher) taught her lots of different chess moves. From what my friend told me
Now, the brain does something that the web doesn't do much of (at least not right now anyway.) It controls our body. It isn't just a storage device for information, it controls our body and helps us to process sensory information from our body.
Movement patterns are stored as memories somehow. Movements and sensory information get stored as data somehow, and perhaps in related containers or sites within the brain. After all, why would a particular scent bring up a particular memory? Because there is a link between the two within the brain. Or they are stored in adjacent cells or locations.
***
Perhaps the most important thing about google is that if indexes the web and it makes web pages easily available. And it too is a part of the web.
It provides a set of links to any number of pages.
What could do the equivalent in our brains?
Perhaps understanding one subject or related subjects well enough that the sum total of all that information within our brain creates a network.
At this point I'm goint to diverge and look at people who make a living teaching others how to remember. I've never taken a program but I've read notes on one such program and the key was creating a story linking the things that you are trying to remember together. A story is a network of inter related events. Yes this network is more like a straight line but if you have the story in place, and its a "memorable" story, then that story makes it easy to retrieve data.
A story gives a context for all the things that it contains in a way something like a dictionary doesn't. If you look at a dictionary words are listed alphabetically. It makes it rather a challenge to learn. However it does make it easy to look terms up. Can you imagine a type of dictionary that listed words by related concepts. Some dictionaries do this. However those dictionaries are either chinese or Japanese language dictionaries (or translation dictionaries.)
The point is that with a context, and a story is a great context, it can be easier to remember things.
What is similar to stories? Katas or movement patterns, dances, yoga sequences, lines from a play.
These can all be used to create networks within the brain, particularly if you remember them in their entirety.
One of the ways that they can create networks, an increase network, is via the stories related to learning the movements. For instance I remember one tai ji student who taught me a fan form and the way that she broke the movements down so that it was easy for me to remember and learn.
I no longer practice the form but the memory is still there and it relates or reminds me of moments with another teacher and of the place I used to practice in. But via association it also reminds me of learning japanese becuase when I learned the japanese alphabet it was with the same technique, small bits at a time.
***
If you think of the web as a huge fragmented mass of information, Google takes that all in, sorts it all and makes it easier to digest.
"Here you go, bet you didn't know that this came from a soup of indecernable chaos did you?"
Google sorts information and makes it easy to access. Or, Easier.
Do our brains have the equivalent of a google search engine built in?
Google ranks search results. It does so by looking at links to related (and not so related) information. Those links tell google how relevant said information is with respect to a particular topic.
Does our brain have a similiar type of ranking algorithm? Does it too look at links that relate pieces of information to each other?
Another question: is it possible to create a "search engine" for our brains, some sort of Google like service that sorts information, ranks it and makes it readily accesable?
The brain is more than just a data repository. It also controls our body.
Part of what it remembers is particular ways of moving the body.
And part of what it remembers is sensory information and perhaps particular responses to certain types of sensory information:
The brain is a world wide web equivalent and control center for the body all in one.
It may be that the brain has specific areas that focus on particular tasks but it may also be that the parts of the brain are flexible and capable of switching tasks.
One of the things that google does is sorts information out to make it easier to access. The information that it sorts is on the web. Google itself is on the web and as a matter of fact has its own web address. Google measures and sorts information on the web and is a part of it.
If you've studied a little bit of science you may be aware of the idea that in order to measure something, or while measuring something, we change what we are measuring. This is especially true in the case of Google. To measure the web it has become a part of the web.
What it does, as it senses pieces of information and links between them, is create a new set of links. You could think of each google search page as a hub that gathers all related links together. Each search page is a crossroads or intersection. And just like at real intersections, there are billboards with ads though in Googles case is it adwords or adsense.
But that is an aside.
The important thing to realize is that each search page is acutally a web page in its own right. Each of these web pages has lots of links to different pages. The search term could be considered the title of each "search results page."
And because the web is constantly changing, each "search results" page changes with it.
Imagine if we could do something similiar with our brain, add something to it that would make it easier to access different points of information within the brain.
Imagine learning a set of movements. The memory of those movements can be stored in the brain but doing those movements also involves the parts of the brain involved in motor control and processing sensory information.
Imagine doing movements that involve the whole body. These movements would then affect most of the motor control center of the brain, particularly if the movements are well defined and precise. They would also affect the "sensing" center of your brain, particular if you focus on feeling or sensing what you are doing, say to make sure that you are doing the movements correctly.
Imagine that there are always more movements to learn and that these movements build up on each other. You can continue learning more and more movements. But these movements are all related to each other and so "connected."
Now because the brain stores information piecemeal, here a bit, their a bit, the more movements you learn the more of a network you create within your brain. While this network stores information on the movements and how to do them it may also be adjacent to other bits of information. The more movements you learn, the bigger the network you create and the more relationships you create between bits of information stored in your brain.
And here it should be noted that google doesn't sort the web itself. It creates and organizes links to information wherever it is stored.
If pieces of information were towns or cities or even small homes in the countryside, Google creates both the roads and the maps to get to those places.
The result is a google equivalent in your brain.
