Brain power

This morning I thought to ask BH about something from the distant past, perhaps 30 years ago. She could not answer on the spot, but she announced that she had told her brain about the matter and fully expected the answer to pop out in a day or so, thus demonstrating impressive control over the workings of her subconscious mind. Putting it to work, as it were.

I associate to two phenomena of the same sort.

First, a climber instructor who told us that when out in the wild, he knocked his head on the pillow an appropriate number of times before going to sleep, and this would serve as an alarm clock, waking him up at the intended hour. I forget whether he knocked his head for the number of elapsed hours or for the time of day that he wanted to wake up. What would be really cool would be if his brain could manage either trick, on demand.

Second, it fairly often happens that I give up tired on some problem in the evening, deferring it to the next day. And then waking up the next day with the problem more or less solved.

Which might point to a reason for having consciousness: it enables us to put stakes in the ground, telling the brain where it is to go.

From where I further associate to the everyday sporting phenomenon, of a sportsman being able to consciously initiate then unconsciously execute some tricky command, like kicking a football into a bucket which is 20 metres away, a trick I think I have seen performed, on a video clip that is, by a Premier League footballer. Possibly David Beckham. All he needs to do is to decide to do it; his brain and body can then take over. A story complicated by the fact that I dare say that such a trick requires a great deal of practise, practise which would be under much more conscious control.

PS: Mettler Toledo, mentioned at reference 1, still think it is worth putting an advertisement my way this morning. After a bit of fiddling, I got past the automatic divert to their Leicester operation and got through to their corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, from where they offer a huge range of laboratory equipment. Maybe some of it is even made in Leicester. Maybe this visit to their site will keep the advertisements coming for a few weeks yet. But I leave what will happen when third party cookies (aka tracking cookies) come to an end, probably some time next year, for another day.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-miscellany-for-friday.html.

Reference 2: https://www.mt.com/us/en/home.html.