[FRIAM] multitasking

[Marcus Daniels]

I think the claim that people can't multitask is simply that there is distinction between short and long term memory.
A computer can take an interrupt and retain and later restore its register file exactly.   This can happen thousands of times a second or years after a task suspension.  
If it happens too frequently, progress will slow, but it only with very, very small probability will it fail (e.g. power fluctuation or cosmic ray strike).   But at least I need to take a quite a bit of time to restore the narrative to resume a detailed task.  Usually I avoid doing so until I know I will be free of distractions.   Things that I can easily restore are practiced or easy or meatspace things.

Incidentally, for running it depends if it is intervals or not.   Below anaerobic threshold, I can almost forget I am running.   On a treadmill, I can watch TV but I don't watch anything with a complex plot or with lengthy dialogue because I miss words or space out for periods.   Above it, I pay attention to the pain.  :-) 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Tuesday, June 1, 2021 3:01 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] multitasking

Yes. When someone in a casual circle talks about multi-tasking, it's conscious-focus-of-attention tasks they seem to mean. One might even argue *that* conception of multi-tasking is a self-contradiction. You can't both focus and not focus. It begs us to ask what all these words actually mean ... which is why there's always *that guy* who has to jump in and man-splain everything to everyone.

When I used to run, I preferred rough terrain precisely because I can multi-task in Dave's sense. In fact, providing my body with the more complex task of running on and in between obstacles actually freed up my mind to think more clearly. Running on pavement never actually put me in the "flow". And running, say, around the track at the local high school was just pure torture.

But, all said and done, I'm happy for the *triggering*. It stimulates the vagus nerve! >8^D

On 6/1/21 2:04 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I think it is understood that multitasking is slow thinking, not the 
> stuff in the metaphorical FPGA.   Some people have weird and esoteric things in their FPGAs.
> 
>  
> 
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David 
> West
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 1, 2021 2:00 PM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* [FRIAM] multitasking
> 
>  
> 
> I am putting this in another thread so it will be easier to ignore.
> 
>  
> 
> In another thread, glen's post included the sentence —/"At last week's 
> salon, we broached the (false) concept of multitasking in humans, 
> ..."/
> 
>  
> 
> This was a trigger. a big one, hence the hyberbolic rant that follows.
> 
>  
> 
> Humans not only can, but do, multitask all the time and any "research" that "proves" otherwise is BS.
> 
>  
> 
> If, *and only if*, you define cognition in such a limited way that you can apply the metaphor/model (e.g. context switching) of a serial computer is it possible to demonstrate an inability to multi-task.
> 
>  
> 
> The fact that you can think, write, talk, breathe, ride a bicycle, and admire a sunset simultaneously — and similar examples — must be defined away as somehow not multi-tasking.
> 
>  
> 
> One of the more fascinating altered-state experiences I have enjoyed many times is watching — quite literally a visualization albeit an internal one — a plethora of generative mental processes occuring concurrently, along with "sifting," "winnowing," and "sorting" processes. Using a technique akin to directed lucid dreaming, I posed a mental problem — explaining to another member of FRIAM a specific theory of complexity and aesthetics — before taking the stimulant.
> 
>  
> 
> The resulting experience was akin to watching fonts (pun intentional) 
> of words and phrases spew forth onto a "page" where they circled and 
> danced around each other seeking "connections" until coalescing into 
> cogent sentences which I could then type into the computer. Each 
> "font" was a generative process focusing on one aspect of a context of 
> relevant context and experience, without losing sight of the whole; 
> all of which were operating concurrently. A plethora of cognitive
> 
> multi-tasking.
> 
>  
> 
> Far more mundane, in a controlled psychological experiment in a lab ad Macalester, I was able to put a simple jigsaw puzzle together while maintaining an alpha wave generating "Zen mediation."
> 
>  
> 
> davew


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☤>$ uǝlƃ

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