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> his brain multitasks so much that it's causing a delay in the aural
> feedback loop.
Hey, /everybody's/ brain multitasks quite a lot.
Many people apparently believe that the brain's only purpose is
thinking. This is not actually true. The brain performs a vast array of
functions, including:
- Monitoring (cranial) blood pressure and adjusting heart rate and blood
vessel constriction accordingly.
- Monitoring (cranial) oxygen saturation and adjusting respiration rate
accordingly.
- Generating the nerve impulses that actually make you breathe.
- Monitoring internal operating temperature, and modulating sweat
output, hair erection, shivering and fat metabolism. (Some of these
effects take place without neural input as well. Some of these effects
are produced by hormones released under neural control.)
- Every single second, it receives input from millions of stretch
receptors, and from this it can compute the exact current configuration
of your skeleton. (They call it "proprioception".) This is how when you
reach around a wall to press a light switch, you know exactly where you
arm is, even if you can't actually see it.
- Every single second, it performs millions of computations and finely
adjusts the stimulation levels of the myriad of muscles that hold your
body upright and in balance. (If you've ever busted your back, you will
realise that it is /impossible/ to rest your back muscles. Every time
you move any part of your body, it uses your back muscles. As absurd as
that sounds...)
- Every single second, it receives vast quantities of sensory data from
almost every cubic inch of your body. This includes the nerves inside
your teeth (Yes, there are nerves in there.), inside your digestive
tract (I have personally eaten chilli so hot it made a physical
sensation in my stomach lining), pain receptors inside your other
internal organs (Ever had a heart attack? It hurts quite a lot, so
clearly /something/ inside there has nerve endings!), and more. It
analyses all of this data, compares it to what the readings were a
moment ago, and filters out... almost all of this data. Because most of
the time, most of it is of exactly no significance at all. And that is
why you usually have no idea that you even /have/ nerves in all these
places. But trust me, if something goes wrong, suddenly you will know
ALL ABOUT those nerve endings!
- Monitoring the contents of the stomach, and deciding how much acid to
synthesize, how quickly to release the contents into the intestine, how
much bile to release, etc.
I could go on. Suffice it to say, the brain is always running a
bazillion tasks, even when you're thinking of nothing at all. Indeed,
even when you're /asleep/. You might think you don't feel anything in
your sleep, but trust me, if I come over there and stab you in the arm
with a carving knife, you /will/ fell it. >:-)
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