Sherwood Gainer  © all rights reserved
Just a Thought

I have a thought.

It’s not original or remarkable -- or even interesting.
But it’s what’s in my mind at this moment.

Apparently, thought is an electro-chemical change or state
involving connection among some brain cells called neurons.

Scientists can to emulate neurons with special circuits.
They are just beginning to create rudimentary neural networks that approximate thinking the way our minds do, but even the most advanced of these devices only mimics a small fraction of a human brain’s capability, and then only at an astronomical cost.

The real human mind is a marvel of information processing and storage.
We are generally unconscious of the part of the mind that is running and monitoring our bodies; breathing, maintaining body temperature, keeping optimal blood flow via heart rate, and so on. We use the rest for thinking, imagination and memories. Though even at peak times, we utilize only a tiny percent of its potential. Mostly we hardly use it at all.

My wife asks what I am thinking about

I try to recollect my thought, but it was too insignificant to retain. All I can muster is a vague feeling that it wouldn’t be worth any great effort to remember.

Still, my magnificent logic engine analyses the relative emptiness of my consciousness, weighs the appropriate response given the intended audience based on historic precident, and considers a score of other variables. It instantly translates this amalgam of information into suitable words, in the English language, following proper syntax and enough rules of grammar to be coherent and still fittingly casual.

Then effortlessly, the powerful gray matter orchestrates my breathing, the tension of my vocal chords, the shape of my mouth, and the position of my jaw. It precisely coordinates the movement of my tongue and lips – to form the audible answer.

“Nothing really,” I say