Science and Inquiry discussion

... why I don't have to count my pills.

I take a lot of pills (between prescriptions, vitamins, and supplements), so I load them into one of those pill sorters with four buckets for each day of the week.

I have noticed that when I'm loading the sorter for the week, I often pour from the pill bottle into my hand exactly 7 pills. It doesn't happen every time -- maybe not even a majority of the time -- but it's often enough that it's noticeable. It happens with big pills and tiny pills and moderate sized pills, both tablets and capsules. Sometimes it seems to happen without me even looking at the pills.

So, I wonder, is my brain somehow actually counting and I'm not aware of it? Have a just done this for so many years that I can unconsciously recognize the sight or feel of the right number of various sizes of pills? Is there a little pill fairy that controls how many pills I pour into my hand?

Anybody have any ideas?

What do you wonder about?

I was just talking to my mom about this. Both of us have at least two daily pill sorters, and frequently pour out exactly 7 pills to refill the sorters.

I was noticing it in regard to playing Sudoku puzzles - there are times when I know that a certain digit is missing without actually looking at the other numbers in the square, because the shape of the number is missing. I play a Sudoku version that uses shapes instead of numbers, and there it's even more evident that the shape is missing - I often don't have to go through the list of shapes that are there to figure out what's missing.

So I've chalked it up to noticing patterns - I can eyeball 7 pills without counting because I recognize the pattern.

What do you think?

your brain sees more patterns than you realise. Derren Brown actually uses this phenomenon in some of his tricks.

In this episode of trick or treat, he uses a memory technique that relies on our brains noticing things we dont:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKQQAm...

I actually wondered if that had something to do with it. I've always been reasonably good at pattern recognition. But what about when I'm not even looking. Pattern touch recognition?

Betsy, I wonder if you are actually counting the pills subconsciously, without being aware of it?

Sometimes when I am driving a car, I suddenly "wake up" and wonder where I am, and how I got there. I wasn't falling asleep--but in a sense, allowing my subconscious to drive.

Maybe it's how you shake the bottle.

Wish I could watch that Derren Brown vid, but it's not available in U.S.

April, I don't shake the bottle. But I don't see how that could do it.

David, yes I've done that blackout while driving thing. And I wondered if this might be somehow subconscious, but I don't notice any blanks in my memory of the event.

Thanks everyone for the input. It's fun to speculate.

Betsy, see if you can find Derren Brown trick or treat on google. Of course I wouldn't encourage downloading from a torrent site, but you never know, you may find a copy online you can watch. There may be an american channel that has a copy kept online like Channel 4 does here

its series two, though I can't recall which episode.

Betsy:

It's just coincidence. It only SEEMS like there's a magic fairy pill counter. Also, practice makes perfect.

Later, John.

True, practice does make perfect. We eventually get used to pouring out the right amount. But how do we know immediately, without counting, that we have the right amount? How do we immediately recognize that we've got 7 rather than 6 or 8?

In an alternative universe, the particles that are you also ARE (is?) counting the pills, and by the magic (physics?) of entanglement - voila?!?

I like it! ;D

David:

When you forget the recent past while driving your car, I don't think your subconscious is the reason, maybe autonomic control is a better word for it. After you have become experienced at a task like driving, you have developed talents and techniques that have become habits, so you don't have to attend to them. You can have a conversation or do math problems in your head at the same time as driving. But as you near your destination (where you have never been before) you have to shut off the radio so you may pay attention to the new task of finding the correct address of the building. Pattern recognition of a familiar pattern has a lot to do with it.

Later, John.

P.S. Did you ever stop to wonder how you keep your heart beating when you are asleep?

John, no, its called the autonomous nervous system, the beating of the heart is not under concious control.

Betsy wrote: "I have noticed that when I'm loading the sorter for the week, I often pour from the pill bottle into my hand exactly 7 pills. It doesn't happen every time -- maybe not even a majority of the time -- but it's often enough that it's noticeable. It happens with big pills and tiny pills and moderate sized pills, both tablets and capsules. Sometimes it seems to happen without me even looking at the pills. "

Margie wrote: "So I've chalked it up to noticing patterns - I can eyeball 7 pills without counting because I recognize the pattern."

Very interesting comments by everyone on this topic. I have had a very rough week dealing with unpleasant business, but I have a little time this morning to make a couple of suggestions.

1) Pattern recognition may be a big part of this phenomenon. If it is, you won't be able to do it very well (or at all) with your eyes closed. That would be an easy experiment to do. Of course, you could set up randomized controls and all sorts of bells and whistles, but just try it a few times with eyes open, and with eyes closed, and see how you do.

2) You get a lot of very sensitive feedback from your fingers (conscious proprioception, lemniscal/dorsal column system), and I would guess that your fingers/hand get usable feedback as the pill(s) drop out of the bottle, and also as they hit your other hand. You can test this idea by wearing gloves as you pour the pills, which should prevent the proprioceptive response.

