Thought patterns and random analysis
Thinking about thinking is one of my new favorite pastimes.
Our roommate recently moved out, and I was trying to set up some furniture in our now vacate office/guest bedroom. The only problem was the nuts and bolts.
Nearly a year ago when I had last used this furniture, I had put away a bag of the nuts and bolts that had been, um, vital to their operation. Now I had to find this bag. As I was not too stressed out, I got really interested in seeing how my brain would process through this mystery.
First thought: All right, a bag I had a year ago. Did I bring the bag over to Tim's a year ago, or did I leave it at his parents?
Answer: I left it at his parents until September when I moved in. Then I definitely had it here. I have seen it in this room. So it's in the condo.
Second thought: Have I seen it recently?
Answer: No.
Third thought: So it's somewhere in the condo that I don't often look. Where don't I often look?
Fourth thought: My mother always used to say "If you want to find it, start cleaning."
I found it about 5 minutes later. The whole system seemed to work pretty well. Start cleaning, continue to think of places, check them, continue cleaning. I always wondered about this cleaning system of my mother's. I used to think it was a ploy to get me to clean, now I think there's some definite advantage. Cleaning connects me to the house as a whole, makes me remember spots where I have put things in the past. The sensory advantages seem pretty acute, muscle memory is also a possibility. Somehow the act of cleaning highlights the routine motions I go through that I would otherwise forget. The wayward nuts and bolts were found in the broom closet, which was a pretty obvious place to have put them. I had forgotten we had one though, until I had to get a paper towel out of there.
I'm not sure where this fascination regarding cognition has come from lately, but I've been finding myself asking more and more people how they came to their conclusions. I think I've been hanging out with too many neuroscience folks, but who can really ever tell.
Our roommate recently moved out, and I was trying to set up some furniture in our now vacate office/guest bedroom. The only problem was the nuts and bolts.
Nearly a year ago when I had last used this furniture, I had put away a bag of the nuts and bolts that had been, um, vital to their operation. Now I had to find this bag. As I was not too stressed out, I got really interested in seeing how my brain would process through this mystery.
First thought: All right, a bag I had a year ago. Did I bring the bag over to Tim's a year ago, or did I leave it at his parents?
Answer: I left it at his parents until September when I moved in. Then I definitely had it here. I have seen it in this room. So it's in the condo.
Second thought: Have I seen it recently?
Answer: No.
Third thought: So it's somewhere in the condo that I don't often look. Where don't I often look?
Fourth thought: My mother always used to say "If you want to find it, start cleaning."
I found it about 5 minutes later. The whole system seemed to work pretty well. Start cleaning, continue to think of places, check them, continue cleaning. I always wondered about this cleaning system of my mother's. I used to think it was a ploy to get me to clean, now I think there's some definite advantage. Cleaning connects me to the house as a whole, makes me remember spots where I have put things in the past. The sensory advantages seem pretty acute, muscle memory is also a possibility. Somehow the act of cleaning highlights the routine motions I go through that I would otherwise forget. The wayward nuts and bolts were found in the broom closet, which was a pretty obvious place to have put them. I had forgotten we had one though, until I had to get a paper towel out of there.
I'm not sure where this fascination regarding cognition has come from lately, but I've been finding myself asking more and more people how they came to their conclusions. I think I've been hanging out with too many neuroscience folks, but who can really ever tell.
posted by bs king at 9:53 AM
2 Comments:
Mother knows best.
I had a fun one the other day where I'd forgotten the combination to my bike lock over the winter. I assumed - correctly - that if I just stared at the lock for a while, a pattern would resurrect itself in mind. Eventually, it did - first I got the first number, than the last one, than the two middle ones, but one of them was wrong - but as soon as it was wrong, I knew why it was wrong and what it was supposed to be.
I have a number of combination locks in my apartment I think I could figure out what they were with ten minutes of experimentation.
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