The Human Computer

Do you own a computer? If you do, you are probably aware of the many vivid qualities that make a computer what it is. What you may not be aware of, however, is that the personal computer is in many ways similar to the human brain. Perhaps this is the case because man, in constructing the computer, could not help but implement qualities into it that he himself possessed! Let this designate the nature of this writing.

Let us first discuss in detail the configuration of the human mind. There are two primary domains active within the human mind that we will examine: the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is the area of waking thought. We are mentally aware of everything that goes on within the conscious mind. The conscious mind is the element behind all mental calculation and cognitive thought. Having been introduced to the conscious mind, let us move on. To truly understand the role that the conscious mind plays in the operation of the human mind, we must be made familiar with the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the area where memory is stored. A record of our entire life, from the moment of our birth, is contained within the unconscious mind.

How, then, do the conscious and the unconscious mind interact to produce what we call a human being? It so happens, take note, that our best means of understanding the conscious and the unconscious minds lies in our understanding of how a personal computer works! Our goal, then, is not to give a full explanation of all components making up the personal computer, but is to address the components that apply to our topic of discussion. The two computer components of importance to our discussion, then, are RAM and hard disk space. A computer's RAM and hard disk space play key roles in a computer's operation. The first step in understanding these components is to be made aware that each component has a specific capacity for holding data. RAM holds very little data. Hard disk space, on the other hand, holds vast amounts of data. Is there a reason for this difference in size? Yes. The role of hard disk space is to store instructions. The role of RAM, on the other hand, is to execute instructions. This explains RAM's low capacity for holding data: RAM is designed to hold very little data because when you're carrying out instructions, you can handle only one set of instructions at any given time. Hard disk space is understandably large, on the other hand, because it contains records of every set of instructions that could ever be executed in RAM. This sets before us a clear picture of how a computer executes instructions: to execute a set of instructions, RAM simply loads the desired set of instructions from the library of instruction sets stored in hard disk space. In conclusion, RAM is as small as it is because the execution of instructions, quite clearly, is much more involved than the mere storage of instructions.

To understand how the conscious and the unconscious mind interact to produce what we call a human being, we need only relate the concepts of RAM and hard disk space to the human mind. RAM is the conscious mind. Hard disk space, in turn, is the unconscious mind. Just as hard disk space is large because its purpose is storage, the unconscious mind must be large in the sense that it must be large enough to hold a lifetime's worth of memories. The conscious mind, furthermore, operates much like RAM. The conscious mind, like RAM, is very small. The conscious and unconscious minds, then, in working together to produce a human being, do so in very much the same way RAM and hard disk space work together to make possible a computer's operation. Just as RAM's function is to execute instructions, the role of the conscious mind is cognitive thought. What determines what enters into the conscious mind?

Cognitive thought, first of all, is a very involved, very complex process - which is why the conscious mind is so small. Only a certain amount of information can 'fit' within the conscious mind at any given time - just as only one set of instructions can be handled by RAM at once. All information that enters into the conscious mind has its origin, of course, in the unconscious mind. How do we know what part of the unconscious mind is active in the conscious mind? The conscious mind selects a "chunk" out of the unconscious mind small enough to fit within the mental boundaries of the conscious mind - much like how RAM 'chooses' the desired set of instructions from hard disk space. As demonstrated, there is no part of the unconscious mind that the conscious mind can't access - it's simply a matter of the amount of information that the conscious mind can hold at any given time. Let this famiarize us with the very real similarity that exists between the personal computer and the human mind. As we've just been informed, the personal computer can in many ways be considered to be a mirror of what we perceive the processes of the human mind to be.