3) My guess is that both your eyes and feedback from your hand are involved - along with the practice effect, which is your brain building a working model of the useful information from eyes and/or hands. If you need both, then either of the above tests should degrade but not eliminate your '7-pill trick', and doing both tests at once should eliminate it completely.

David's question about driving without thinking is very interesting, but complicated. Most of what we regard as 'thinking' about things takes place in the frontal lobes, but we don't usually keep those focused on routine tasks, which can be handled by circuits in structures like the basal ganglia, cerebellum and brainstem. And I would use the word 'subconscious' to refer to those habitual activities. But it gets much more complicated when unexpected events occur, and other systems including limbic system and frontal lobes may kick in.

To John's point about heartbeat during sleep, the heart itself, and every cell in it, can beat on its own with no brain or autonomic control. This has to do with conductance 'channels' in the membranes of heart cells. The natural or 'resting' beat of the heart is set by the 'pacemaker' area, which keeps all the cells beating in a coordinated way. Heart rate is speeded up or slowed down by the autonomic nervous system - sympathetic speeds it up as part of the 'fight or flight' response, and parasympathetic slows it down as part of the 'rest and digest' response.

The autonomic system is in turn controlled by several areas in the brainstem, and the brainstem gets top-down control from many areas in the brain.

Thanks, Jim. Hope your unpleasant business has been resolved, or at least is over.

You are very welcome, Betsy! It is neither over nor resolved, but this too shall pass, and I will be fine.

Unfortunately, I won't have as much time for discussions here as I was hoping. But I really enjoy this group and its wonderful book selections, and I will be here when I can!

We'll miss you.

Thanks, Betsy!

Hazel and Jim:

I was trying to be humorous with the heartbeat while asleep comment.

Very interesting information about heart cells operating independently of brain or autonomic input. I've never heard that before.

Later, John.

I still like my entangled particle theory best.

Jim, you will still be on goodreads ?

Hi everyone, I'm not sure how I stumbled into this discussion but I enjoyed reading it! I'm new to Goodreads and to Groups and I have nothing to add to this thread but a friendly hello. NTMU, Drake

Welcome, Drake. We often have interesting discussions. Hope you'll join in when you can.

April the Cheshire Meow wrote: "I still like my entangled particle theory best.

Jim, you will still be on goodreads ?"

Thank you for asking, April! I will definitely still be on goodreads and will participate in this Group as much as possible. I am dealing with a lot of unpleasant life complications, but I love being here and that won't change!

I am working on one more comment to add to the March book discussion. It has to do with the mitochondrial theory of aging, and I will try to post it later this week.

I am also reading The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, and loving it!

I have an "autopilot" that I engage when I drive, but there are some limitations worth mentioning. First, I have to know where I'm going. I speak my destination out loud, then visualize what route I'm going to get there. I then can pay absolutely no attention to my route and I find myself there.

However, the visual part of my brain can only handle one form of stimulation at a time. I still have to pay attention to what is going on around me. This means if I am having a visual conversation--discussing what color to paint the bedroom, for instance--I am not seeing what is going on beyond my windshield. I have caught myself running a stoplight while listening to the radio (which is still legal in my state even if driving with a cell-phone is not). I've also had a few close calls to which I must credit my co-pilot for bringing me around in time to react to the road hazard.

It is my opinion that if you find yourself with "missing time" while driving, you should probably find out what is causing it and nip it in the bud. For me that means not listening to the radio.

On a completely different note, have any of you seen one of those "magic eye" coffee-table books that produce a 3D image if you stare at the pattern on the page long enough? I wonder if that is based on the same principle as the Sudoku puzzles.

Didn't know there's this thread.

I wonder about ah-hah! moments. For example, when I start writing, I feel dumb and clueless about things. It's after laying down a few things in writing, walking away from it for a while, going back, etc., when I get an ah-hah moment that pulls the whole piece together. It's usually one link that managed to pull everything into a cohesive whole. It's amazing how everything is uninspired shards until one key piece of information comes in.

This is why taking the time to try to review something you're reading, or taking the time to sort out your thoughts on any topic is so valuable. I often don't know what I am thinking, or why I feel confused about something until I sit down and start to write about it. Writing is the ultimate focusing devise.

so is that a convex or concave focusing device? :)

LOL.

Smarty pants!

I stumbled upon this interesting post here. It's really fun to read. About Betsy's 7-pill theory, I wonder if it has to do with the same amount of energy that she inverts her bottle, and the surface area of her palm in the other hand to receive the similar aliquot of pills per time. The diameter of the bottle opening may also have something to do with the number of pills that can be poured out at once.

Let say if she pours from an opening twice as large as our regular pill bottles, the usual batch number may be 10-12? What do you think?

The problem with that is that it happens with pills of many different sizes from bottles of varying sizes. And some pills of different sizes from the same sized pill bottles. But thanks for the thought.

