I trained as an electrical engineer (long long ago in a galaxy far far away). Some of my favorite courses were in signal processing. So I find it natural to think in engineering terms like bandwidth and sampling rate, and to apply these to meditative practice and the study of mind.
The concept of bandwidth is relevant to the mind's tendency to objectify. Let me explain what I mean. The bandwidth of a signal is the width of the range of frequencies present in the signal. If your voice has pitches that go down to 200 Hz and up to 800 Hz, that's a bandwidth of 600 Hz. Another definition of bandwidth, applicable for computer applications, is the number of ones and zeroes per second being sent over a wire or a light beam or a radio signal. Either way, we're talking about how much information we can cram in per second.
When you tell a story about some experience you had, an interesting thing happens with bandwidths. First there is the reality that you were in at that time, with astronomical numbers of protons, electrons, photons, sound waves, light waves, smells, sights, sounds, tastes, and other stuff. Your eyes, ears, and other senses registered some very small fraction of all that as raw sense data. Immediately, a huge reduction in bandwidth in the simple act of perceiving the reality around you.
You didn't consciously experience everything your senses received. The brain can't handle that volume of information. The data had already been sorted and prioritized and mostly discarded before you became aware of it. Your conscious experience was another big reduction in bandwidth from the raw sense data.
Next you stored the experience in your short-term memory and later long-term memory. Again your brain sorted and prioritized. Which aspects are most important? Which would make a good story? Which are worth learning from? As the experience is committed to memory, another reduction in bandwidth.
Finally it's two weeks later, and time to tell your friends about your experience. Now you take this thing from long-term memory, a teeny teeny fraction of that original reality, and you need to express it in words. You might recall the striking redness of an apple, or the peculiar smell of some car's exhaust, but even if you mention those details, they can't really be rendered into language. Another reduction in bandwidth, and more information lost.
Finally, the point of all this. Your mind thinks all that lost information didn't really matter. After all, you are obviously an educated competent adult functioning in a complex fast-paced world full of technology and commerce and art and social relationships. Whatever gets dropped along the way is acceptable collateral damage. One can't stop the whole world to weep for a few forgotten insignificant details.
Kurt Vonnegut once said:
The concept of bandwidth is relevant to the mind's tendency to objectify. Let me explain what I mean. The bandwidth of a signal is the width of the range of frequencies present in the signal. If your voice has pitches that go down to 200 Hz and up to 800 Hz, that's a bandwidth of 600 Hz. Another definition of bandwidth, applicable for computer applications, is the number of ones and zeroes per second being sent over a wire or a light beam or a radio signal. Either way, we're talking about how much information we can cram in per second.
When you tell a story about some experience you had, an interesting thing happens with bandwidths. First there is the reality that you were in at that time, with astronomical numbers of protons, electrons, photons, sound waves, light waves, smells, sights, sounds, tastes, and other stuff. Your eyes, ears, and other senses registered some very small fraction of all that as raw sense data. Immediately, a huge reduction in bandwidth in the simple act of perceiving the reality around you.
You didn't consciously experience everything your senses received. The brain can't handle that volume of information. The data had already been sorted and prioritized and mostly discarded before you became aware of it. Your conscious experience was another big reduction in bandwidth from the raw sense data.
Next you stored the experience in your short-term memory and later long-term memory. Again your brain sorted and prioritized. Which aspects are most important? Which would make a good story? Which are worth learning from? As the experience is committed to memory, another reduction in bandwidth.
Finally it's two weeks later, and time to tell your friends about your experience. Now you take this thing from long-term memory, a teeny teeny fraction of that original reality, and you need to express it in words. You might recall the striking redness of an apple, or the peculiar smell of some car's exhaust, but even if you mention those details, they can't really be rendered into language. Another reduction in bandwidth, and more information lost.
Finally, the point of all this. Your mind thinks all that lost information didn't really matter. After all, you are obviously an educated competent adult functioning in a complex fast-paced world full of technology and commerce and art and social relationships. Whatever gets dropped along the way is acceptable collateral damage. One can't stop the whole world to weep for a few forgotten insignificant details.
Kurt Vonnegut once said:
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.More precisely, minds that work exactly like yours are running the country.
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