Do you know what is mind? Of course, you do. Although, you might not be able to define it, however. But that’s not a major problem, is it? Because even if you do not know about stuff, you can always check them out over the internet. So, when you do a little research over the internet, rather say Wikipedia; these are the exact set of words that you may find. A mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgment, and memory. Nevertheless, we are not here to grasp some well-sounding definition of the mind. Instead, we are here to gain a bit more understanding about the true nature of the human mind and some of its attributes. Therefore, you must believe me when I say that the human mind is a far more complex object than the mere words in the definition could ever state. In fact, there are no set of words yet made that can properly and accurately define what mind actually is. So, rather than trying to define the mind, we will try to dissect into its basic functionality.
But-but-but, before I proceed any further, there are a few things that are needed to be clarified. Firstly, I am not an expert on the human mind and neither do I claim to be. All I am is a man with a bit of that curiosity-tickle-thing which compels me (well, not literally) to dissect into my regular life experiences and come up with the best possible conclusion. And secondly, under any circumstance that you do not like this article, you must understand that it was solely your decision to read it (and not some of my hocus pocus hypnosis things). So, go ahead and see for yourself if I have decoded the mind puzzle correctly.
Now, in spite of the fact that a mind is often confused with a brain, both the terms relate to entirely different objects and conceptions. A brain is the master control unit of any living creature that controls all the movements & intelligence (voluntary/non-voluntary) of the relevant creature and definitely has a physical presence as well. Whereas a mind is something that stores all the memories, reasons with all situations and reveals the right emotion at the right time for the relevant creature. Moreover, a mind does not have any physical presence. It is as imaginary but important as the earth’s equator. And though both seem to vary a lot from one another, none can exist independently. Hence to keep things simpler (only for this article) you may assume the brain and the mind to be same things.
In this particular piece of writing, you are about to unfold some of the most spell bounding facts and theories about the human mind that will lead your intellect to push its limits. Stay focused as the article reveals to you the 5 most amazing things about the human mind.
- Unfathomable Storage Capacity
One of the most amazing things about the human mind is its capacity to store. According to one of the studies, it was found that that 1 cubic millimeter of a brain can store up to 1 Petabytes (approximately 1000 Terabytes) of data. This means that an average human brain can store up to 1,195,000 Petabytes of data.
Now the total amount of accessible data present on the internet is around 672 Exabytes which is equal to 672,000 Petabytes. This means an average human mind can store 523,000 Petabytes of more data than the entire Internet. Now that is huge.
- Exceptional Processing Speed
Amongst the other amazing things that a human mind can do, is its ability to process enormous data at the incredibly high speed and with extreme precision.
It is estimated that around 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts occur to an average human mind in one day. This means somewhere around 35 – 48 thoughts occur to the average human mind every minute. Now, assuming the depth of each thought (for us every thought is in high definition); the average human mind must go through extreme stress while processing this much of data within such a short time. But on the contrary, it does everything with utter smoothness and ease.
- Deceptive In Nature
Another of the amazing qualities of the human mind is sheer deception. Putting this simply would be for you to remember an incident when you woke up from your deep sleep all of a sudden, completely afraid and almost on the verge of screaming (or screaming at the top of your voice sometimes); only to find out that you were dreaming all along. And believe me when I say how awkward all that feels.
But, did you ever wonder why all your dreams seem so real? The answer is really very simple. As we humans need words, signs, gestures and expressions to communicate, our minds need visuals (and sometimes audios) to communicate. Therefore, images (and sounds) can be considered as the native language of a human mind.
A study that involved professional athletes has carried out a few years ago. The athletes ran through various tracks throughout the world with various tools and equipment attached to their bodies that intended to calculate all their stimuli. After the physical tests were done, each of the same athletes was instructed to run as they did earlier in their real lives, only this time the track had to be imaginary and so was the run. To everybody’s amazement, the test results of the imaginary run were similar to those of the physical ones. This proved that the human mind can be deceiving in nature.
And all this deception occurs as a byproduct of an average human’s trait of assumptions. I mean, how many times can you recall being scared by the slightest and sudden touch of a known person in a darkened room. Or how about those times when you pulled a prank at one of your friends and that friend almost seemed to have pissed out of fear. Wait, don’t even bother to count. After all, you know what I am saying, don’t you?
- Multitasking
Have you attested your computer doing many things at one time? It can download a movie, play a song and run an antivirus program while you may be working on some presentation of yours. All of this and much more, all at exactly one time. What if I tell you that your mind can do a lot more of such stuff and that too without tiring? Fascinating but true. Yes! Your mind can do such stuff. Actually, it does stuff like that all the time. Recall a time when you were sitting in your classroom observing the teacher teaching a lesson and all of a sudden you seem to be at some other place. And just before you can properly understand what happened, you came back to the classroom. Recall a time when you were listening to a song and you got so lost that you did not even remember what the lyrics were. This happens all the time.
Sigmund Freud emphasized on the theory of two states of mind present within one. The first being the conscious mind that is responsible for all the voluntary actions and thinking and judgment in your body and the second being the subconscious mind that is responsible for storing all your memories and giving out reasons set out of experiences and processing thoughts. He insisted that the later state of the mind holds much more significance and is a lot more amazing than the former.
This means that while you are busy solving a certain problem (with the help of your conscious mind), your subconscious mind is already busy processing thoughts that occur to you at the anonymously.
- Never Ceases To Learn
A research in the field of Neuroscience has recently stated unlike the usual myth, a human mind does not cease to grow at any age whatsoever. In fact, it grows till the time of its permanent death. This particular phenomenon is popularly known as Neuroplasticity. Now, that is something I really like about the human mind. I mean, just think of the possibilities in which you can train your mind and it’ll remember everything. Well, it certainly should remember everything (that is if you don’t suffer from dementia). However, the same research also indicated that the rate at which the mind grows may decrease with the increased amount of stagnation or inactivity in the day to day life events.
That’s fair enough I suppose. Even the best dogs in a canine unit need to train regularly. What? Don’t you see any resemblance between a good dog and your mind? Yeah, me neither. Never mind!
Now that you know about the 5 best traits of the human mind, go and test them for yourselves. And don’t forget to pay us a visit next time as we’ll be up with something even more intriguing about your health and wellness.
