As some of my columns go I didn’t expect to write a column when I was just fiddling around on my computer. And thinking.
So I wrote up a little ditty about thinking. (Other stuff coming: a review on my Queen records and something about a Mixtape. And don’t forget my recent P.J {Proby review, a character indeed.)
Keep thinking folks!
Do our brains have an infinite number of thoughts?
By Mike Oliver | moliver@al.com
Think about it.
When you are forming a thought you could go in a million directions. Or, maybe an infinite number of directions.
I’m thinking right now of the beach. I’m thinking of the emerald blue water and white sugar sand, I’m thinking of lotion, and sunburn. I’m thinking about the coronavirus. I’m thinking of a story I read about two cats in different parts of New York who got the coronavirus.
“I wonder if dolphins get the disease,” I think. Stop!
Stop these thoughts, I’ve got to finish this column.
So think about it: Do we have an infinite number of thoughts?
No, you say?
When you die, your brain dies so that would end the thoughts, you aver. Therefore, the number of thoughts a person has is finite.
But wait a minute, what if we are talking about everybody’s brain, not just a brain. Or, let’s suppose we are immortal and the universe is infinite. Seems like we would have, or be capable of having, an endless number of thoughts?
Google receives 63,000 searches per second.
Of those searches, 15 percent have never been searched on Google, according to the SEOtribunal.com, which I found using Google. Never? Never!
That’s an astounding number of new queries if you think about it. That’s 229 million per hour and 15 percent would mean that 34 million Google searches each hour are searches that have never been made before.
Like, I just Googled: “Do dolphins get the coronavirus?” The answer is yes so it probably has been searched. OK, new search: “Given that dolphins do get the disease how far is a safe distance from an infected dolphin firing off snot through its blowhole? Well, 100 yards is the immediate answer, I think Google has had that one too. (So, you can see it’s hard to come up with something new to search.)
Moving on, I believe there may be an infinite number of thoughts.
I would like to see if that 15 percent of searches number holds steady over the years.
I’m dipping my toe, here, into the ‘infinite monkeys theorem.’ You know the one: If you give an infinite number of monkeys a typewriter and teach them to mash keys at random, the monkeys would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare (or maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs). It’s true, in theory.
So I started wandering down this path of thought, when I was reminded of a measurement I do know.
And that is: The human brain has 100 billion brain cells.
I have Lewy body dementia and it kills brain cells.
But think about our mindpower. There are 7.5 billion people on Earth with (maybe) an infinite number of thoughts.
There are thoughts leading-to-questions-leading-to-cures for my condition, for Parkinson’s, for Alzheimer’s for cancer, and, yes, COVID-19.
So think people. Think.
And use Google when necessary.
Mike Oliver is an opinion columnist who writes about living with Lewy body dementia and other topical issues. Read his blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com.
Thinking story also published in AL.com w/ photos and videos.