How do our memories work?

How our brains record and recall memories is quite a complex matter to the extent that I'm not sure whether scientists fully understand yet how our memories function.

Given the fact that all the cells in our body are constantly regenerating (all cells die to be replaced by new ones,) I find it counter-intuitive that we have the ability to store 50-year-old memories in cells and about a body that weren't even around 50 years ago. While I'm sure this happens because the memories are passed around between cells, but what I find interesting is that the body/cell substance that we were in our memories is not the same body/cell substance we are today. This means that we are not the substance of our bodies, we are our memories.

Imagine what life would be like without memories? We would constantly be like newborn infants, having to learn everything from scratch. We wouldn't know how to talk, walk, eat or do anything that we've learned to do since we were born. Everything important to us would not exist. No family, no friends, nothing we like or dislike. There could be no comparisons, no interpretation, because for all those things we rely on recalling things from our memories. I think it is fair to say that we are our memories.

Let us now reexamine life from the perspective of memory. As we age, we experience certain memory loss. Some memories fall away and others remain. If we are our memories, then some of us is lost with age.

There is a Jewish law that states that he who forgets what he has learned is considered as if it had cost him his life. Our memories are our life, losing them is in effect like losing our life.

How can we hold onto our memories and minimize natural memory loss?

Perhaps one way is by not having too many memories. The more we try to remember, the more we end up forgetting. The same Jewish law suggests reviewing what you have learned over and over again in order to retain the memory and prevent its loss.

Hence, perhaps it should be suggested that if we spent less time collecting new ideas and experiences and more time revisiting, reinforcing, and re-experiencing our past memories, we would lose less life in the long run. On the other hand, we would also have less life to lose. At the very least this should leave us with something to think about with regard to all the useless information we consume in this age of digital information overload!

Gyroscopes and Angular Momentum

The counter-intuitive nature of these neat little balancing spinning tops can be quite fascinating and useful.

Come to think of it, nowadays, not only do airplanes use them to keep from rolling, they're installed into our iphones and ipod touches as well, to power all that tilt recognition technology.

But there are also all these cool counter-intuitive inventions that you can make from them (although I don't know how useful this one really is practically speaking).

So, if you never understood how segways balanced on just one wheel, I guess by now you should have kinda figured it out.

What do these paintings have in common?

What do all the above pictures share in common?

They are all mouth and foot paintings, created by people with disabilities! (see hundreds more here)

We marvel at people with disabilities who are capable of accomplishing remarkable feats. But could it be that a deficiency in one area can mean an efficiency in another? Does a deaf person have a stronger disposition to the sense of sight? Do the blind have a heightened sensitivity to touch?

We humans are finite beings, we have limited energy and limited capacity to experience the world around us. But when we are faced with an incapacity in an area that others generally are not, do we get to focus our energy on developing another capacity and become unusually talented in that area?

The following video segment introduces Derek Paravicini, a blind and autistic individual who has developed a remarkable ability for processing musical sound:

Groupthink

Several days ago, I posted about the wisdom of the crowd, how larger numbers of people tend to be more accurate as a group than even bright individuals independent of the group.

There is a somewhat reverse phenomenon that psychologists have dubbed "groupthink." Groupthink is when the wisdom of group consensus is valued over individual critical evaluation. Not only is group consensus not always wise, sometimes it can be catastrophic. The following video points to the presence of groupthink in the catastrophic explosion of space shuttle Challenger on December 28, 1986.

So, how do you decide when you are better off following the crowd and when is it potentially harmful to do so?

I would say, when it's a guess, follow the crowd, but when the decision involves expertise, listen to the experts. The wisdom of the crowd is after all somewhat counterintuitive.

Yes, We All Like to Follow the Flock

We pride ourselves of being independent thinkers. We also demonstrate our need for approval from others in society. Well, what happens when we put independent thinking up against conformity? Do we do what we think is right? Or do we follow the masses?

We might know what is right, but the following experiment seems to indicate that we will still do whatever we see everyone else appears to be doing, as counter-intuitive as it may appear, even when we know it is wrong.

Ring Around the Earth, Plus Some

A timeless puzzle:

Imagine you have a rope with a perfect length to wrap snuggly around a perfectly spherical earth (the circumference of earth is approximately 24,859.82 miles (40,008 km)). Now imagine the length of the rope is extended just 10 feet and again wrapped around the earth (supported so it keeps it tautness and doesn't fall).

What is the size of the gap between the earth and the rope?

If you haven't heard about this before or run the math, you'd probably think an extra 10-feet would make no noticeable difference to a rope wrapped around the entire circumference of the globe. But, guess what?