The experience? Improved creativity, faster thinking, and better motor control (balance, coordination).
Of course since this is "the dance of shiva website" (or you are reading this via the phase space newsletter) and so it should make sense that the exercise that defrags your brain (or googlefies it) is shivanata. Also known as the dance of shiva.
Shivanata is a movement system that consists of positions and movements between those positions. Positions involve the arms and the legs. You balance on one leg while moving the other leg and both arms.
There are 64 hand positions with 64 possible movements from each of those hand positions. That's a lot of movements. Plus there are 8 possible leg movements added on. And once you 've learned the basic movements you can then focus on learning sequences of movements.
Can these affect the brain?
I'm going to say yes. And in more ways than one.
Google has two main processes (at least for the purpose of this article.) It searches the web and categorizes. Then it accesses that information and gives it to you when ever you type in a search term.
The first process is a sort of problem solving or putting together a jigsaw type of process. It requires evaluation and could be thought of as a learning process. Google is taking the web into itself and building a copy of the web inside of itself.
(Indeed that was one of the two founders original ideas, to download the entire web.)
Whenever we are problem solving what we are actually doing is learning. We learn how something works or should work, and then we find out what is causing it not to work. We can then go about fixing the problem. In the process we learn about what we are working on.
Part of the learning may be in how to break things down so that it is easier to understand.
What's the problem that google deals with? An ever expanding web. And so it looks at the web and each new part, takes it in and "understands it". Breaking it down into little bits that can then be recombined to provide an answer tailored to your specific search term.
This is kind of like consulting an expert in marketing or leadership or sex. Each one has experience in their particular field which means that they've encountered problems and solved them. And they use that experience to help you while getting paid in return. Google is the expert on where everything is on the web. And it uses that expertise to help you find what you are looking for.
If you've ever learned the multiplication tables you know, without thinking, that 12 x 12 is 24.. oops I mean 144.
If you've ever tried learning a foreign language you've experienced having to think about how to say thinks. That is as opposed to not having to think about what we say when we are using our native language.
One way that you can differentiate functions of the brain is thinking (problem solving) and doing.
What's the difference? Thinking is an internal process that doesn't involve the body. Doing is an external process that involves processing sensory information as well as controlling the parts of the body.
When you've learned something physical or mental, when you've solved the problem so that what you have learned is a part of yourself, you don't have to think to do. instead you can focus on using your senses and controllng your body.
That's flowing.
It's like learning a calculus technique and letting yourself go through a set of problems easily because you know the process. Instead you can watch your pen move across the paper while you watch yourself solve the problems.
In this case the initial problem might have been the skill involved in a particular type of math technique. Once you've learned the technique you can solve math problems relatively easily. You can flow through them.
Likewise, say that you learn a set of tai ji moves.
At one point you have to think "does my arm go here or here? No it goes there."
But once you've learned you don't think instead your observe your body making minor corrections here and there and instead of stopping when you make a mistake you go continue, making a note of that mistake for next time or for individual attention.
When you think how fast google sends out its search results, that gives you an idea of the speed of flow. It happens "now" because google has done all of the sorting before hand. The information is all nicely indexed and all it has to do is thow up a web page with your search results.
(Google isn't just the name of a search engine, it is also a process. Just "google" it.)
The nice thing about google is that it throws up a bunch of related links to pages and those pages have links to other pages. And it does it in less than a few seconds because it has done the problem solving part before hand. It has taken the time to learn the web and it continues to learn the web, staying up to date on the latest changes.
Lets say you learn this exercise called dance of shiva. And you keep on learning more and more new stuff, while at the same time learning other new stuff (in other words living life.)
What you may be creating is a sort of network of links that are information in and of themselves but because of their proximity to other pieces of information in the brain are also links to other pieces of information.
Personally I think that dreams are a result of the way information is stored in our brain. One think leads to another "how the hell did I get from here to there." but a similiar thing can happen in waking dreams or daydreaming. You might be walking along thinking about one thing (perhaps the motor mechanics of walking are stored close to other body related memories and you all of a sudden get an inspiration on how to do a partciular movmenet or exercise that has been bothering your for a while. in my case a particular sword movement.)
This may happen in any sufficiently sophisticated movement system if you work at constantly upgrading and improving your skills.
In dance of shiva, this affect may be magnified because it focuses on symetrical and balanced movements that require precision and also push the boundaries of limitation for body parts.
Plus it involves synchronized and simultaneous controled movements of three limbs at the same time all while balancing on one leg.
The first part of "googling" ourselves and learning the dance of shiva can be learning positions movements individually. This would be like looking at individual websistes. You explore and learn each new movements till it is a part of you... till you could throw that movement up on a search page lickety split.
Then you can add that movement to other movements (the same way that google "adds" search terms together).
The nice thing about the dance of shiva is that there is always more room to grow. As a result you can continually work at keeping the parts of your brain connected. And the nice thing is that you'll be improving and maintaining balance, coordination and training your brain and body at the same time.
Make Learning Easier with Movement Memory Maps
Join the Think Clear email list and learn the basics of thinking clearly and how to practice it. You'll also get a free copy of the dance of shiva beginners guide.