I can second Betsy's experience with different sizes of bottles and pills.

I have downloaded goodreads iphone app and there you can download free ebook to read, does anybody know how to do same on desk computer, thanks

I presume you're running Goodreads in a normal browser. Search for the book you want and go to the book page. In the middle of the page there are a series of dark green buttons for linking to places you can buy the book. If the book is available to download from Goodreads, there will also be a button that says "Download ebook", or maybe something like "read ebook". Click that.

But not all books are available to download.

I find these two books worthy of Science and Inquiry members’ attention:
http://www.goodreads.com/series/87081...
Records of the Future - Classical Entropy, Memory, and the 'Arrow of Time'

I wonder under which discussion/thread I could put them as topics.

Edit:
I'd like to put them as topics under New Releases thread.
Regarding Records of the Future - Classical Entropy, Memory, and the 'Arrow of Time', I don't think the fact I wrote the Foreword from a Layperson for this book makes me its author. Nevertheless, I wonder whether it could be considered as a self-promotion if I started a discussion on this book under New Releases thread.
As for the e-series http://www.goodreads.com/series/87081..., it corresponds to the paperback edition published in November, 2010 (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...) and I am in a dilemma if I could consider that 'recently released'. However, I came across this book by dumb luck and found it worthy of physics fans’ attention.

Thanks for fixing the links!

Kenny wrote: "BetseaK your links are not working."

Thanks! I think I fixed it. They are working now.

BetseaK wrote: "I find these two books worthy of Science and Inquiry members’ attention:
...I wonder under which discussion/thread I could put them as topics.
..."

Recent Releases is certainly appropriate for the Records of the Future book. There is also a folder called General Book Discussions. You can always add a thread to that folder for any book you think worthy of discussion or start a general thread in that folder for miscellaneous book discussions.

Betsy wrote: "BetseaK wrote: "I find these two books worthy of Science and Inquiry members’ attention:
...I wonder under which discussion/thread I could put them as topics.
..."

Recent Releases is certainly app..."

Betsy wrote: "BetseaK wrote: "I find these two books worthy of Science and Inquiry members’ attention:
...I wonder under which discussion/thread I could put them as topics.
..."

Recent Releases is certainly app..."

Thanks!

I have a "slightly" similar scenario. Only that it's on books. Usually, when I read a book again, I open the book on the exact page where I left off, without using a bookmark whatsoever. Haha... I know it isn't weird... (or is it?) xD

I didn't notice coming to the same page, but I have noticed that if my eyes had to leave the page for a little while, when I looked back my eyes returned to the exact spot I left off. I never quite trusted it, so I'd scan back to see if I was missing something, but I can't remember ever being off. This was when I was reading books. I haven't really noticed the same effect with my kindle or tablet, but I haven't thought about it in a long time.

This past year there was an interesting spot on TV about this sort of thing and how the brain processes so much faster than we know. One illustration was a cartographer searching for important items on digital maps, usually a slow process. By dividing the territory into same-size sections and running them past that same person in fast sequence, his brain was able to note which frames contained the items he was searching for, quite accurately.

anyone ever wonder if internal conflict in making a decision is you in a parallel universe arguing with you in this universe.

just a thought :)

Ah Ha! That's why I'm waffling around about whether to do Nanowrimo and write that novel! :rofl:

Christoff wrote: "anyone ever wonder if internal conflict in making a decision is you in a parallel universe arguing with you in this universe.

just a thought :)"

Interesting idea. Of course, if the Many Worlds Theory is correct, whatever decision(s) you make will create more parallel universes/alternate realities/timelines!

I'm not sure where to post this, but thought it might be of interest.

2014's Not Top Ten: The Biggest Junk Science

http://www.realclearscience.com/lists...

Sweet Jesus.

Pretty bad, wasn't it? I thought it might fit 'I wonder...' just how stupid people can be. It's a shame that we can rise to such heights.

Christoff wrote: "anyone ever wonder if internal conflict in making a decision is you in a parallel universe arguing with you in this universe.

just a thought :)"

Every one of us exists within two universes—realities, really. We all share Common Reality, through which we are interacting with each other right now. But each of us is also trapped inside a Personal Reality—one that we can never travel beyond and that nobody else can ever share with us. From common reality, experiences are changed into perceptions inside our personal reality that are probably not 100% accurate. From personal reality, our intentions become behaviors that rarely manifest exactly how we meant for them to. If any of you have watched a drunk “intending” to walk a straight line, that’s a good illustration of how far off our personal intentions can go. Those of us who suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells know what it’s like to know that our perceptions are not an accurate representation of the common reality we are experiencing. Common reality is perfect—nothing is forgotten, nothing is false...but we just can't perceive it in its purity. Personal reality is full of missing memories and flawed perceptions. But we don’t have any choice. We all have to experience the world from inside our personal realities.