Just an extra 12 feet on almost 25,000 miles would be 1.6 feet off the ground around the entire circumference of the globe.

To make things even stranger, compare that with a string pulled tight around the circumference of a baseball and then extend it by 10 feet. Surprise! It would also be 1.6 feet off the ground. Counterintuitive, but true.

Here's how to do the math:

The Braess Paradox: When Faster becomes Slower

About two years ago, New York Times reported on Mayor Bloomberg's decision to close Broadway to vehicles to ease traffic. The problem was it only eased traffic by about 4% which was much less than the 17% projected.

But why would closing the most effective route to cut diagonally across Manhattan ease traffic?

Counterintuitive as it may seem, closing the most efficient route is often a good way to ease traffic. This occurs when it is clearly the shortest route to take so all drivers wanting to take the shortest route (basically everyone) will end up taking it. This is caused by creating a disturbance to the equilibrium that exists when you to have two equidistant routes to get from point A to point B and the drivers split rather equally between the available routes. The principle is called the Braess Paradox.

To quote Wikipedia:

"Braess's paradox, credited to the mathematician Dietrich Braess, states that adding extra capacity to a network when the moving entities selfishly choose their route, can in some cases reduce overall performance."

Are humans really all that much smarter than apes?

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, in this fascinating learning interaction between man and ape, it appears apes have quite a keen skill for picking up language.

I mean, responding to a verbal command, could you find the image on the touchscreen from such a wide selection much faster than the ape in this clip does?

Greatness=Genius, Luck, Hard Work, or All Three?

Malcolm Gladwell, the king of counter-intuitive observation and reporting, in his book "Outliers," outlines what he sees to be the path to success.

The first interesting observation he makes is that a lot of the success out there has to do with fate, simply being in the right place at the right time.

For example, if you were born in January, February, or March, you are much more likely to be a professional athlete than if, say, you were born in September to December. Why? Simply because as a child you were more likely to be chosen to be on a team and have access to special training and be motivated to do more practice than kids born later in the year. Why is this? Because December 31st is the arbitrarily chosen cutoff date to make the team in a given year, being born earlier in the year gives you the age advantage to outperform other children in your year and be given access to the chance to become great.

This is the type of observations Gladwell is well known for making, however, in this book, Gladwell takes a different spin on the theme. He posits that fate alone does not make people great. He discusses how social advantage can be shaped by your cultural background. I.e. a whole bunch of things that are unique about your history that lead to you be in the right community, at the right time, in the right place to be more likely to become great in a given area.

However, all of these ideas have to do with matters that are out of your control. One observation that we can influence is the observation psychologists made that people who are great masters in their field are shaped by 10,000 hours of practice and apprenticeship (usually over the course of 10 years). Apparently these 10,000 hours are inescapable. All great people had to do 10,000 hours of real hard work and practice (usually learning from a master) to become really good.

The moral of the story is, even if you are a genius, if you want to become really good at what you do and make it as a master in your field, then you've got to put in the hours and years of hard work and practice.

Another detail I enjoy is the notion that some communities have a much higher rate of people cashing in on their talents, putting in the hard work, and making it to the top. So if you were born into such a community, you don't have a head start, but you have the conditions that make it more likely to put the petal to the metal, do those hours, and possibly become great.

One word of caution. While Gladwell is intriguing and entertaining, we should not loose site of the fact that he is a journalist by profession. That means he spins stories to make them sound more sell-able than they really are. While it is fun to keep his observations in mind and share them with others, I haven't found the ideas in his books very useful in practice. Perhaps someone can share how they have found his ideas useful in a practical sense.

Here is a SHORT interview with Gladwell talking about his book:

And here's a much LONGER one:

The Wisdom of the Crowd

I've always questioned the value of a democratic system. While from the liberal egalitarian perspective of allowing each man to have a say in the affairs of his community, the one-man-one-vote ideal seems only right. However, from the perspective of making wise decisions on policies involving national security, welfare, healthcare, taxation, the economy and national infrastructure, it would appear that such decisions should be left to the top two percent of intelligent society to make.

Why should an uneducated man with a low IQ and poor judgement be given the opportunity to choose who will hold the button to a nuclear detonator? In a sense, it appears like the democratic system could lead to disastrous outcomes. Why is it so virtuous? What is the logic behind it?

The following entertaining video demonstrates the wisdom of the crowd, how sheer numbers create a self-correcting mechanism with utmost precision and ingenuity unlike anything the wisest of individuals can conceive of singlehandedly. Enjoy!

How different is our thinking?

It can be said that no two people think alike. What is counter-intuitive is just how far reaching this can be. We can have one picture in our head and when we communicate that picture to another, a completely different picture can emerge in their mind.

