Today I was eating lunch with my good friend Chuck who has known me for a long time. As we were chatting over yakisoba and sushi, I held up my hand making a small circle with my thumb and index finger. "That's about the size of the rational part of my brain," I said. We both laughed, as we know that I tend to thrive on risk-taking rather than rational behavior. Then Chuck said something that really got me thinking. "Ah, rational, there's an app for that."
He's right. There is an app for that.
In fact one could argue that a good portion of our brain's duties are being replaced by software and hardware. Who remembers a phone number anymore? How about your second cousin's birthday? Or even an appointment? We have programs that take in that information and remind us as needed. And while we often talk about this phenomenon as if it were negative, it may in fact benefit us.
I mean, what happens when we are freed to use our time and energy on things other than remembering data points (which by the way computers are much better at than humans). Do we apply ourselves to more complex problem, problems which require elements of emotion (which humans are better at than computers)?
Essentially, computers give us more processing power back to use as we wish. How are you going to use yours? Just a random thought for a rainy friday afternoon.
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