There have been quite a lot of similar news posts about researches and other papers available about how the worse creation of God was, as a comparison to that of the creation of His creation. Some news suggest that the brain is no good compared to a CPU. The funny part about this is that most of these authors are from Universities, playing their much vital (and respectful) role as a professor in psychology or computer science sections. I know, it is a great way to inspire people and gain recognition by giving away a thesis paper or a post with a “Science research” tag on it, most engaging I believe.
But we’re actually missing many things. Our computer machines were built right on the base of our body; human anatomy I am talking about. What do you think made the pioneers call a CPU, the brain of a computer? All of the underlying concept sand functionality are similar. It is only the broader look of the machine that attracts you to the goodness of machines. I have not yet quite possibly seen any difference until now. Let us walk through a quite scenarios to talk about the differences, or more specifically the similarities of a brain to a CPU, a computer’s brain.
What Multitasking is
It would be better to first define the term Multitasking itself before going on to a comparison of what they are in a brain and a CPU. Multitasking is a term coined by computing, in which different (or quite generally and possibly) processes or functions or programs are executed (or performed) simultaneously (concurrently at the same time). You can use the example of this in your modern graphical user-interface based operating systems, where you can run different software at the same time without having to worry about the underlying stuff, such as memory management or clock ticks by the CPU. An Operating system does all of this stuff for us, all we must do is, click on the program to run another program.
At a broader level
Now that the actual concept of multitasking has been shared, it is time to judge a brain’s capability to that of a CPU’s. Let us first talk about the broader level of comparison.
A brain, well; let me talk about my brain when I am writing this article.. I am listening to Eminem’s Rap God; awesome song by the way, I am writing this article, I am also chatting with 2 friends of mine and yeah I am also having another article in the queue for code reuse. All of these right at the very same time. I am not being puzzled, neither am I tripping or losing the grip from any of these processes; especially that Eminem’s song process. Now let me talk about CPU, my CPU (Intel i5) is performing, well many underlying process. But I will talk about those that I am running (because the brain also manages the blood, body temperature, sensors and all and I won’t try to count them similarly to the OS-based processes that are not relevant here), such as I am installing the Android SDK, I am playing the music, I am writing this article and I am also having that other article stored and waiting for me to get back onto it and complete it.
From this preceding paragraph, it is clear to see that at a broader level of comparison, they’re totally alike. There is no difference among any of them, and you can say a CPU works as brain.
At a micro level
Now let us talk about what happens at a micro level in both of these objects; CPU and brain. We all know, most of the devices (more specifically CPUs) can execute one command at a time; it can be better described by the machine cycle, that is:
Multitasking in Our Brain, Can it be Compared to a Computer?
12 Comments
Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.
Sign in to leave a comment
It is the same account you read, post and publish with — and you will come straight back to this page.
Ehsan SajjadPosted Feb 22, 2016, 2:38 PM
very nice
Prakash TripathiPosted Apr 24, 2015, 1:47 AM
I agree with Mahesh here. Our mind is not meant to do multitasking by core. ONE TASK AT A TIME. Multi-threading is good for CPUs and not for humans :)
Safayat ZisanPosted Apr 23, 2015, 7:33 AM
Great thinking
Gowtham RajamanickamPosted Apr 21, 2015, 2:46 AM
great
Mahesh ChandPosted Mar 22, 2015, 11:36 PM
This is good conversation guys. I'm sure there are/had some extraordinary brains they have done that. That is why they are not "ordinary". I work with many young guys, startups, business owners and what I see is, they are everywhere. They are doing multiple things and get their hands everywhere. I was like that. This is where the problem lies. If you want to be successful at one thing, you must focus on that 100%, period. If you're doing it half here and half somewhere else, chances of it getting successful are very limited. I also believe that human mind is very powerful and scientists say that an average person use only 10% of their brain. That is how powerful a human brain can be. But all the power (I've read many books on Indian philosophy, yogis, their power) comes from focus. Your brain becomes more powerful when you're more focused, not when you multitask :)
RakeshPosted Mar 22, 2015, 9:20 PM
Well, some people think that their brain is capable of doing multitasking, I agree, but this doesn't work all the times, we will definitely loss the grip from any of the tasks,..For example, We all can listen to billboard top 100 by just sitting in our couch , having coffee and checking mails in laptop, But we can't text while running, Can we? A few days ago I read an article "Focus: Key to Success" by Mahesh Chand. It was really great article, It says we should pay attention to only one thing at a time for better result. If human brain is really capable of doing multitasking, then there would no such words ("Concentrate" "Focus" "Disturbance" "Interrupt" "Nuisance" "Rest", "Pay attention") in English dictionary. I remember the sentence my mom always says "I don't have 20 hands, I am a human being" :) Yes,she is right. We can't compare human brain with a thing called computer which was invented by a Human :)
Mahesh ChandPosted Mar 22, 2015, 6:33 PM
Interesting thoughts. Here are some of my thoughts on multitasking. Keep in mind, I am not a Neuroscientist or an expert on human brain. These are just my personal thoughts :). .. Human mind is definitely capable of multitasking. Multitasking is doing multiple tasks by a single processor. The same processor is being shared one by one multiple tasks. For example, I usually do three tasks - TV is on (I am listening), drinking tea, while writing article on my laptop. My brain is single processor but doing multitasking and from time to time switching activities. It is totally different than multi-processing where there are multiple processors and each processor is executing different instructions. However, in a recent article I wrote, thought was, are we more productive as doing a single task or multitask. From the history of human kind, literature, and the culture I grew up in, main focus had always been the focus. Teachings were always (with proofs) that if you focus 100% on one task, you're more likely to get it done better and effectively. Think of this way, if our brain could do multitasking effectively, I am sure there will be no warnings of "Do not text while you drive". OR I could be writing articles while sleeping. Just some thoughts :)
Sam HobbsPosted Mar 22, 2015, 5:00 PM
In this age of multicore processors young people might have lost touch with the fact that single-core processors can do multitasking. But let us back up a bit. Do we even know whether the brain is digital or analog or possibly something else? Can you prove the brain is digital? Many people talk about neural networks. I do not know much about them but they seem to be more analog than digital. Digital computers can emulate neural networks however. I think a better example of a person doing multitasking is an American-style Football player. Imagine being tossed a ball. The receiver must watch where he is going, watch the ball, watch the other players, move his arms and hands and legs and do other things, all at once.