In addition to things appearing the way we would like them to to appear (based on our past experiences and preferences), there is also a difference in the way we perform certain basic brain-functions, like counting.

Starting from 1:40 in the following video, Richard Feynman recounts an interesting discovery he made.

Richard discovered that he counts by imagining audible voices in his head, thus he was able to train himself to count and read simultaneously (two different brain functions), however he couldn't count and talk simultaneously.

He subsequently met a mathematics professor who was able to count and talk simultaneously, but couldn't count and read. As it turns out, this mathematics professor would count by reading the numbers, thus he couldn't count and read (multiple instances of the same brain function).

This difference between people in such a basic function as counting I find to be quite counter-intuitive (and Richard is also a pleasure to listen to). So enjoy!

It's All in the Vantage Point

In this two minute commercial, Samsung brilliantly demonstrates how reality can play with our intuitions depending upon the vantage point it is experienced from. Not completely counter-intuitive, but fun and surprising nonetheless.

Racial Experiment: Man Stealing Bike in Park

This is more about people's surprising intuitions than counter-intuitions, but I find it rather interesting, as I'm sure you do, to see how people reacted so differently to the different actors. I personally find the experiment not to be so reliable because, apart from the racial difference, the second actor was better at acting the part of a criminal, openly admitted to a crime, and was dressed with oversize clothing more like you would expect from an unruly fellow (although technically they were both wearing the same types of clothing).

What are your thoughts on this fascinating experiment?

To Decide or to Not Decide, That is the Choice

The following chart illustrates the gross disparity in percentages of the population who consent to donate their organs in European countries:

Why the big gap? (70%)

The obvious answer lies in the way the question is posed. If the population is asked to opt-in to donate their organs, the results end up looking like the countries in yellow, but if the population is asked to opt-out if they do not wish to donate their organs, you end up with statistics similar to the countries portrayed in blue.

Why is this?

This is seemingly counter-intuitive as it implies that people are generally not all that concerned whether or not they donate their organs. Is this true? You would think it would mean a great deal to people whether or not they donated their organs.

The answer is a surprising one. It turns out that we humans have difficulty dealing with complex problems. When we don't have what to base our decisions on, we opt out of making the decisions altogether, even when the decisions mean so much to us.

Ever find yourself procrastinating about making a decision? Often this is because we simply don't know what to base our decisions on!

Mpemba Effect (AKA hot water freezes faster than cold water)

Aristotle wrote:

"The fact that the water has previously been warmed contributes to its freezing quickly: for so it cools sooner. Hence many people, when they want to cool hot water quickly, begin by putting it in the sun. So the inhabitants of Pontus when they encamp on the ice to fish (they cut a hole in the ice and then fish) pour warm water round their reeds that it may freeze the quicker, for they use the ice like lead to fix the reeds"

Meteorology 1, part 12

Surprisingly, this wasn't observed or documented in modern scientific works until a thirteen-year-old Tanzanian middle-school student named Erasto Barthlomeo Mpemba made an observation in cookery classes that hot ice-cream mixes froze faster than cold ones. After reporting this to his physics teacher and then to a visiting professor from Dar Es Salaam, the observation was confirmed and published in 1969.

Besides for this appearing to be counter-intuitive and contrary to thermodynamics, it is even more surprising that there is still no single conclusive scientific explanation (although several physical theory effects do contribute to the phenomenon including conduction, evaporation, convection and dissolved gases).

At first glance, I would think this might be a function of less molecular density in the warmer substance that would contribute more surface area for the cold air to freeze the water and although it cools gradually and also reaches the temperature of the colder water at some point, which would mean a slower cooling rate and should give the cool water a head-start advantage over the warmer water, somehow (this is where I get stuck), the initial freezing effect continues at the faster rate similar to the rate it started cooling at and becomes frozen before the cooler water that starts out at a slower freezing rate.

Anyway, several people, looking for a moment of internet fame, decided to throw some hot water or coffee into the air to demonstrate the effect. They're all over youtube, here's one example:

Do Incentives Really Motivate Us?

The truth is they don't get us to do better or faster work (for creative activities at least).

And on the Topic of Quantum Mechanics...Let's Not Forget...

Everything Doesn't Really Exist

At least in the sense that we tend to think it does.

This is probably the one reality that is most counter-intuitive, yet something we live with all the time. It is the big illusion that is reality itself. All matter is really just empty space (99.999999999% empty space). If so, we should be able to walk through walls, but thanks to the electromagnetic forces in our body and the wall, we're repelled from being able to walk right through. So were it not for a kind of magnetic force, we would be able to walk right through the wall, or fall right through the chair for that matter.

