However, what I do remember was his view of the role and function of the human brain. He defined it as a modeling tool (he also talked about how computers act as augmented extensions). This description rang so true to me. I had a similar idea but it wasn’t clear and defined at all. And he made it so clear.

We each have an idea (or a model) of what ourselves and our surroundings (the world) are like. We have formed (and continues to modify) as we grew up, accumulating, processing, and evaluating our interaction (or experiences) with the outside (of the brain) through our sensory systems. Humans have similar shape, dimension, and sensory systems and live on the same planet, so our models (or views) of the world are pretty similar (I think “similar” is the key word, here).

If there were a sentient being somewhere in other galaxy with different dimension, shape and sensory systems (which is very likely), their model of the world would be completely different from ours? How would they act? Can we understand each other?

All these are very fascinating thoughts. I am grateful to Mr. Adams for making things so much clear.

So, what’s the consequences of this short-coming? Well, we will have to go through the same mistakes over and over again, inevitably. Fortunately, we have methods to transfer some of our collected knowledge across time (any kind of recording and communicational means). This allows us, as a society, to go through the same mistakes a lot fewer and the periods of these cycles longer. However, just transferring the end result without the background experiences leading to it has its limited usefulness as a perfect information transfer method if you think about it. Without all the relevant background information, the result is often mis-interpreted and we have to go through some of the past experience over again. Most parents like to tell their children that they’ve lived longer and knew better so it’s better that they listen to them. Partially true. However, I think that deprives of an individual a most exciting part about life: having one’s own experience and building one’s own knowledge as a result. That is, becoming an “individual.” It seems people would very much like to ignore the fact that pain and suffering (which are “value-added” terms, by the way) are also a part of what I would like to call a life.