Saturday, September 27, 2008

Mental Faculties beyond my mental faculties

I once studied in pre-calculus these thingys called derivatives. They were the equations (or part of them) that helped solve a particular type of story problem. For instance, if a man were jogging along the shore of a lake at a pace of 5mph. and saw his buddy fishing from a boat in the lake, exactly 100yds away (line A), at what point (X) could the fisher meet the jogger along the route (line B) with out breaking the jogger's stride, assuming the boat can go 7mph.

I don't have the answer, but I used to be able to find it. What's amazing to me is that my brain does that simple calculation in milliseconds without my knowledge.

For instance: When I play soccer and a teammate across the field (line A) passes a ball (line B)that I have to run to (line C) to intercept (point X), my brain is capable, involuntarily, of calculating that in an instant. As soon as I see the ball moving, my brain evaluates the distance from myself, the angle and velocity in which it was kicked, and my own speed and plots my course for me. And that's not even mentioning the brain already working to control my breathing, heartbeat, balance, moving individual legs, etc...


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