Oh, and the food we eat, there's very little of it there either, it's mainly just some electricity that we digest.

Pay-What-You-Want: The Way of the Future

Is it possible that all retail stores will one day become non-for-profit charitable institutions, offering products for a suggested donation without insisting on payment? Who knows what the future may hold!

Not only are very few people willing to take free money being handed out on the street (too suspicious), many are willing to overpay for meals when they aren't required to pay anything at all.

One year after Panera Bread Co. launched its St. Louis pay-what-you-want restaurant (one of three of its kind in their nationwide chain of 1500), they are finding that it actually works.

Contrary to suggested predictions of this NY Times article, posted around the time of the store's launch, Panera seems to have figured it out. The article lists other such establishments that have found it rather challenging to keep their doors open, particularly in communities with many teens and others looking to take advantage.

However, statistics provided by Panera indicate that roughly 60 percent of customers leave the suggested amount; 20 percent leave more; and 20 percent less. One person paid $500 for a meal, the largest single payment.

It appears that offering food for a suggested donation brings in about the same amount of revenue as charging for it, and you get the benefit of doing good. The poor get to pay what they can for meal they couldn't ordinarily afford, allowing them to dine with the rich while saving them the disgrace of openly being on the receiving end of charity. It also gives customers the ability to help the poor when buying their own food. A true win-win situation.

If this is a glimpse into the future, there is hope for mankind after all.

BEWARE: Too Much Water Can Kill You!

I've heard it stated that too much of anything can kill you, even too much water can kill you, but I never imagined that there are people who actually died from drinking water. In this article from Scientific American:

• A 28-year-old California woman died after competing in a radio station's on-air water-drinking contest and downing some six liters of water in three hours.
• In 2005 a fraternity hazing at California State University, Chico, left a 21-year-old man dead after he was forced to drink excessive amounts of water between rounds of push-ups in a cold basement.
• A 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that close to one sixth of marathon runners develop some degree of hyponatremia, or dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water (dilution meaning insufficient salt in the blood).
• Too much water in the blood can eventually cause swelling of the cells, and in the brain, where there is little extra room for swelling, that can spell death.

And to think it's water we're talking about!

To put it into perspective, you can't kill yourself by holding your breath, but you can kill yourself by drinking water! And come to think of it, I'm kinda feeling thirsty right now, but don't worry, I'm not feeling the least bit suicidal.

What the Color?

All the time we program our brains to make automatic assumptions about the way things are. This helps us process thoughts quicker, however, we can also get caught off guard when we just assume things are a certain way.

Try reciting the colors of the words in this image aloud, but do so real quick...

The Monty Hall Problem

If you are not already familiar with the Monty Hall Problem, here it is:

It appears like this is a fraud. I find it difficult to believe how it became so popular.

The confusion in the argument is that it doesn't consider the dynamic of time.

The moment something changes effecting the probability of the outcome, the entire decision should be reconsidered.

While it is true that at the time when the initial choice was presented and the first door was chosen, the odds of that door belonging to the car is 1/3. However, the moment the host opened a door to reveal a goat, the original decision must be reconsidered as the odds of the door chosen hiding the car are now 1/2. Therefore, it should make absolutely no difference if you remain with your original decision (which now has a 1/2 chance of belonging to the car) or switch (which also has a 1/2 chance of hiding the car).

Why do so many people fall for it? Can someone please explain?

As per Eli's suggestion (in the comments) I experimented with this here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/science/08monty.html

here are my results:

but I can't see the programming, so it's not really a perfect experiment.

Here's the explanation provided there, for the first time it's beginning to make some sense:

"If your strategy is to always switch doors, you will lose only if your initial choice is the door with the car, which is a 33.3 percent chance. In the other two cases (66.7 percent of the time) you will switch to the car and walk away a winner."

In other words, sequence makes all the difference. After you have made a 1/3 chance choice, the game show host points you closer toward the more likely option by showing you which of the remaining two it is not.

Why do the odds of "not switching" not change now that one of the doors hiding the goats has been revealed? Why is it that if someone were to come and make a fresh choice with one door open revealing a goat and two doors closed one hiding a car and one hiding a goat, the options would be equal?

Consider it from this perspective: The game show host had to open a door revealing a goat. There is a 2/3 chance that you limited his choice to one door (if you chose a door with either of the two goats you would be forcing him to reveal the only other door with a goat), so there is a 2/3 chance that he revealed the other door with a goat, making it a 1/3 chance that you win if you stay with your choice but a 2/3 chance to win the car if you switch.

If you are presented with a first choice with one door open already revealing a goat, then your chances are 50/50, since there is no 2/3 chance that you forced the host to open the door with that goat and he could have just as well opened the door with the other goat.