Mind of my Stroked Brain

 There are 3 theories I am aware of with regard to how we evolved as species: 1. That it was a barren planet and one day couple of millions of years ago (or billions), by accident , a single cell figured out how to convert sunlight into its own energy and also by accident figured out how to divide itself and multiply. Many millions (or billions) of years of mistakes and many species evolved. We are one of them . 2. We were a barren planet and one day a meteorite crashed (it was very common millions of years ago with no atmosphere to burn it up). It carried with it cells with some degree of evolution on intelligence (DNA) and how to multiply and many species evovled from this seeding. It still took millions of years, but it had a leg-up in the process. 3. There are many (or one) superpower somewhere who designed the evolution and species and created all species according to that plan/ design. All 3 are very plausible theories and what we make our own is true for us. The thing I have...

Nerd warning... and lengthy warning... I don't know if I am thinking right. It's still a thought though... When computers were stand alone, it had power, but we could do very limited things with them. When computers got networked, we used to have power and the ability to share. content - static content/ information, but we suddenly could share this. Then we figured out how to save and retrieve data. So we were having a lot of data about stuff we did - transactions of any sort. When we had a lot of data, we saw patterns. It was very useful to be able to connect the dots and make sense of the patterns. When we saw these patterns, there were opportunities to act on such intelligence. So we made rules to automatically take actions based on these rules. The rules had to still be defined by us, but the actions could be done automatically - the intelligence was still us. Human Intelligence. Now we have rudimentary artificial intelligence. Some things do not need human intelligence - ...

This will certainty feel like a mad man's theories. Well, since I am not far from that description, here goes ... I have seen/ observed this from a long time (atleast the last 2 years). Most of them I have noticed but have not managed to connect the dots until now. I think I have shared earlier, that my faculties/ abilities go back and forth and it is quite unpredictable at a given time. In the early days after my stroke, when I was still in the hospital, I would get very upset when my left hand/ fingers used to suddenly feel very weak or stop altogether. It used to be exasperated by my inability to express/ communicate what I was feeling. It used to be very unnerving as well because everyone (including the doctors) kept telling me that it was not possible to lose an ability once it started working. When what I was experiencing was clearly different. I understand loosing an ability due to muscle wasting/ atrophy. But that takes place gradually, not overnight like I was experienci...

This thought was triggered by a conversation I had with my wife. To be accurate, a conversation my wife had with me. I had made a video - a sort of collage of photos for my daughter's birthday. It was a fun video. However, making it took a while. Except for the last 3 years, I have a very very huge archive of photos. So I looked through every one of them over many many days, selecting and shortlisting them. During all those days, It brought back memories of all those times all those years. The memories evoked all kinds of emotions - Joy, happiness, sadness, deep sense of loss, etc. Dealing with those emotions and feelings took more time than seeing and shortlisting the photos. We humans have evolved over millions of years. How and why are debatable, but the debate of millions of years has been put to rest. It has been about 200 years since photography was invented and a little over a hundred years for the video. A couple of thousand years of getting portraits painted before that (a...

I was watching something yesterday about the growing number of suicides the world over. The pandemic, lockdowns, uncertainty, lack of social support etc is accelerating the trend. It got me thinking, why do we even think of committing suicide? Don't read me wrong. Depression is real. Suicidal tendencies are real. I have spent a large part of the last 3 years constantly contemplating about it. But why do we do it? We humans are the only species to think it and do it. No animal jumps off a cliff without knowing how to fly. No animal wades into the ocean if it doesn't know how to swim... Some insects - like soldier ants, bees, etc. are known to give up their life to defend their colony. But that is just instinctive sacrifice as part of living... I get the science - only we have a deep sense of self, a deep understanding of cause and effect, etc. But I would assume survival instinct would prevent such thoughts. I get murder - it is very little in humans because of conscience. I get...

I am unable to swallow anything. Apart from swallowing itself being a problem (anything being pushed down the oesophagus), the bigger problem is aspiration. Even a spoon of water, some of it goes into the windpipe (trachea) causing violent coughing. It's not just me, many stroke survivors have some form of disphagia (trouble swallowing). This is because we (well, most mammals I know), have the food pipe and the windpipe opening up at the pharynx (back of throat). Alternatively, if they didn't merge, it would be simpler no? I wonder, Why did this happen? Even a simple thing like getting hiccups? Why does it happen? I mean, i know how and why it physiologically happens. But what advantage does it give in evolutionary terms? It doesn't help in "fight" or "flight". It doesn't even help if you want to hide!  So, why was it needed this way?  I imagine it would by a struggle when evolving. So, Why did the characteristics survive the lens of natural or arti...